WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE IN LIFE? WHAT'S HOLDING YOU BACK?

Is it To Know Your Better Self? Is it to discover and live your purpose? to have fun every day? to believe you were destined to be here? to be intimate with others and have meaningful relationships?

All of those things and more, make up excellent wellbeing, aka Thriving. 

According to research, thriving is an internal indicator of advancement and growth. Self-awareness is the foundation for all growth. The objective is to assist with getting a more profound comprehension of who you are so you can carry on with the existence you need.

PROCESS IS TO HELP YOU GET A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING WITH WHAT YOU WANT 

This first phase of your this process concentrates on helping you know why you feel the way you do and awareness of your emotional Patterns: these can be memories, emotions, cognitions, and bodily sensations. You’ll be empowered to learn which Patterns no longer serve you, and techniques on how to break unhealthy patterns. 

WHAT’S A PATTERN? 

While everyone has different genetics and different experiences of growing up, research shows that we all have 5 basic emotional needs: 

• STRONG IDENTITY

• MEANINGFUL CONNECTION 

• INDEPENDENCE

• PURPOSE 

• JOY 

If these core needs aren’t met in our childhood, we can develop unhealthy patterns in relation to these needs that can continue to manifest into adulthood. These unhealthy patterns are blockers to you achieving your goals. Unhealthy patterns can include: 

• BEING PRONE TO BURNOUT 

• IMPOSTER SYNDROME 

• JEALOUSY 

• FEELING SUPERIOR TO OTHERS 

The initial process empowers you to recognize these patterns and start to make positive changes through relevant evidence-based techniques. Patterns are like your emotional fingerprint. But, not as permanent. With some focus with evidence-based exercises and tools, you can redesign what your patterns look like for you. As you break your unhealthy patterns, you make space for new, more positive ones in your life which give you the momentum to thrive and move forward. 

Awareness of your own patterns can feel daunting. But, it's the first step to change, and to getting closer to the life you want AKA thriving. Once the patterns are recognized, with some reflection we then move one step further and identify the unhealthy patterns. Unhealthy patterns are the emotions, feelings, thoughts, that are blocking us from moving forward.

How do you figure out what your patterns are in the first place?

Observing your own behavior and feelings is kind of weird. The observer part of you plays an important role doing the monitoring, but you’ll still behave and think the way you usually do. While it’s difficult to separate yourself from your current mood and feelings, you should try to catch yourself where you can. It’s important to learn to say to yourself: “I think I’m getting way too excited here” Or to gently caution yourself, “Wait a minute, should I really be this upset right now?” As you get better at observing your mood and feelings, you'll start to notice patterns about yourself that are surprisingly consistent. Even if you feel like a mess in a particular moment, it’s likely to be all part of a broader picture. These patterns contain important clues about what gets the best out of you — and what provokes the worst. For instance, you’ll notice: “When I put myself in X environment, I tend to feel bad” or perhaps, “When I’m not productive, I get anxious." It’s observations like these that’ll help you understand your patterns and identify what exactly triggers them. You'll slowly start to become the master of your feelings and thoughts. You'll know what the optimal environment ts for you, and what makes you tick. You'll know who to avoid, what to focus on, what to read, what to watch, and more. When you’re in an emotional state of your own choosing, you’re in control. You can calibrate yourself the way you want to be and make choices that will get you to the life you want. 

LETS DIG A LITTLE DEEPER 

At its core, awareness of your patterns is about asking yourself questions and attempting to answer them as truthfully as possible. This process is all about us supporting you in firstly asking the right questions, and supporting you in finding a reliable approach to answering them. In doing so, you develop the ability to see yourself in an objective way. The goal isn’t endless self-analysing, because beyond a certain point that becomes detrimental. 

The goal is to observe your thoughts, feelings and behaviours and accept them as they are right now. You may want to make different choices in the future. You may even hope to feel or think differently in the future. But, however you find yourself right now is entirely okay. After grasping your own inner mechanics more firmly, you’ll start to understand other people and the events going on around you a lot better. You'll understand why they affect you, their impact on you — and most importantly, how to process them and make decisions that reflect you best. Awareness of your patterns is about expanding your ability to learn and the way you think about learning. Becoming more aware of your patterns is the first step to becoming a stronger, more deliberate person. As you become more mentally and emotionally resilient, you'll start to deal with the outside world much more effectively. Why? Because you'll have developed a process that allows you to absorb anything that comes your way, break it down into smaller pieces, learn from it, and use it to your advantage. We’ve found that the individuals who thrive are those who can convert misfortune into good luck. In other words, they emerge from experiences with learnings and new strengths. 

“The consequences of today are determined by the actions of the past. To change your future, alter your decisions today.”

— Unknown

EXAMPLES OF COMMON PATTERNS

Here are some common recurring, negative behaviors people deal with in their lives on a day-to-day basis. If any of the incidents below have happened to you at least five times, then it’s likely to be a pattern attributable to you:

• Being late for appointments

• Not meeting deadlines

• Being absent-minded

• Getting together with the “wrong” guy/girl, resulting in destructive relationships

• Sleeping Late; not being able to wake up early

• Emotional Eating

• Not exercising even though you planned to

• Getting into arguments or losing your temper

• Giving up halfway through whatever you’re doing

• Staying back late at work; getting burnt out

Here’s an exercise which I find very helpful in gaining clarity on the root causes of patterns then addressing them. I regularly use it for self-improvement, and it has allowed me to break out of behaviors which don’t serve me, such as being late, emotional eating and not sticking to my exercise plans. I also use this in my coaching, helping my clients successfully break out of negative patterns and accelerate toward their goals.

Before you start this exercise, write down a list of negative patterns in your life, so you can better choose the one you want to get rid of.

1. JOT DOWN THE PATTERNS THAT HAPPEN MORE FREQUENTLY (5 OR MORE TIMES) 

Start off by picking a pattern which you want to break out of. Then, list down the past five times when you were faced with it. Five is a decent sample size which lets us compare the incidents and spot similarities between those patterns. If you like, you can even list down 10 incidents just to be exhaustive!

Let’s take my example of being late for appointments. Not being on time was one of the dominant trends in the past. Whenever I went out to meet someone, it would almost be guaranteed that I would be late for appointments. The lateness would usually range from anywhere between 5 minutes to 20 minutes, or even 30 minutes or more.

2. LIST DOWN THE FACTORS FOR EACH SITUATION THAT LED TO THE OUTCOME OR PATTERN

Now, list down as many factors as you can that led to each incident occurring. If you have a pattern of sleeping late, write down what the reason that led you to sleep late. Maybe you had work to do, you were talking on the phone with a friend, you had insomnia, etc. It may be possible that each incident has more than one trigger, so list out as many triggers as possible.

When I examined the incidents when I was late, I found a whole list of factors such as (a) oversleeping, (b) being caught up with work before the appointment, (c) bus was late, (d) unanticipated traffic jam, (e) couldn’t find the location (the place was foreign to me) and (f) something cropped up just before the appointment.

3. IDENTIFY THE COMMONALITIES ACROSS THE FACTORS

Look at all the factors you have listed. Are there any common factors across the incidents? Circle them. Chances are you will find 1-2 dominant trends across all the factors listed.

In my example, the common factor was that I was always caught up with work before the appointment. While there could have been additional factors in each case, I was almost always running late because I was engrossed in getting my work done.

4. DRILL DOWN INTO THE CAUSE OF THE FACTORS

Now, drill into those common factors. What led to these factors? For each answer that comes up, keep digging deeper to identify the underlying cause. Keep asking “Why is this the case?” or “Why is that so?” until you hit a resonating point.

Looking into why I was getting behind, I realized it was because I wanted to finish the stuff which was supposed to have been done earlier but was not finished yet. As I looked deeper into this, I found:

•  I had planned more than what was realistically achievable. I did not factor in for appropriate breaks and I had underestimated the time needed for each task.
•  Instead of adhering to my work schedule, I was distracted during the work process and would be doing non-peripheral tasks instead.
•  This happened because I overestimated my own capacity.
•  Thus, by setting off for my appointments before I had finished my work, it meant that I wasn’t able to achieve what I had set out to do. I had let myself down by not living up to my envisioned persona. Because I didn’t want to accept that thought, I would keep working away at my tasks until I was already late beyond measure.

It is possible to have several causes behind the factors. As you work on this step, ensure you uncover as many of them as possible.

5. IDENTIFY ACTION STEPS TO ADDRESS THE CAUSE

Now that you have uncovered the root causes, how can you address them such that they will not lead to a recurrence of the pattern in the future? Come up with action steps that will address the root causes, as well as any factors which you feel lead to the issue.

In my case, the action steps I came up with were:

• Create task lists which realistically match my current capacity.
• Place my schedule in a prominent spot so I’ll be conscious of the time and the tasks that need to be done.
• In times where I am not able to get the work done, accept that to be the case and create a separate plan to address the unfinished work later on.

As you come up with the steps, it may seem they do not address the patterns directly. For example, with my issue of being late, creating task lists may not seem like the most appropriate solution at first sight. Yet, because it addresses one of the causes (unrealistic planning), it has helped in breaking me away from the pattern. If you (a) correctly nail down the root cause(s), (b) identify the right action steps and (c) act on them, the patterns will start dissolving away in your life.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

• As you delve into certain patterns, you will often find that their underlying causes are one and the same. Thus, by dealing with that cause, you can get rid of many undesirable behaviors in your life in one fell swoop.
• Note that some patterns may be interlinked with others — for example, you may find that some causes can also be patterns themselves! Thus, it may not be easy to completely eradicate such patterns in one sitting. Focus on getting as much uncovered each time and progress from there.
• Subsequently you will come to a point where the root causes are properly addressed and the patterns are eradicated.

Try out the exercise and start breaking away from the negative patterns in your life! Feel free to give me your feedback — I’d love to know how it works for you.

“Holding on to anything is like holding on to your breath. You will suffocate. The only way to get anything in the physical universe is by letting go of it. Let go & it will be yours forever.”

— Deepak Chopra