Steven Covey had introduced and elaborated on the concept of paradigms and “paradigm shifts” in his best-selling book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. A paradigm is the lens with which you see something. For instance, you may have your ideas about how a child should be raised. This is your paradigm about child raising. You may also have your paradigm about how people should behave in public. This could be your social paradigm.
Different people have different paradigms about issues that are important to them in life. This paradigm is a reinforcement of years of programming. A certain individual may see a woman in a short skirt and would admire the beauty of her endless legs. Another person may see the same woman and think that the woman is exposing too much of flesh. They are seeing the same woman. It looks as though they have a completely different lenses with which they are seeing the woman.
With that in mind, would it be possible if the man who sees too much flesh in a woman could admire the same woman for her endless beautiful legs? This could happen if the man changes the lens with which he sees the woman. This is what is called a paradigm shift.
Similarly, people also see weight loss through their own distinct lenses. People have a paradigm about weight loss. They have their worldview as to how weight should be loss or how fitness could be attained.
Mary believes that she would have achieved weight loss Nirvana, if she went down from 65 kgs to 58kgs. Her worldview of the ideal body is defined by 58kgs. This is the reason why Mary would go to the ends of world to diet and starve her self.
Mary is governed by the lenses which she wears when looking at weight loss. That is Mary’s paradigm about weight loss. Mary is intelligent and fully comprehends that starvation activates the body’s starvation response. Her starvation results in her body losing muscles and water with limited amounts of fat. You could try your best to explain to Mary about the ill effects of starving her self down to her target weight. But it will not be that easy for Mary to change her view of weight loss.
What Mary needs to realize is that fat loss is absolutely necessary to achieve a well-defined body. A well-defined body is not determined by its weight but by the percentage of body fat that one carries. Try telling that to Mary whose worldview of weight loss is centered around the weight scales and you will realize how frustrating it could be.
Can one’s paradigm be changed. Can one change the lenses with which one sees an issue. It’s possible but it requires one to unlearn and relearn. There is a saying that we are the same people in 5 years except for the people we mix with and the books we read. You could change our paradigm about any issue by being in the company of a group of people whose majority have the paradigm that you want to achieve. You could also change your paradigm by reading books that will mould your thinking in the direction of the paradigm that you want to achieve.
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