No more effort or energy is required in order to aim high in life, to demand abundance and prosperity, than is required to accept misery and poverty. The difference between the two lies in your level of awareness.

The information I’m about to share with you is extremely powerful and, in many cases, could set you free from the constraints that keep you from realising your full potential, and freedom to all of the good you desire.

Yet you cannot be free until you know exactly what it is that governs, shapes, and directs your behaviour and ultimately, your results. If you’re not careful, your thinking and results can be controlled by your paradigms.

Paradigms are your mindsets. They are your ideas; the little habits that your brain has developed over the years. The ‘operating system’ on which your mental processes run.

Your paradigms create the prism through which most people view and make sense of the world around them. Information is presented to your mind in one-way or another. Your mind runs through all of the things it already knows about that piece of information and figures out where it fits in with the bigger picture. Your mind then makes a determination whether the information is good or bad, desirable or undesirable, possible or not — all of which can be influenced by your existing paradigms.
Like most things, paradigms in and of themselves are neutral. If your paradigms are positive, you will have a happy, growth-oriented life, a healthy self-image, and the ability to adapt successfully to changes, upsets and unforeseen events.

Conversely, negative, limiting paradigms can keep you stuck in old ways of thinking that can be very limiting. Negative paradigms keep you as imprisoned as do a cell and a set of iron bars. Maybe even more so, since it imprisons you in the place where all true freedom resides: the mind. It follows, then, that if you want to create change in your life and start getting new and different results—you have to change your paradigms.

How do you go about that?
Step One: Write down one thing ­­– that goal, dream, challenge that you have not yet resolved in your life. The subconscious mind thrives on detail, so describe it to yourself as vividly as you can.

Step Two: Write down every association that you connect to this thing: everything you think about it, good and bad, everything that the thought of it brings to your mind. One approach I have found extremely effective is to ‘map’ it in much the same way writers come up with plot concepts.

Draw a circle around the words or sentence you came up with in Step One. Then, in the space around that circle, write down your associations as they come to you, encircling each one and connecting it with a line to the original encircled goal. When you feel like you’ve come up with a substantial number of associations, take a good look at what your mind has shown you.

Step Three: It’s time to address your paradigms and ask ‘why?’ I suggest that you zero in on a few of the most powerful paradigms, the ones that have the biggest negative impact.

Ask yourself, “Why do I think this? Where does it come from? Where did I get such an idea?” Keep on digging until you’ve exhausted every possible scenario. And finally, now that you know what your paradigm is on any given topic, create an affirmation that will assist you in re-programming your mind, something that is the opposite of your paradigm.

For example, if your paradigm is you’ll never earn a lot of money, your affirmation might be: I am so happy and grateful now that money comes to me on a continual basis through multiple sources of income. I am a magnet to money; I now have all that I want.

Write your affirmation on a 3×5 card and repeat it daily, as many times as possible. In time, you’ll begin to notice yourself thinking and acting in a different way. And, just when you think you’ve got it, it will be time to work on another paradigm!

(Stickman created by Dr Thurman Fleet)