How your patterns kill your strength
Your patterns of behaviour are unconscious acts that impact your strength. They kill your strength when they have been created from the influence of others rather than the core of who we are. Knowing why you have chosen your patterns will make you stronger. When you step back and make a change to your pattern then the magic happens.
Patterns are the sequence of your behaviours. How you start your day, how you build relationships at work, manage a meeting, how you communicate with your team, what you eat and whether you take a walk or use the car. The list is endless.
Unconscious
It is these very behaviours that can kill your strength. As some will make you stronger and some will make you weaker. Most of the choices you make that create your patterns are likely to have been done without thinking about it. The patterns are built up over time, impact how you operate and more importantly your ability to deliver at your best consistently.
The Key
The key here isn’t necessarily the pattern itself but why you have chosen that pattern. Were you influenced by the people that were around you at the time, the company culture, watching significant people in your life and repeating theirs? Did you consciously make a choice to create a new pattern? The focus for me is about how you yourself really want to be as a leader (of you and of others). We can so often be swept away with the speed and intimidation of others that we build patterns that don’t truly sit comfortably with ourselves.
Giving yourself permission to step back every so often allows us to recognise what in our patterns are impacting our strength. When we follow patterns that are not close to our values and beliefs and impact on progress it is more stressful and damaging to our health. We know it is in these situations we can never function at our best and we are weaker.
The Magic
Stepping back is where the magic begins. It allows us to look in the mirror and see how and why we go about what we do. Identify those things that makes us stronger and should do more of and those that don’t. The trick is then to start in tiny micro forms to change how we go about what we do. For the better of ourselves which then impacts everyone else. Patterns create our persona. We need to check in and see for ourselves what they are and tweak them. It is in doing this that makes us stronger.
The Moments
Your patterns kill your strengths when they have been unconsciously been built over time with little thought about what matter to you. Taking the time to recognise what your patterns are and then taking small steps to adjust them will create the flow moments you consistently want.
