Can You See the Pattern?

And how it could help your discernment.

Today’s post offers a peek at the kind of work I do with my 1:1 clients. Conversations are confidential and vary widely! But I thought I’d share a slice of a fictionalised consult because I’ve found that this particular way of thinking about our decision-making is universally helpful. If you’d like to read more about my work, you can do that here:

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“One of these things is not like the other…”

Are you old enough to be able to sing along to that line? When I was a child, there was a children’s television educational program called Sesame Street¹ that focused on teaching children letters and numbers, as well as things like kindness to strangers. There was one regular segment on pattern recognition. “One of these things is not like the other…” went the little ditty along with cartoons of three squares and one triangle, or three red circles and one white one. Children were meant to guess which of the things did not fit the pattern - a kind of practice, I guess, for standardized school tests that asked the same sorts of questions. 

But it turns out, pattern recognition is also useful for life.

Sometimes we tend to approach each big(ish) decision in our life as though it’s brand new, unrelated to anything else. And of course, sometimes it is. Maybe we’ve never owned our own home, or worked in a particular city, or tried a particular sport. In one sense, none of those things is like the others.

But actually, do you know what all of those decisions have in common? You, the decision-maker. The common element in the decision making pattern is not the object, but the subject.

It’s the same person - you - who decides whether and what home to buy; what city to work in; what sport to try. And while you might feel like choosing a new sport has nothing to do with buying a home, you might be surprised at what you can learn from yourself. 

If you look back to decisions that you’ve made, even seemingly unrelated decisions, you might begin to notice patterns in your decision-making processes. These patterns may be healthy (“I have a lot more peace when I talk things out with a friend!”) or unhealthy (“I am hugely motivated by wanting to please others”); but either way, knowledge of your patterns can serve your current decision.