How to change your paradigm

In this post, we explore the concept of changing paradigms, focusing on how accumulated rules and beliefs can hinder personal growth and happiness.

Drawing on insights from Peter F. Drucker, Donald Rumsfeld, Warren Buffett, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sherlock Holmes, we discuss the importance of questioning and challenging our convictions.

We also provide practical suggestions for changing paradigms and embracing new perspectives.

Step 30 - Peter Drucker, The Cluttered Attic And The Invention Of Rules

We humans have the tendency to accumulate sets of rules and paradigms that often don't even align with our own goals and dreams.

Those meaningless rules are also called disabling ignorance; a concept that Peter F. Drucker came up with and detailed it in his book Managing Oneself.

Disabling ignorance can hurt in many ways, and the worst part is that the carrier may be completely oblivious to its presence.

Donald Rumsfeld said the following:

"There are known knowns, there are things that we know that we know and there are also known unknowns, that is to say, there are somethings we know that we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know."

To further the thought, there are also things that we think we know but in reality we don't know.

We hold convictions about certain subjects because we feel we have learned enough information to decide whether it is good or bad, right or wrong. Truth is, that same conviction is what holds us back from truly learning and having a much happier experience as humans.

Warren Buffett advises to get rid of at least one good idea per year; that is, something that YOU believe is good or right. Analyze the idea also known as conviction and ask yourself three times why you believe that to be the truth.

Now, if the answers don't fully satisfy you, you have the option to research and become more acquainted with the subject or completely get rid of it.

Not holding anything as the absolute truth until you have enough supportive arguments actually gives you the chance to explore, discover and learn as it entices you to find the truth.

However, convictions aren't the truth. They are simply a belief, a personal belief at that!

How to change your paradigm

There is a saying by Nietzsche that says that "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of the truth than lies" . That is because people will come up with made up opinions only to support their own beliefs.

In this step 30 of the 67 steps, Tai Lopez mentions that "Ignorance is a condition of the human experience that is only removed by careful operation".

This careful operation involves challenging the idea, honestly arguing both sides, and being mentally prepared to change your mind and views.

Now, when the fear of change creeps in your mind and the voices of what people might say about you can be heard in your inner ears, you must also manage to understand that most people's minds are way too cluttered with their own set of nonsense rules.

Hence, they do not have much room to understand how you can quickly move on from old convictions.

As Sherlock Holmes said in A Study in Scarlet by Sir Conan Doyle

“I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

So go ahead and give yourself permission to get rid of all the junk you don't need up in the attic and if you need an idea on how to do it and how to change your paradigms, here are a few suggestions:

• Read more and Expand your mind

• Travel & Explore different cultures

• Meet new people

• Establish a mindset that is not set on nonsense rules ( ex: I only buy coffee from one coffee shop)

• Once a year get rid of a "good/right" idea and or belief by asking why three times

• Don't hold anything as the absolute truth unless you have substantial information and evidence to back it up

• Be ready to change your mind and views if it doesn't align with your goals, morals and values.

To finalize, paradigms can also be transferred from generations to generations. Often times people find themselves with strong beliefs simply because that is what their parents or great grandparents believed.

However, that is not to say that the elderly were not correct but the ideas should be challenged and only accepted as absolute truth when supported with information and evidence.

Books Mentioned in this step

Managing Oneself by Peter F. Drucker

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Conan Doyle

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

Diet Cults by Matt Fitzgerald

Read the previous here

Read the next step here

Find all 67 steps here

All books mentioned in the 67 steps