Example, the Change in Little Steps

Almost everyone know how an example work in order to provide the wanted effect, but I believe very few of us really understand the responsibility beyond an example, the most important, each and everyone's example.

We already know, that an example is provided usually, in order to understand something, like how physics law function, some mechanism function or when we want to indicate a direction (but there can be many types of examples).

But how many of us think on how human behavior examples function?

How life examples function?

Which is the impact of my/your example?

The behavior example work like any other example, thus, when seen, it makes others want to do it. This is why if we see in our family positive behavior,when we grow up we do the same. If we see violence when we grow up we do the same. Even little verbal ticks, what are done around us when we are kids, we tend to repeat.

We start repeating since we are kids and we continue even when we grow up and become adults. Why? Because this is done automatically. Without us even thinking of this. The examples are many times very well impregnated in our mind and when we try to get them out, to change, we need to do serious work

Of course throughout the life, we have many examples, but the first are for certain the one from the family. Next ones are the one from close relatives and friends and the list continues, but we have to consider that everything we see/hear/feel influence somehow our way of doing things (thinking, speaking, doing).

We have to consider that everything is an example, which at some point we will imitate, and depends on us :

• which examples we have around us
• which of these examples we let to become part of our behavior

The examples we have may not influence so much if we become aware about them. Actually the examples we have are influencing our way of being as long as we let them.

Here I would like to underline how examples, models work in our life. A child will do the same thing as his parents when they say something, do something. When a parent says something to the other parent, the child will take this as good to use for later. Just now, my 3 year old daughter whispered to me that I should not open the window, exactly what my wife said to me just few moments ago

As I already mentioned, everything around us, is some kind of example and if we have it around us for long enough, we tend to imitate. In the same way, what we say and do, may be repeated in behaviors of other when they see it long enough. Also most of the times it doesn't matter if an example is good or not, it is taken as is.

There is mixture of what we do and what everyone else does in our behavior and in their behavior. There are no clear boundaries, but in specific moment , some behaviors/example may be easily identified.

Now, what to do about this? How can we be as we like?

One of the best approach is to get a lot of people around us which behave as we would like and like this when we tend to imitate a behavior, it will one of the one's we want.

But we can't get always around us people we would like to have. I think this is not very wrong for each of us, since, in most of the time we are around people who's behavior/example we want to take, this is most certain that we will do.

When we see that we copied a behavior we don't want, we can work on that to change it in something we want to do, but we have to consider to analyse the change well, in order not to become a change hunter, as like this we may get tired and settle on something we don't want in the end, but it is the fastest choice.

Another way is to become aware of what each example teach and it is good to become aware on everything you think/say/do, or almost everything and understand the root of that and also if it is good for us. It is good to change some of the teachings from examples, but for some maybe is good to accept. Each one of us has his own judge inside him, at when we listen to that judge, our life becomes better.

It is not a very easy thing to become aware or to change something that we already use for long time. First step is always to admit that we got part of the behavior by automatically learning and it is our decision what to do next. If we want to leave it as is, we can do this. If we want to change it, the same. But, we need to understand that anything around us affects our behavior in the end, if we are not careful.

By becoming aware of how anything impacts us we make the first step towards making the life we want.

How is that?

Simple, by becoming aware, we admit to our selves that we choose what we are doing/speaking/thinking, not depending on what is happening to us. And it is our decision to improve or leave it as is.

Here examples you can find anywhere around you. If some person around you, says something you consider true or want it for yourself, you start to think of it. I took many examples from different people who understand what other think and day, on facebook and after that I try to understand others.

Really! Why do we need examples?

Not so long ago, I read about children education and how they take the parents as examples and copy the example of the parents, instead of learning what parents are saying.

On the Web, there is a very long list with articles which treat this subject and all say the same thing:

• children learn the examples of their parents better than what parents are trying to teach them

This means that if a parent teach his/her child something, but he/she does the same thing in some other manner, the child will do as the parent is doing, not as the parent is saying.

Like this if parents say, don't watch TV, but in same time they watch TV, the kid will see that watching TV is what he/she should do since the parent is doing. And they do this copying thing since very early age (from my experience from few months old).

In same way the grown ups are doing with peoples around them instead of parents (the only difference is that adults have ages with 2 digits, in most of the things they are still kids:), even some of them don't agree on this).

We, the grown ups, learn in almost same way as kids, by example. If we say someone doing something in most of cases, we would like to do the same.

There are cases in which we want to do the opposite, but mostly we want to do the same.

And this is because in life, everything resumes to basic needs and how satisfied we are with what we have and what we get. And inside each of us we still have some part of being child, and mostly from there the true joy comes.

Why we need examples? Because most of what we are doing we do by example. Our job, our house, our partner ..almost everything we do by an example , compared to an example. Of course, we may do thing also being fully aware of what we do, but if we are not used to be aware, we will do things after an example we see.

If we analyse our behavior, we can see that we do most of things after an example. The question we should ask our self is:

Do we really want to do something in some way or we want to do things as someone or opposite they someone around us does?

We should also consider, the fact that we represent also an example, for our kids, and also for everyone we meet in our path.

Each of represent only one man, but if each of us is the example we want to see in others, some will see and they will change in time. Like this, with man and another man's change, we change a group and this group will become bigger and bigger.

If we want the world to be a better place, we need to make first change on us. If each one of us becomes better, the world will be better. Step by step, people by people, by each example we promote something new, and as many people see this, they will start to do the same.

When everyone will assume the responsibility for what they do/say/think, the world will change. And some of the first things to do should be, in my opinion, to smile more often and to have a relaxed attitude. These two solve many of the current world's struggles.

You can find more information on examples, or influence of each to each other in following hubs:

• http://amanda-severn.hubpages.com/hub/Are-You-an-Original-Thinker-Or-Are-You-Easily-Influenced
• http://hubpages.com/hub/What-Influences-Child-Development
• http://lilith1980.hubpages.com/hub/Social-Influences-on-Behavior-Acceptance