I had an interesting message from The Grasshopper the other day – “Criminals don’t get caught because they’re stupid; they get caught because they’re patterned.”

It got me to thinking about what patterns we are caught up in that lock us up every time.

You can go a lifetime and not become aware of an arresting pattern.

Patterns are pieces of purposeful behavior that we learn without knowing how we learned them, and they often hang around long after the purpose of their formation has come and gone.

We become like an unfragged hard drive in a computer with little pieces of behavior strewn about here and there, slowing us down and compromising our performance.

Pattered behavior is wonderful when it continues to serve a purpose that’s serving us.

It becomes problematic when it handcuffs our abilities.

I was reminded of the tragic side of patterning the other day when listening to a song by Karen Carpenter on the radio. This young singer had a beautiful voice but learned a pattern that she didn’t have a beautiful body.

As the story goes, early in her career, she and her brother, Richard were performing at a small venue and were well received. The local newspaper ran a glowing review of their performance the next day. The reviewer, as an aside, referred to Karen as “Chubby.”

She ignored the rave review and got caught up in the personal characterization. She began a life of dangerous dieting and purging and died from heart failure attributed to anorexia nervosa at age 32.

The purpose of the original pattern was to get her to not be chubby. The pattern lived on well past the time any healthy weight had been achieved.

What pattern do you own that’s confining you? It’s a question worth asking because your exploration of an answer can serve as your “Get out of Jail for Free” card.

The purpose in finding a limiting pattern is to then employ a strategy to outgrow it. This new outgrowth learning begins when you catch yourself running the pattern.

In order to catch yourself, you first have to know that you are running a pattern. Sometimes it’s quite evident what pattern you are running, and sometimes it’s not. If you are really in the dark about what offending pattern you are running, ask someone close to you. They always know.

But knowing isn’t enough to get paroled from this pattern. You have to catch yourself committing the crime.

That means to catch yourself in the act. All new learning begins when we become cognizant of a behavior while it is happening. The key to escape is to interrupt that behavior while you are in the middle of it. Beating yourself up a half hour later won’t do the trick.

Interrupting the pattern while it’s going on takes you to the prison gate. Continued recognition and interruption gives you the key to freedom.

It’s not only against the law for a high wire act to work without a net, it’s extremely risky. If you are caught up in a risky pattern, take a tip from the pros: Work with the net of recognition and interruption. You’ll catch yourself every time.

All the best,

John

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