Stephen Covey, the author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, explained that we tend to think we see things the way they are, but it is actually far from the truth. Stephen said, “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are, or as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms.”

This tells us that we interpret things not based on how they appear but on how we see them. In other words, we give interpretation to things based on our perceptions and not based on reality. And this is because most of the time we don’t even know what the reality is. What we know is how we see things. To change our paradigm we would make a shift from the way we see things to seeing them for what they really are.

And one thing I know about you is that you are still seeing yourself from your own paradigm. Everything you believe about yourself is from your personal interpretation of whom you think you are. And your perception of whom you think you are and your circumstance are actually distorted. But you can shift your paradigm by seeing yourself from your true reality. And if you want the true reality, you need to let God reveal it to you. 

Don’t be surprised that I know something about you; it is because I know we are all victims of our paradigms. I know you are not yet fully transformed to seeing yourself in your true reality. Our perceptions and interpretations of life – to include our successes, challenges, and struggles – are not totally as they really are. This is because we have been conditioned to see things from perspectives that are formed from our current condition. And our present condition has no depiction of the power of possibility inherent in us. To change this pattern, we must allow a transformation of our perspective of the truth. We must change our altered perspectives.

Our intake is what determines our output. Whatever we consume is what we are made of. It is therefore not an illusion that we only interpret things from the perspective of how we individually see them. Reality itself is not obscured; it is how we individually perceive it that is distorted. The consequences of interpreting things our way and based on our ideology are confusion and failure.

No one can live an effective life by going in the opposite direction of reality.

– Samuel Falola

A paradigm change is therefore very important; and it is as simple as getting the right lens to see the world from the right perspective. Once you choose the right lens, you will immediately begin to see things the way they really are. With your vision now fully activated to see things in their actuality, you would then find yourself asking, “What have I been seeing before?!” And once you start seeing things for what they truly are, your thinking also changes. Then, that change in your thought pattern begins to restructure your behavior and attitude. And as soon as your attitude is right, things become real.

Experiencing reality is one of the most genuine powers that sets us straight in life. This is like having the right answers to the challenges and questions of life that many are clueless about. But trying to change reality is like trying to cover the heat of the sun, or thinking that one can change the natural law of cause and effect. These are impossible.

The sun will always rise from the east and will always set in the west. Day and night exchange shifts to set in motion the reality of time, date, hours, minutes and other circumstantial events. This is an unchangeable principle.
No one can change reality. Any attempt to do that will be absurd! Imagine taking the map of your current location, travelling to another country, and using the same map to find a destination in the new location. It will be a labor in futility.

What you can change, however, is how you perceive things and how to take advantage of the reality around you for a deliberate change in your life. Transformation starts from a changed paradigm. It will take some unique ability to change our paradigm. And this is actually one of the challenges we are facing as individuals. But it can be done.

What we don’t know and didn’t discover about ourselves will become our biggest regret in life. Life is not discriminatory; so there’s no need to be in awe of the success of others and think we can’t achieve the same or even much more. It is all about restructuring our distorted perspectives. A paradigm shift is what will help us see things in their true form.

There are principles for success just as there are principles for failure. How we see these things will always determine how we approach them. And this is what determines where we find ourselves in life.