It Was a Year of Change – Some Initiated by Me, Some That I Adjusted To

In 2024, I revised the way I treated work and also learnt to empathise with those struggling around me.

- Chua Mui Hoong

As a new year beckons, I am conscious of the major events awaiting me in 2025. They have me reflecting on the personal paradigm shifts I've made and still need to make to navigate what lies ahead.

A paradigm shift is a change in habitual thinking or actions. Such changes can prepare us well for the path ahead.

People undergo such a shift when something major happens that affects them deeply and emotionally – such as a diagnosis of illness, a religious conversion, or a relationship breakdown.

Yet, it's not always a life-changing event that sparks change. Some psychologists and self-help writers have also argued that people can change their paradigms by deliberately and repeatedly altering their thoughts and actions. This can align their mental programming to the one that they desire.

Canadian author Bob Proctor who wrote the 2021 bestseller Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life, says that by changing our thoughts and cultivating consistent habits, we can reshape our reality.

Sometimes it is living a different life, in a community unlike any you have seen, that shifts the paradigm. The past year has, both, seen me make changes and also adjust to those that came my way.

COPERNICAN REVOLUTION

One paradigm shift I effected in 2024 is the way I view my work. I transitioned from a full-time journalistic role to a freelance role writing once a week. I no longer felt the mental burden of work when I wasn't working. I could plan and take holidays, so long as I met my writing quota.

For too many years, my work had been the centre around which other spheres of my life revolved – such as faith, friendships, family and leisure. In 2024, however, that dynamic shifted. While my work still brought me great satisfaction, it was no longer at the core of my being. Instead, it became just one of many dimensions in a more balanced and nuanced life.