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In your life to date, were you always held back by old or traditional ways of thinking in the work the things/work that you do ? Do you seek to make changes to your lifestyle, working style with breakthroughs, by having a paradigm shift from your past, breaking away from it ?

By making small improvements via developing new skills, advances in technology and new ways of thinking, would you be able to see a breakthrough in your growth and personal development.  Great people like Columbus and Copernicus made the breakthrough, breaking with the past and discovered another paradigm that changed the world till today.

Using a new compass “Principled-Centred Leadership”, leaders can transform their organisation and people with their vision, clear purposes and aligning procedures with principles, roles and goals. However, until we break away from the past, we would not be able to receive a new paradigm. In this world that we lived in, changing ever so rapidly, we can get confused with efficiency with effectiveness or imitation with innovation. 

The highest level of human motivation is a sense of personal contribution and the human resource is the most valuable organisational asset, the key to discover, develop and manage all other assets. Each person is recognised as a capable individual for immense achievement and not limited by conditions or conditioning. A paradigm process is process oriented, not product oriented. 

This development process should be an integral part of any ongoing program

(1) Capture the content of the material, the essence – Seek first to understand the basic principles

(2) Expand on what you have learned, adding your own ideas and thoughts

(3) Teach what you had learned, share with others

(4) Apply the principles learned and taught, put them to the test

(5) Monitor the results

With the above method, we would be able to help people via this process to break away from their past and changed for the future directions and growth.

In the pursuit of breaking old habits and making new ones, we could be easily swayed away from the new paradigm direction that we were heading and we need to learn how to handle the restraining forces and harness the driving force. To achieve that,

- We need a clear identity and strong purpose – knowing who you are and what you want to achieve.

- Carry your agenda with you, the mark of a highly effective person whereby the schedule is their servant and not their master, exercising discipline and concentration.

- Write down commitments and keep them in front of us. Keeping the promise and honouring your commitments, leading to stronger self-esteem and personal integrity, the foundation of all true success.

To change, can be the most difficult thing for a human, thus a person faced many obstacles to achieve the breakthrough needed to take a paradigm shift from the old to new. The three great forces that would keep people to their bad habits are

(1) Appetites and Passions

(2) Pride and Pretension

(3) Aspiration and Ambition

If we want to do more and perform better, we need to exercise the discipline of doing important and difficult work first when we are fresh. In life, we have our own internal private battles, by learning to handle them first, when the public battles come, we will have the internal strength to deal with them with the correct set of principles. 

To overcome old and bad habits, we need to build up our conditioning, similar to exercising using aerobics to build up your stamina and power of your body. To make new habits via conditioning -

(1) Gain perspective

(2) Make decisions and commitments in light of that perspective

Besides, we need to follow the 5 Suggestions below -

(1) Never make a promise we will not keep

(2) Make meaningful promises, resolutions and commitments to do better and to be better

(3) Use self-knowledge and be very selective about the promises we make

(4) Consider promises as a measure of our integrity and faith in ourselves

(5) Our personal integrity or self-mastery is the basis for our success with others

A key factor that is very important is CONTROL, before doing anything and changing to start your new habit or desired behaviour. Consolidate and rally all your resources, set your heart and mind, prepare and choose your mood, ask your proactively, “How can I best respond to this situation?”…… Thereafter, it is “ALL SYSTEMS GO !!!”

By having a paradigm shift, overcoming our past, bad habits, we can unleash ourselves to a new paradigm, a new form of freedom, power and capacity to breakthrough even further and higher.

(Adapted from Chapter 5 – A Break With The Past, from “Principle-Centred Leadership” by Stephen R. Covey)