Relating to Stephen Covey

I KNOW I've read Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" before but it did not speak to me before like it speaks to me now.  I guess when the student is ready the teacher will emerge LOL!  I read the book in college and it sounded like "Blah blah blah-de-blah blah blah".

Last night I was reading his book and he mentioned the following:

"Inside-Out:  Many people experience a fundamental shift in thinking when they face a life-threatening crisis and suddently see their priorities in a different light, or when they suddently step into a new role, such as that of a husband or wife, parent or grandparent, manager or leader. 

We could spend weeks, months, or even years laboring with the Personality Ethic trying to change our attitudes and behaviors and not even begin to approach the phenomenon of change that occurs spontaneously when we see things differently.

It becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors.  But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic Paradigms.

In the words of Thoreau, 'For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root.'  We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms fro which our attitudes and behaviors flow.

Of course, not all paradigm shifts are instantaneous.  Some are a slow, difficult, and deliberate process. 

In order to see things differently, we had to BE differently.  Our new paradigm can be created as we invest in the growth and development of our character.

Paradigms are inseparable from character.

BEING is SEEING in the human dimension.  And what we SEE is highly interrelated to what we ARE.  We can't go very far to change our seeing without simultaneously changing our BEING, and vice-versa.

Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world.  The power of a paradigm shift is the essential power of quantum change, whether that shift is an instantaneous, or a slow and deliberate process."

WOW.  I mean, WOW.

I can truly say that my paradigm has shifted on how I see myself and how I see my health, and health in general.

Gone are the days that I am just psyching myself up for another day.  If you read back in my blogs over the last 7-8 years you will see that the change came slowly, in a deliberate process of sometimes painful change.  I changed my paradigm to that of orienting myself towards HEALTH, it isn't just a way of looking at things or a tricky maneuver with semantics.  It is a fundamental SHIFT in how I see me, how I see the world, and the lens through which I think, process emotions, and choose to behave on a day to day basis.

WOW.

So, for some it is a "trigger experience" that shifts their paradigm.  Mine was slow and deliberate and INTENTIONAL.

I AM a fit and healthy woman because I shifted my PARADIGM to BE a fit and healthy woman, and in so doing I BECAME a fit and healthy woman.  And a fit and healthy woman I will REMAIN.

Wow. 

Just some thoughts for a Sunday morning!

Rinse and Repeat!