Look for the patterns in your life

There are patterns in each of our lives that we often ignore but can clue us into great insight into how to improve. We can search for recurring themes in our life. Then we trace the path back to our thoughts or actions that created the environment for those themes.

Even though it is often difficult to see this in our self, we can usually spot it in others. We see why those around us struggle. We know what they should do; they need to listen to us. For some reason, we can see what they miss due to bias and flawed thinking.

We all know that part of us is fragile and insecure. We can call it our ego. This ego’s main purpose is to safeguard our feelings. And it will stop at nothing to do this.

If we make a mistake, our ego will step in to explain why it is someone else’s fault. It will convince us that we didn’t have a choice or that we made the right choice but something outside of us messed up.

It is difficult to get past the force of the ego on our lives. But we can do it. We can start to understand but we have to look past the ego and search for patterns.

In Alexi Panos and Preston Smiles’ book, Now or Never, the authors explain by saying, “One of the overarching principles we teach in our work is how you do ANYTHING is how you do EVERYTHING. This means that how you show up to something small and seemingly pointless in life is how you show up in all aspects of your life. The same pattern of self-sabotage that kicks in when you procrastinate on working out is the same self-sabotage that gets triggered when you’re up for a promotion. Perpetually showing up late with your friends is mirroring the same lack of respect that you show for yourself.”

The patterns tip you off to how you do everything. They can start to show you weaknesses that were imperceivable to you. They can illuminate ways that you are self-sabotaging everything in your life.

But the ego wants to push back. The ego wants to say that the procrastination for working out is due to you not wanting to work out. It will argue that it is unfair that your metabolism isn’t better.

“Arriving late with your friends was due to traffic”, shouts your ego. It wasn’t your fault that you hit traffic.

But beyond those external “reasons” we can see that we still have control over the outcome. There are plenty of ways to get active and work out. If we leave earlier, we don’t run the risk of a little traffic causing us to be late.

But the ego wants nothing to do with what we can do to counteract these external “reasons”. So, it works hard to prove to you that you are innocent; that you are the victim. Bad things that happen to you are simply from things you can’t control and there is nothing you can do. It must be bad luck or someone out to get you.

Systems thinking moves beyond thinking about cause and effect. Systems thinking is about seeing the many interconnected elements. Then it links how they all interact together.

Systems thinking can be helpful because it can highlight your own accountability. Or systems thinking can become a tool of the ego to find other reasons why it isn’t your fault.

In Now or Never the authors go on to say, “It’s all connected, and everything is touching everything; you cannot selectively be a particular way to one area of your life without it bleeding into and affecting other areas.”

This is why it is so important to search for patterns to counteract the ego. We have to learn that we ARE responsible for the things that occur in our life. Sure, there are outside factors, but WE decide what we become in life.

The reason it is so important to learn how to counteract the ego and learn to hold ourself accountable is because this is how we learn. It also gives us the power to design the future.

If our previous thoughts and actions created the life we live today, then today’s thoughts and actions create the life we will live tomorrow.

Now, we have hope. Now, we can start to improve. We can get better. We can make better choices. We can put in the work to reap the rewards.

But that is completely blocked by the ego. The ego wants to protect our insecurities, but it actually nurtures them and lets them grow and fester. It is paradoxical that we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable to become tougher. To grow, we can’t allow our weaknesses to remain and then stifle our strengths because we worry that we will fail.

Most people pay little attention to the patterns in life. But within these patterns is the key to breaking away from the natural human tendency to rely on the ego to protect our insecurities. By seeing the patterns, we can get a better understanding of our own culpability in life and then own the future. In other words, through patterns comes hope.