I am fortunate, and I get to deliver training to some fantastic people and most want to learn skills.  It could be skilled on how to be a great leader or an excellent trainer.  People come to training to learn skills, and I understand that I like learning skills too.  However, the reality is something different, and when you understand this, it can be life-changing.

All habits and it doesn’t matter if it is positive or a negative one came about because of one thing.  You decided at some stage to do what it was that has now become a habit.  You didn’t do it once, you did it again and again, and before you know it, it became part of your mindset.  You created a paradigm, which is a way of thinking.  You did it again, again and again, and before you know it you do what it is without even thinking about it.

When we were born, our mind was an open book and our parents filled our brains with limitations, rules, values and behaviours that became our paradigm.

Paradigms are fantastic. Research shows that 95% of our thinking is subconscious thinking.  In other words, we do things we don’t even realise we are doing.  An excellent example of this is breathing; we don’t consciously think "I better breath now", we do it automatically because it’s part of our Paradigm.

Of course, our paradigms can be both positive or negative.  We are given many of them when we are very young by our parents and individuals in authority.  Others we create through our feelings and our experiences, and before we know it if we think it, again and again, it’s a habit. Things we do again and again become habits and become part of our subconscious mind.

On our courses, we promote positive paradigms.  It doesn’t matter if you want to be a better manager, leader or a better trainer, to be better you must change your way of thinking.  In other words, using our conscious part of our brain.

Training is really about changing behaviour but remember we don’t just do the things we learn in training once; nothing will happen.  We have to do them again, again and again, and before we know it that behaviour becomes a natural part of our thinking.  In other words, we have changed our paradigm, our way of thinking.

You can be, do and have anything you want if you change your paradigm. It’s a fantastic place to be.

 Ralph Moody is the founder of Target Training and specialises in trainer and management development.  You can read more about him here.