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Pattern Builder: Unhelpful Patterns
Session Objectives
Session Objectives – Building and Replacing Patterns
This session helps you build a detailed picture of your patterns and understand how to replace old, unhelpful ones with new, helpful patterns that are stronger, clearer, and more emotionally persuasive.
Identify and describe your unhelpful and helpful patterns in detail
Recognise when and where your patterns occur, what triggers them, and what sustains them
Use the Pattern Builder questions to gather high-quality information about your patterns
Understand that old patterns persist because they once served a positive purpose
Learn that new, helpful patterns only take hold when they become more emotionally persuasive than the old ones they are intended to replace
Building and Replacing Patterns
Building and Replacing Patterns
Build a detailed picture of what fuels, triggers, and sustains your unhelpful patterns.
The Pattern Builder Activity – Unhelpful Patterns
This activity helps you build a detailed picture of your unhelpful patterns — the thoughts, behaviours, feelings, and ways of relating that keep you close to your Cliff Edges and hold back your progress in retirement.
Use what you discovered in your Cliff Edge Activity to help identify and describe your own unhelpful patterns. Be specific. Include when, where, and with whom your patterns occur. Notice what triggers them and what keeps them going. Identify times when they don’t occur — these are clues to what helps.
”First, take time to reflect on Rich’s case study. Notice how he used the questions to uncover when, where, and with whom his unhelpful patterns appeared and how he began to understand what triggered and sustained them. Then, complete the same nine questions for yourself.”
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Case Study
Rich
Rich’s Case Study
1. When, where, and with whom were you when your unhelpful patterns started?
”My fears began around the time of my 60th birthday. It’s a big one, right? I remember my party particularly — it was surreal, like a movie. Some of the guests were already retired, and others were approaching retirement, but until that day, I never felt connected to them, like a teenager feels about grown-ups. But that day, I saw myself in them, and that was scary.”
2. What significant person(s) are present or absent when your unhelpful patterns occur?
”It can be anyone — my business partners, because they’re retiring too; my wife, because she’s looking forward to our retirement; and my grandchildren, because they have their lives ahead of them, and retirement is a distant prospect. Lucky sods.”
3. How often do your unhelpful patterns occur, and how long do they last?
”I ruminate a lot about retirement. To be honest, I think about it most of the time.”
4. Where do your unhelpful patterns occur?
”That’s an easy one — anywhere. At work, home, in the car, you name it.”
Case Study
Rich
Rich’s Case Study
5. What are the steps involved in the generation of your unhelpful patterns?
”I accept there are times when I am not running my nightmare retirement patterns, so I suppose I must get triggered by something or someone. Once a thought lodges itself in my imagination, though, I can’t help but run with it.”
6. When do your unhelpful patterns not occur?
”Not occur?! When I am in a meeting, perhaps? On the golf course? Socialising with friends or family? There’s a clue there, isn’t there?“
7. What do you think other people know about your unhelpful patterns?
”My wife knows, as does my closest friend. I share everything with them, and that helps. My business partners know to an extent, but they are looking forward to selling up and getting on with their retirement, so I keep my thoughts to myself where they’re concerned.”
8. What are your beliefs about your unhelpful patterns?
”I definitely feel that everyone else has their retirement sorted except for me and that I should be in a better position.”
In answering these questions, Rich gathered valuable insight into his unhelpful patterns.
He discovered why he was fearful, understood the contexts in which his patterns appeared, and recognised that there were times when they didn’t dominate. This clarity set the stage for transforming his unhelpful patterns into helpful ones.
Consider what other people know or notice about your patterns. Reflect on what you believe about them — for example, “I can never change,” or “I should be coping better.”
Each question helps build a clearer understanding of your unhelpful patterns — what fuels them, where they appear, and why they persist. This knowledge sets the stage for the next step: replacing them with new, stronger, and more emotionally persuasive helpful patterns.
Over to you: Use examples from your Cliff Edge Activity and answer the same nine questions to build a detailed picture of your own unhelpful patterns.
It’s much easier to build helpful patterns in full knowledge of your unhelpful ones.
The Pattern Builder – Unhelpful Patterns
Now it’s your turn to answer the same nine questions Rich explored, using examples from your life, like Rich, to build a detailed picture of your own unhelpful patterns.
01 When, where, and with whom were you when your unhelpful patterns started?
02 What significant person(s) are present or absent when your unhelpful patterns occur?
03 How often do your unhelpful patterns occur, and how long do they last?
04 Where do your unhelpful patterns occur?
It’s much easier to build helpful patterns in full knowledge of your unhelpful ones.
The Pattern Builder – Unhelpful Patterns
Now it’s your turn to answer the same nine questions Rich explored, using examples from your life, like Rich, to build a detailed picture of your own unhelpful patterns.
05 What are the steps involved in the generation of your unhelpful patterns? Put another way, can you identify the stages where you go from not doing your unhelpful patterns to doing them?
06 When do your unhelpful patterns not occur?
07 What do you think other people know about your unhelpful patterns — e.g., managers and colleagues, family and friends?
08 What are your beliefs about your unhelpful patterns? For example, ‘I can never change them’ or ‘I am a failure’?
Each time you recognise what a pattern has cost you, you provide your mind/body system with new emotional evidence for change.
What Did You Discover?
Now that you’ve completed the first part of the Pattern Builder, take some time to reflect on what you’ve learned about your unhelpful patterns — the thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and relationships.
Knowledge How has the Pattern Builder changed what you knew, or didn’t know, about your patterns?
Confirmation or Revelation Did your answers confirm what you already suspected, or reveal something new?
When, Where & Why What do the detailed pictures you’ve built tell you about when, where, and why your unhelpful patterns appear?
Each time you recognise what a pattern has cost you, you provide your mind/body system with new emotional evidence for change.
What Did You Discover?
Now that you’ve completed the first part of the Pattern Builder, take some time to reflect on what you’ve learned about your unhelpful patterns — the thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and relationships.
The Cost What has or what could this unhelpful pattern cost you in retirement, and what might life look like without it?
Focus Where does your retirement focus now need to be when it comes to managing or replacing these patterns?
Emotional Persuasiveness Old patterns persist because they still carry emotional significance. Becoming aware of their personal cost begins to shift that balance, weakening their pull and strengthening your motivation to replace them.