It’s an accepted fact of life that we are creatures of habit. The question is: What is a habit?

A habit is an automatic pattern of thinking or behavior that we weren’t born with but were conditioned into.

Most of that conditioning happened without our permission. I used to ask this question in seminars to illustrate the early learning of patterns: “How many have the same religion as your parents?” When people would respond that they did, my next question was, “Did they ask your permission?”

The point is you learned many of your beliefs (which are patterns) by osmosis and by accident.

If your patterns and beliefs are working for you, consider it a “happy accident.” If they are not, you’re probably crashing into your share of difficulties.

Patterns are purposeful. That means they were formed for a purpose. You may have since outgrown that purpose, but the pattern never got updated. Think of an older adult, perhaps you, who still wears the faddy clothes or hairdo that was popular in high school. Maybe your purpose for adopting those fads back then was to be “one of the cool kids.” Now you no longer find it important to keep up with the Joneses but your tonsorial or fashion patterns got stuck in the past.

We may have other patterns that are more limiting than hanging on to our youthful, sometimes laughable, choices. These other counter-productive patterns are getting in our way, so how do we get out of our own way?

The first step in updating a limiting pattern is to recognize you have one. But recognition is not enough. To outgrow it, we have to interrupt it every time we recognize it running. Interrupting a pattern, while it is running, is putting a wedge between stimulus and reaction. It’s in that space between those two that new patterns emerge. Creating that space causes growth and new learning to happen.

The application of interruption has to be consistent, and the results of these efforts will be lasting. Updating patterns won’t happen by accident. It will take recognition and interruption and by doing so, you will be living your life on purpose.

All the best,

John