This month I want to dis­cuss more par­a­digms. In case you did­n’t catch my ear­lier ar­ti­cle, par­a­digms are ha­bit­ual ways of think­ing and act­ing. In other words, sub­con­scious pro­gram­ming.

We are pro­grammed from the day we are born. We learn to cry when we’re hun­gry or un­com­fort­able. As we get older we learn how to play with other kids and share (was­n’t one of my strong suites. LOL). Then we go to school we go through more con­di­tion­ing. On and on it goes, through col­lege into our ca­reers and the fam­i­lies and the re­la­tion­ships. And so of­ten peo­ple live for year’s ro­bot-like, with their con­di­tions lead­ing them through life.

How­ever, break­ing those par­a­digms is not the goal. As a coach, I’ve heard of a lot of what oth­ers have to say on this sub­ject and I’m a lit­tle bit per­turbed here. When­ever I hear of an au­thor­ity fig­ure make a state­ment life, “you should only work on two par­a­digms at a time” I want to scream NOOOOOO!

It’s not about the par­a­digms!

Our life is not about shift­ing par­a­digms. When we put the fo­cus on liv­ing through the par­a­digms, even try­ing to break them, we are still fo­cus­ing on the par­a­digm. We’re fo­cus­ing on the lim­it­ing area of our life. The part that’s hold­ing us hostage from all that we can be, do, have, give, cre­ate, and ex­pe­ri­ence in our life.

When I work with a client, I fo­cus on the re­sults. I fo­cus on what they want to ex­pe­ri­ence in their life­time. As we move into that, we nat­u­rally bump up against those pat­terns and those par­a­digms and that con­di­tion­ing that are not serv­ing them and make the as­so­ci­ated shifts. We have to in or­der to move for­ward be­cause it’s that con­di­tion­ing that’s hold­ing them trapped to what they won’t let go of.

As we grow and ex­pand in life, what­ev­er’s hold­ing us up is go­ing to be as­so­ci­ated with a par­a­digm. And the par­a­digm will be in the sub­con­scious mind. That’s where we’re fol­low­ing those pat­terns, those be­liefs, that con­di­tion­ing that we’ve grown up learn­ing and re­peated over and over again.

I’ve shared a story in my life that I grew up in a blue-col­lar fam­ily out­side De­troit, Michi­gan, and my par­ents strug­gled fi­nan­cially dur­ing my en­tire youth. And even though at nine-years-old I thought, “Some­thing’s not right here,” I car­ried those same strug­gles into my adult­hood and they im­pris­oned me for years. Re­gard­less of my in­come, I strug­gled fi­nan­cially.

What hap­pened? I did­n’t put a fo­cus on, “Oh, here’s the par­a­digm. Let me shift that.” When change started hap­pen­ing in my life, the pow­er­ful re­sults that I stand be­hind in my clien­t’s lives is be­cause we fo­cus on what you want to ex­pe­ri­ence, what they want to get out of life. And as we move into that, we bump up against those pat­terns and those par­a­digms and that con­di­tion­ing in our life.

And I al­ways cel­e­brate some­one bump­ing up against their par­a­digm. I’ll talk to a client and they’ll get re­ally both­ered, “Oh my God. I’m hit­ting this thing, this wall in my life.” And I al­ways go, “Good.” Be­cause I know they can­not shift a par­a­digm and have a dif­fer­ent out­come in life un­less you’re aware of what’s go­ing on.

So as par­a­digms start com­ing up, un­der­stand­ing its old pat­tern­ing that is no longer serv­ing you, it means that it’s com­ing up to be re-pat­terned and re­leased so that you can launch be­yond con­di­tion­ing in your life.

So go­ing, I would­n’t sug­gest you go through your life look­ing at what your par­a­digms are or try­ing to fig­ure out what par­a­digms you have. Does­n’t that seem like a re­ally hard way to live? When in­stead you can look for what you want to be, do, have, give, cre­ate, and ex­pe­ri­ence in your life, and move in that di­rec­tion. Sure as shit you’re go­ing to bump up against your par­a­digms. And when you do, you can shift around that lim­ited think­ing and open it up to be more ex­pan­sive so that you can move into liv­ing the life the way you want to live it in all ar­eas of your life.

I hope this was help­ful for you. If it is, please leave a com­ment. Share this with other peo­ple, and let’s spread bless­ings to as many peo­ple as we can.

 Article written for Coaches Cor­ner, The Magic Happens Magazine, September 2020 Edition