Its been ages since I last wrote here. There were many reasons and one of which is that I felt lazy to come here and start writing. However, the good news is that my mind is filled up with more information and thoughts than the last time I was here :). So now I have this idea to write a book. This article could be the start of something big! Enjoy and I hope you will learn something out of it.
If I tell you that the most important word which might be preventing you from achieving greatness is the word "pattern", what would you say? Its not procrastination, its not laziness, neither is lack of initiative or any single thing. Its patterns. Before all of you start bringing up arguments against my word, read for a few more moments and then tell me what you think!
Human beings are faced with a infinite amount of choices from the day they are born. They need to learn to become independent - learn to walk, communicate, eat, drink, run and all those other things that help us survive. Every day you are faced with choices that you need to make and most of them are now quite simple such as brushing your teeth and wearing your clothes and putting on makeup.
These basic activities are established first by watching the others around you and then trying to mimic them until you achieve the objective. For a baby, trying to catch a dangling toy can seem difficult at first the first step. The brain starts to fire random neural patterns until the baby catches the toy. Until then she will try her best to generate random patterns of hand movements as she doesn't have full control of her arms yet. She sometimes cries in frustration at the inability of being able catch this object. But if you observe, she finally finds one neural pattern that the exact way that will help her reach the objective. Then she "learns" this pattern and keeps firing this pattern until she gets better and better at it. The most fundamental point is that we do this for EVERYTHING. We do this to learn a new skill - this is why its frustrating at first as the brain is not used to the new pattern. Therefore, changing an existing pattern is very difficult and sometimes almost impossible unless there is a definite barrier to following the old pattern. For example, you may use the Computer mouse with your right hand. Changing hands would be almost like torture unless you have developed a pain in your right hand and there is no option but to switch. Initially it will be torture to use the mouse with your left hand but the brain is now firing a new pattern and calibrating your movements and within a few days you will be quite comfortable with your left hand.
Now put this same theory into your behavior. Everything that we do or say or feel is based on various patterns the brain has stored. If you shout at people when you are angry, the brain saves this pattern as the usual reaction when you are given a certain stimulus which causes you to be angry. Without fail, the brain picks up the relevant pattern and you start to shout everytime you are angry. Everytime you invoke this pattern of behavior you get better and better at and most importantly notice it less and less. The people around you will at first not be agreeable to this pattern as it may be a NEW thing for them. Eventually, they start recording this pattern as your behavior when you are angry. Both parties will get used to this pattern in this manner. Every new person that comes into contact with you will have this difficulty unless they have had a similar experience and therefore a pattern is already registered in their mind. Remember that everyone is constantly either getting used to new patterns or experiencing old and trusted patterns. This is also the reason why the same incident is viewed by different people with different reactions. In a country where a bombing is frequently heard of will elicit different reactions than in a country where violence of this sort is unheard of. The moment the profile of the bomber is uncovered every single person in the country who knows of this information will try and use this pattern. This is why terrorist organisations use children and women for violence as society has more tolerant patterns of behaviour towards this segment of the population. Advertisements create these patterns effectively to entice you to buy products. They create a Brand pattern in your mind about a particular product. Some of these patterns are so powerful that you even will not realise that you have been brain washed. One such pattern in the MacDonalds Yellow Arch. By accident or design kids learn to identify this pattern at an early age. My son used to recognise this pattern around the age of 1 year. I was amazed at how he was able to pick out the yellow arch well in advance. Probably kids know this and the happy meal better than even religious symbols. If you sit down and watch a kids cartoon on cable TV, you will realise how many patterns are slowly being instilled in our kids minds which are like sponges.
Credit card companies understand patterns. They initiate a competition where they get you to swipe your credit card at a particular supermarket a specified number of times to qualify for a discount. So once you pull this particular card at the checkout counter at this supermarket a number of times, you will do so automatically even after the competition is over unless you are conscious enough to realise this.
Like me if you are one of those people who insist something is missing when it is right under your nose. If you notice closely either it is because its in a different
If you have read this so far (hopefully) you will begin to understand that every thing you do consciously or unconsciously will be a pattern. A pattern is a good thing. It has its advantages. It will help you do various repetitive tasks without much thinking. You will become good at it through repetition. A factory worker gets used to set patterns. You shop at the same supermarket and you go to the right shelves. Supermarkets know this and they change the setup every so often so that you "See" new products. However, the usual reaction is irritation as your pattern has changed. Try brushing your teeth with the hand you don't use usually. You will find it difficult but if you persist you will be able to use either hand. Try holding your mug with the other hand. If you try these little things, you will start to appreciate the benefits of patterns.
However, patterns can be destructive. Any teacher knows that when the child learns something first the "wrong" way, it is it quite hard to change. Just for this purpose I will use the term "wrong" but the right concept is that you learn the way the rest of the world has accepted it to be the most effective way at that point in time. Herein lies the problem. When you learn the pattern, you need to evaluate it from time to time and see if the world around you benefits from the particular pattern you are used to.
The mind can play tricks on you. What you see with your eyes is purely based on the patterns in your head which were created from your own experience. For example, if you were raised in an environment where the only color you saw was White. You would find it extremely uncomfortable in an environment where the color white is absent. Every word you read in this article will be triggering many patterns. This is why you may understand things differently even in the most clearly explained article. This is also why people have accidents and the common answer is that "I didn't see him coming" which is absolutely true in the person's case. You may not SEE the vehicle in the wrong lane since you are not used to SEEING this pattern. You are assuming that all traffic will use the right lane ie. that it the pattern you will have if you were born in a country where the drivers are disciplined. If you were born in a country where there is no discipline whatsoever, you will be able to cope up more with this uncertainty. My father used to say that the most effective vehicle to learn driving on is a motorcycle or a bicycle. The reason for this is that your instincts and awareness is improved because of the greater chance of an accident. Therefore, you learn to anticipate accidents more and develop lightening fast reactions. These patterns will help you to graduate to a bigger vehicle.
What do you think so far? Every single thing that you do or say or see or feel are based on a load of patterns that you have developed over so many years. Some of them have helped you become successful. Some of them are limiting you. Some of them make you a better leader or a team player. Some of them have actually made you a less desirable person. As you start analyzing each situation you will see people continuously changing patterns to accommodate people or circumstances which are much stronger where they either change or move out from the current situation. Some live in mental agony as their mind refuses to adjust with the new Pattern. The mind does everything possible to reject the new pattern - this may be a new job, a new boss, a new partner, a new car, a new phone. Some patterns can be learnt when it is your choice to change the pattern. This is the key. If you WANT to change your pattern then you can successfully learn the new pattern. So if you feel that you are not LIKING a change, it is because your mind feels threatened by the unknown and rejection is a survival instinct. Many people would do anything to NOT change the pattern. They will protest, they will start a war, they will kill. Some others will just go with the flow but will never be truly comfortable.
So what is the best way to approach this. Take stock of your abilities. Try to identify the patterns that serve you well. The chances are that your current job is a reflect of the good patterns you have. You can tweak them and improve on them to be more effective. There maybe a set of new patterns that you will need to improve yourself and your relationships. Listen to them and analyse. The best is to see what others say and do in your presence. Are they comfortable with you or do they avoid you? There may be trust issues. Uncovering some of these patterns can be a tedious exercise. First work on the patterns that are important. If you are not making enough sales there may be patterns that are not helping you to sell. For this you can watch a good salesman in action and try and mimic him. This can be difficult. The best is to ask someone to critique your work and styles. The best athletes do this constantly. Their body movements are analysed to find out the slightest weak point and its corrected by erasing the unproductive pattern. Most athletes develop injuries due to bad patterns. We can use the same technique for ourselves.
Why should we change a pattern? We don't really need to if you want to be like this for the rest of your life. Some patterns may still work for you in the long run. However, the world around you is constantly changing. You need to adapt to the changes in your environment. Many people are developing better patterns. Kids today are developing better patterns as they can learn a lot more by watching others and there is a lot of information out there. Younger people have more opportunities where they show better suited patterns. So you need to change the patterns that matter. The best thing is to develop a pattern that evaluates every one of your important patterns and innovates on them!! Did you get my point? Changing your patterns should be a pattern itself that you constantly engage in.
Kids are very good at changing patterns when they play. They like to experiment. We don't like this. If a child eats chocolate sauce with pizza, we would shout at him and tell him that its not an accepted practice. Why do we believe that its bad to have pizza with chocolate sauce? It is not a pattern that we are familiar with. However, it may be a healthier pattern than smoking or alcohol. Discouraging a child from being creative in this manner fits him into a stereotype that we are comfortable with. This sometimes kills the child's creativity. We love to create patterns that we like. When we don't like patterns that others have we even resort to wage war on them and force them into our patterns which are more "Civilised". Einstein was a child that had different patterns. He was kicked out of school for not conforming to the patterns the school was familiar with. In the x men movie, Dr. Xavier runs a school for the gifted children and trains them to use their powers effectively. Imagine how many children we may have "killed" by trying to get them to conform to our patterns? We may have lost geniuses, entrepreneurs, inventors, actors. Christopher Nolan was allowed to use his dad's video cam at the age of 9 to create films with his toy soldiers. What if his dad didn't let him play with this expensive toy? Look at his career and see how many movies of his have brought in millions of dollars. Luckily for Einstein, he still was able to continue on his amazing journey.
I hope by now you are convinced enough to start looking at the patterns that you have. If you reject what I say here, that is an important message to you. You have at least one destructive pattern that is not letting you learn something new! Some patterns such as negative thinking can be even more destructive when the law of attraction comes into action as you will attract everything to you by your thoughts. In my mind, the pattern is one of the most important concepts to learn and try and understand. It is a must for trainers to know and most of the best trainers know about patterns. They may know it as a different concept. NLP is a effective method to break old destructive patterns. Concepts such as anchors effectively help you remove patterns that are impeding your growth.
Small note: Most books on success focus on helping you realise that you need to change your patterns. However, most books don't tell you about patterns directly. So I hope I have given you a starting point. You can read Seven Habits of Highly Effective people or 17 Principles of success or any other book on self improvement, but the fundamental concept is trying to identify and modify your patterns and keep improving them on a continuous basis. The change you want in your life can only be brought about by removing destructive patterns and institutionalising new ones.
If I tell you that the most important word which might be preventing you from achieving greatness is the word "pattern", what would you say? Its not procrastination, its not laziness, neither is lack of initiative or any single thing. Its patterns. Before all of you start bringing up arguments against my word, read for a few more moments and then tell me what you think!
Human beings are faced with a infinite amount of choices from the day they are born. They need to learn to become independent - learn to walk, communicate, eat, drink, run and all those other things that help us survive. Every day you are faced with choices that you need to make and most of them are now quite simple such as brushing your teeth and wearing your clothes and putting on makeup.
These basic activities are established first by watching the others around you and then trying to mimic them until you achieve the objective. For a baby, trying to catch a dangling toy can seem difficult at first the first step. The brain starts to fire random neural patterns until the baby catches the toy. Until then she will try her best to generate random patterns of hand movements as she doesn't have full control of her arms yet. She sometimes cries in frustration at the inability of being able catch this object. But if you observe, she finally finds one neural pattern that the exact way that will help her reach the objective. Then she "learns" this pattern and keeps firing this pattern until she gets better and better at it. The most fundamental point is that we do this for EVERYTHING. We do this to learn a new skill - this is why its frustrating at first as the brain is not used to the new pattern. Therefore, changing an existing pattern is very difficult and sometimes almost impossible unless there is a definite barrier to following the old pattern. For example, you may use the Computer mouse with your right hand. Changing hands would be almost like torture unless you have developed a pain in your right hand and there is no option but to switch. Initially it will be torture to use the mouse with your left hand but the brain is now firing a new pattern and calibrating your movements and within a few days you will be quite comfortable with your left hand.
Now put this same theory into your behavior. Everything that we do or say or feel is based on various patterns the brain has stored. If you shout at people when you are angry, the brain saves this pattern as the usual reaction when you are given a certain stimulus which causes you to be angry. Without fail, the brain picks up the relevant pattern and you start to shout everytime you are angry. Everytime you invoke this pattern of behavior you get better and better at and most importantly notice it less and less. The people around you will at first not be agreeable to this pattern as it may be a NEW thing for them. Eventually, they start recording this pattern as your behavior when you are angry. Both parties will get used to this pattern in this manner. Every new person that comes into contact with you will have this difficulty unless they have had a similar experience and therefore a pattern is already registered in their mind. Remember that everyone is constantly either getting used to new patterns or experiencing old and trusted patterns. This is also the reason why the same incident is viewed by different people with different reactions. In a country where a bombing is frequently heard of will elicit different reactions than in a country where violence of this sort is unheard of. The moment the profile of the bomber is uncovered every single person in the country who knows of this information will try and use this pattern. This is why terrorist organisations use children and women for violence as society has more tolerant patterns of behaviour towards this segment of the population. Advertisements create these patterns effectively to entice you to buy products. They create a Brand pattern in your mind about a particular product. Some of these patterns are so powerful that you even will not realise that you have been brain washed. One such pattern in the MacDonalds Yellow Arch. By accident or design kids learn to identify this pattern at an early age. My son used to recognise this pattern around the age of 1 year. I was amazed at how he was able to pick out the yellow arch well in advance. Probably kids know this and the happy meal better than even religious symbols. If you sit down and watch a kids cartoon on cable TV, you will realise how many patterns are slowly being instilled in our kids minds which are like sponges.
Credit card companies understand patterns. They initiate a competition where they get you to swipe your credit card at a particular supermarket a specified number of times to qualify for a discount. So once you pull this particular card at the checkout counter at this supermarket a number of times, you will do so automatically even after the competition is over unless you are conscious enough to realise this.
Like me if you are one of those people who insist something is missing when it is right under your nose. If you notice closely either it is because its in a different
If you have read this so far (hopefully) you will begin to understand that every thing you do consciously or unconsciously will be a pattern. A pattern is a good thing. It has its advantages. It will help you do various repetitive tasks without much thinking. You will become good at it through repetition. A factory worker gets used to set patterns. You shop at the same supermarket and you go to the right shelves. Supermarkets know this and they change the setup every so often so that you "See" new products. However, the usual reaction is irritation as your pattern has changed. Try brushing your teeth with the hand you don't use usually. You will find it difficult but if you persist you will be able to use either hand. Try holding your mug with the other hand. If you try these little things, you will start to appreciate the benefits of patterns.
However, patterns can be destructive. Any teacher knows that when the child learns something first the "wrong" way, it is it quite hard to change. Just for this purpose I will use the term "wrong" but the right concept is that you learn the way the rest of the world has accepted it to be the most effective way at that point in time. Herein lies the problem. When you learn the pattern, you need to evaluate it from time to time and see if the world around you benefits from the particular pattern you are used to.
The mind can play tricks on you. What you see with your eyes is purely based on the patterns in your head which were created from your own experience. For example, if you were raised in an environment where the only color you saw was White. You would find it extremely uncomfortable in an environment where the color white is absent. Every word you read in this article will be triggering many patterns. This is why you may understand things differently even in the most clearly explained article. This is also why people have accidents and the common answer is that "I didn't see him coming" which is absolutely true in the person's case. You may not SEE the vehicle in the wrong lane since you are not used to SEEING this pattern. You are assuming that all traffic will use the right lane ie. that it the pattern you will have if you were born in a country where the drivers are disciplined. If you were born in a country where there is no discipline whatsoever, you will be able to cope up more with this uncertainty. My father used to say that the most effective vehicle to learn driving on is a motorcycle or a bicycle. The reason for this is that your instincts and awareness is improved because of the greater chance of an accident. Therefore, you learn to anticipate accidents more and develop lightening fast reactions. These patterns will help you to graduate to a bigger vehicle.
What do you think so far? Every single thing that you do or say or see or feel are based on a load of patterns that you have developed over so many years. Some of them have helped you become successful. Some of them are limiting you. Some of them make you a better leader or a team player. Some of them have actually made you a less desirable person. As you start analyzing each situation you will see people continuously changing patterns to accommodate people or circumstances which are much stronger where they either change or move out from the current situation. Some live in mental agony as their mind refuses to adjust with the new Pattern. The mind does everything possible to reject the new pattern - this may be a new job, a new boss, a new partner, a new car, a new phone. Some patterns can be learnt when it is your choice to change the pattern. This is the key. If you WANT to change your pattern then you can successfully learn the new pattern. So if you feel that you are not LIKING a change, it is because your mind feels threatened by the unknown and rejection is a survival instinct. Many people would do anything to NOT change the pattern. They will protest, they will start a war, they will kill. Some others will just go with the flow but will never be truly comfortable.
So what is the best way to approach this. Take stock of your abilities. Try to identify the patterns that serve you well. The chances are that your current job is a reflect of the good patterns you have. You can tweak them and improve on them to be more effective. There maybe a set of new patterns that you will need to improve yourself and your relationships. Listen to them and analyse. The best is to see what others say and do in your presence. Are they comfortable with you or do they avoid you? There may be trust issues. Uncovering some of these patterns can be a tedious exercise. First work on the patterns that are important. If you are not making enough sales there may be patterns that are not helping you to sell. For this you can watch a good salesman in action and try and mimic him. This can be difficult. The best is to ask someone to critique your work and styles. The best athletes do this constantly. Their body movements are analysed to find out the slightest weak point and its corrected by erasing the unproductive pattern. Most athletes develop injuries due to bad patterns. We can use the same technique for ourselves.
Why should we change a pattern? We don't really need to if you want to be like this for the rest of your life. Some patterns may still work for you in the long run. However, the world around you is constantly changing. You need to adapt to the changes in your environment. Many people are developing better patterns. Kids today are developing better patterns as they can learn a lot more by watching others and there is a lot of information out there. Younger people have more opportunities where they show better suited patterns. So you need to change the patterns that matter. The best thing is to develop a pattern that evaluates every one of your important patterns and innovates on them!! Did you get my point? Changing your patterns should be a pattern itself that you constantly engage in.
Kids are very good at changing patterns when they play. They like to experiment. We don't like this. If a child eats chocolate sauce with pizza, we would shout at him and tell him that its not an accepted practice. Why do we believe that its bad to have pizza with chocolate sauce? It is not a pattern that we are familiar with. However, it may be a healthier pattern than smoking or alcohol. Discouraging a child from being creative in this manner fits him into a stereotype that we are comfortable with. This sometimes kills the child's creativity. We love to create patterns that we like. When we don't like patterns that others have we even resort to wage war on them and force them into our patterns which are more "Civilised". Einstein was a child that had different patterns. He was kicked out of school for not conforming to the patterns the school was familiar with. In the x men movie, Dr. Xavier runs a school for the gifted children and trains them to use their powers effectively. Imagine how many children we may have "killed" by trying to get them to conform to our patterns? We may have lost geniuses, entrepreneurs, inventors, actors. Christopher Nolan was allowed to use his dad's video cam at the age of 9 to create films with his toy soldiers. What if his dad didn't let him play with this expensive toy? Look at his career and see how many movies of his have brought in millions of dollars. Luckily for Einstein, he still was able to continue on his amazing journey.
I hope by now you are convinced enough to start looking at the patterns that you have. If you reject what I say here, that is an important message to you. You have at least one destructive pattern that is not letting you learn something new! Some patterns such as negative thinking can be even more destructive when the law of attraction comes into action as you will attract everything to you by your thoughts. In my mind, the pattern is one of the most important concepts to learn and try and understand. It is a must for trainers to know and most of the best trainers know about patterns. They may know it as a different concept. NLP is a effective method to break old destructive patterns. Concepts such as anchors effectively help you remove patterns that are impeding your growth.
Small note: Most books on success focus on helping you realise that you need to change your patterns. However, most books don't tell you about patterns directly. So I hope I have given you a starting point. You can read Seven Habits of Highly Effective people or 17 Principles of success or any other book on self improvement, but the fundamental concept is trying to identify and modify your patterns and keep improving them on a continuous basis. The change you want in your life can only be brought about by removing destructive patterns and institutionalising new ones.
