can show up in a multitude of ways. They can be internal and subconscious, appearing as habitual ways of thinking, feeling, or responding to the world. Patterns can also show up in relation to others in the form of repeated experiences, personality types, and relationship scenarios. They are closely tied to your limiting beliefs and to the interpersonal dynamics you tolerate on a regular basis. Patterns are essentially the expression of your programming, and whatever remains unaddressed, you will find yourself repeating. The programming feedback loop will go on and on until you consciously put a stop to what isn’t working for you and replace the pattern with a conscious, healthy way of showing up.
Is all programming bad? No, not necessarily. There is likely some programming that appears to work in your favor, at least on the surface. For instance, if part of your programming is that you don’t quit, that has played a huge role in your high-achieving mode of operation. However, there is a potential dark side. If you equate quitting with failure, it will be much harder to step away from something, even when it’s in your best interest to do so. As you begin to identify and recognize patterns of thought and behavior, it’s imperative that you resist the urge to make snap decisions about whether a pattern is something that hurts or helps you (or some of both) before you’ve had time to consider all the angles.
Go Inside Your Head
Revisit your limiting beliefs from Chapter 1. How are they making an appearance in the form of patterns in your thought processes? Are you a worrier? What do you worry about? Are you afraid to fail? What do you tell yourself about what failure means? Do you avoid confrontation? What are the words in your head when you’re backing down from a discussion or deciding not to put in your two cents? When something goes wrong, what is your mental response?
Let’s consider worry to illustrate how a limiting belief can turn into a repetitive pattern.
Limiting belief: Nothing ever goes my way.
Thought: What a beautiful day. The baseball game will be fun.
Worry: What if it rains? It will have been a waste of time to go all the way out to the field, and what if the rescheduled time isn’t convenient? I really don’t want to have to go to a game this weekend, we have too much going on.
Pattern: Habitually expecting the worst and following that thought to its doom-and-gloom conclusion.
On the surface, this may seem like a fairly benign cascade of thoughts. If you take out the baseball-game scenario, you can see the underlying danger in the limiting belief and its associated pattern:
Nothing ever goes my way = I expect the worst
Worries big and small can reveal a wealth of information to you about your approach to life. When you apply the pattern generally, you can see the theme and how damaging it is to be in the cycle. How will you ever reach your full potential if you expect the worst? If you believe that things don’t go your way, you not only convince yourself of a sucky outcome, you invite it.
Let’s do this again with respect to self-worth to further demonstrate the impact of the link between limiting beliefs and patterns.
Limiting belief: I lack the discipline to follow through.
Thought: I want to create a process for my organization that will help streamline the way we interact with our clients.
Worry: I won’t get the support I need. This is a big project that requires the input of others. Maybe I’m not up to the task.
Pattern: Retreating from opportunities due to fear of failure.
In this case, a programmed belief that you tend to leave projects incomplete due to a lack of discipline leads you to either back away from a challenge altogether, or leave it half-done because you lack the discipline to see it through. The impact of this limiting belief/pattern combo is:
I lack the discipline to follow through = I will fail
For each of these examples, you could plug in all kinds of different scenarios and still reach the same ultimate conclusions about how your limiting belief holds you in a self-defeating pattern. The extent to which these patterns are insidious and subconscious makes them difficult to identify. The key to that identification is to wake up. You must come out of autopilot mode, become conscious of how the things you tell yourself lead to the patterns that bind you, and strategically break down the thought process that keeps you stuck in the cycle. We will get into how to do that a little later on.
Dig into Your Relationships
The one-two punch of limiting beliefs and patterns isn’t restricted to your internal world. The same combo has a major influence on how you relate to others, what you expect in relationships, what you tolerate, and how often you experience similar themes and challenges interpersonally. Relationship dynamics are subject to your personal limiting beliefs, with the added challenge that the other person’s beliefs are also in the mix. That combination sets up a scenario in which you are contributing to the cycle, the other person is playing a role, and you establish a pattern in which the outward expression of your beliefs creates the dynamic in which you find yourself. Because you can’t be inside the other person’s head, you must focus on how you are feeding the dynamic and how you can address your part in it.
Limiting belief: I am not interesting.
Thought: I have to go to my work holiday party.
Worry: I dread social gatherings. What if I say the wrong thing or bore people?
Pattern: Avoiding interaction with others due to low self-confidence.
Belief of others: They don’t like to be social, therefore we will leave them alone.
By now, I hope you’ve caught on to the extent to which your limiting beliefs and associated patterns create your reality. This example in particular shows clearly that this person’s low self-esteem directly contributes to limited social contact:
I am uninteresting = I isolate myself
The people around you have no idea why you behave as you do. Often, they are simply following your lead and, in that way, giving you space to create the reality you’re living in, even if it’s not the reality you desire. The added danger here is that the pattern established by limiting beliefs can lead you down the slippery slope of believing you’re a victim of circumstance or of the actions of others, rather than leading you to examine your own behavior and how you contribute to what you experience.
When it comes to your work life, the personal and relational dynamics at play establish deep ruts that you may have a hard time climbing out of. The extent to which you are the architect of your circumstances escapes you until you make a deliberate decision to cut the shit. No more effing around. Wake up, tune in, and decide that, right here and now, you have within you everything you need to break the chains that bind you.
Now that you have a few examples, let’s get into some limiting belief/worry/pattern associations that commonly arise in professional scenarios so that you can add to this list with your own experiences in mind.
| Limiting belief: | I’m not that smart. |
| Worry: | People will find out that I’m not smart. |
| Pattern: | I overwork or otherwise overcompensate to prove my value. |
| Limiting belief: | I’m not good enough. |
| Worry: | I’m going to lose my job. |
| Pattern: | I expect the worst. |
| Limiting belief: | There aren’t
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