Are the patterns that drive your behaviour helpful?

When coaching I'm often looking for patterns. Patterns that support clients, either individually or in teams, to achieve their goals, and/or patterns that set them back.

• Patterns may be fairly clear to see: watching tv, or on the pc, until after midnight every night and then struggling to get up in a morning, and not having as much energy as you'd like throughout the day.
• Patterns may be hidden: the tone and words used of the small voice within that repeatedly talks us out of action. 
• Patterns may be totally unconscious: only really observable over time when we realise we ALWAYS - give up too soon, back off from conflict, eat too much when stressed, play it safe, avoid the unknown and so on. 

No pattern is inherently good or bad. The clue is in the outcome that the pattern delivers. If it's not what you want then if you can understand the pattern that triggers the response you simply have to change the pattern. (OK perhaps not always simple but understanding the unresourceful pattern is certainly a major step towards success.)

That's what much of the work I do as a coach, facilitator, consultant and problem solver is about. Helping clients discover the patterns to release, and those to embrace, that will help them achieve their goals. 

Future blogs this month will look at the different tools and techniques I use to help identify patterns and release any unhelpful hold on our thoughts, feelings and actions. 

Alison Smith

Inspiring change inside and out

PS Patterns already explored his week include how we start a conversation, how the weather patterns we live with might impact our preferences. Tomorrow I'm going to consider how incomplete patterns can leave us consistently unable to move forward.