Types of Patterns

In The IMPACT Model, a pattern is anything that regularly shows up in your life and either helps you thrive and survive or undermines it.

We tend to associate patterns with repeated behaviours or routines, but they are much broader than this. You can repeatedly think in a particular way, focus your attention on particular things, experience familiar emotions, hold particular beliefs or relate to people and situations in recognisable ways. All of these are patterns.

Patterns matter in retirement because leaving work changes the circumstances in which many of them developed. Some will continue to serve you extremely well. Others may continue automatically even though the working life in which they were useful has ended. Retirement can also create new patterns as you adapt to changes in your identity, relationships, lifestyle, use of time and sense of purpose.

Understanding your patterns, therefore, helps you recognise what repeatedly happens in your retirement, rather than viewing individual thoughts, behaviours, feelings, and relationships (to people, places, and 'stuff') or experiences as isolated events.

To bring the idea of patterns to life, I want to introduce you to The Cliff Edge, a story that illustrates how unhelpful patterns can repeatedly take us somewhere we don’t want to go.

The Cliff Edge

You find yourself in an unfamiliar place. Although you try to get your bearings, the dense fog surrounding you makes this impossible. So thick is the fog, in fact, that when you put your hand up to your face, you can’t see it. You stumble along when, all of a sudden, the ground disappears from beneath your feet, and you fall into nothingness. Seconds pass, and still, you are dropping—you assume from a great height. Thump! You hit the ground. Coming to, you are bumped and bruised, but it appears no real damage is done.

Lying flat on the ground, you look up and reflect on what just happened. You decide not to give yourself a hard time because you had never been to that place before, and the fog made it doubly difficult, one of those unfortunate incidents.

The following day, you are back in the same place, although you don’t know this yet. Today it is clear and sunny, and you can see for miles in every direction. Although this place looks unfamiliar—you don’t recognise any part of the landscape—you have a gut feeling that you have been here before. Walking for a short while, you notice something up ahead. As you get closer, what you see is a cliff edge! The penny drops, and your gut instinct makes sense. “Ah!” you exclaim. This is where you were yesterday when the ground disappeared beneath your feet.

A few seconds later, you hit the ground with a thump. It takes you a while to figure out what happened, but only one conclusion presents itself: you went over the cliff edge again. This time, your reflections are altogether different. While you can understand why you went over yesterday, it does not make sense at all today. After all, you saw the cliff edge before you got to it and yet, for reasons best known to yourself, over you went. The bumps and bruises are more severe this time, and yesterday’s forgiving tone has been replaced by something far more critical. In fact, you give yourself a hard time.

Next day, and you are back. There is something very seductive about this place, something that is drawing you back. You know exactly where you are, of course. Up ahead is the cliff edge. Suddenly, your brain registers that your right foot is no longer in contact with the ground. Adrenaline rushes through your body, and you throw yourself backwards, landing with much less of a thump a metre or so away from the cliff edge. “Phew! That was close,” you say.

The awareness of what you have just prevented begins to register with you. “If I am to return to this place, and I accept that I must, I can’t keep going over that cliff edge.” You give it another glance and shake your head. Getting to your feet, your gaze takes in the panorama of the landscape—a beautiful landscape. A question comes to mind. If I am not going over the cliff, then where am I going?

Your gaze sweeps the landscape again and settles on a spot not too far away. An intense feeling, more intense than the one that kept bringing you back to the cliff edge, connects itself to the spot not too far away. It is a feeling of hope and potential.

“I’m going over there,” you say to yourself. Mentally, you trace a path from where you are now to where you want to be. A few seconds later, you are on that path. The cliff edge still exerts its influence, and you feel its pull at times, but like a fraying rope at breaking point, it becomes a weak tether. The further down the path you travel, the stronger the pull of ‘over there’ becomes. And then it dawns on you in a moment of true liberation that you will never go over that cliff edge again.

Animation to go here

A helpful pattern enhances your ability to thrive and survive. In my Cliff Edge story and animation, these are the patterns that help you move away from the Cliff Edge and towards your Over There place. In retirement, this might include maintaining relationships that matter to you, staying physically active, making time for interests you enjoy, responding constructively to difficult emotions, or staying curious about new possibilities. Each helpful pattern contributes, in its own way, to moving you towards the retirement you want.

An unhelpful pattern undermines your ability to thrive and survive. In the Cliff Edge story and animation, these are the patterns that keep you close to the Cliff Edge or take you over it, rather than moving you towards your Over There place. In retirement, you might repeatedly withdraw from other people when you feel uncertain, fill every available hour because being unoccupied feels uncomfortable, become preoccupied with your finances despite being financially secure, or dismiss opportunities because they take you outside what feels familiar. Each may seem relatively insignificant on its own, but repeated over time, these patterns can make it increasingly difficult to move towards the retirement you want.

Importantly, an unhelpful pattern does not necessarily begin for an unhelpful reason. It may have developed to protect you, help you cope, give you control or meet an important need. The difficulty comes when the pattern continues to operate after it has stopped serving your interests.

This is particularly relevant in retirement. A pattern that contributed to your success during working life, such as constantly staying busy, taking responsibility, solving problems yourself or putting work before other areas of life, may produce very different results once the circumstances around you change.

The aim, therefore, is not to label everything you do as good or bad, right or wrong. Rather, it is to become curious about your patterns and begin recognising which are helping you thrive in retirement and which are undermining your ability to do so.

Patterns can appear across practically every aspect of your retirement. The following types will help you begin recognising where yours might be operating.

Attention: where, who and what gets your attention? Consider where your attention goes. Is it directed towards what you have lost, what you have gained, problems that need solving, other people's needs, your own needs or possibilities for what comes next? Where you repeatedly direct your attention influences what you notice and what receives less of it.

Thinking:  what do you think about, and how do you think? Notice the subjects you repeatedly think about and your typical thinking style. You might spend time reflecting constructively, planning and imagining possibilities, or repeatedly revisiting decisions, anticipating problems, or comparing retirement with your working life.

Believing: what do you believe about yourself, retirement and the world around you? Beliefs can influence what you consider possible. You may believe retirement is an opportunity to develop another part of yourself, or that your best years are behind you; that you remain capable of learning and changing, or that you are now too old to do either.

Behaving: what do you repeatedly do? Consider your actions, behaviours and routines. How do you start your day? What do you do with your time? How do you respond to difficulties? Retirement removes some of the routines previously provided by work, making the ones you establish for yourself increasingly important.

Feeling: what emotions regularly feature in your retirement? Notice the emotional patterns that recur. You may regularly experience contentment, excitement or curiosity, or find yourself returning to frustration, anxiety, boredom or low mood. As you discovered during MEANING, these emotions can provide valuable messages about your experience of retirement.

Relating: how do you relate to people, places and ‘stuff’? Consider the patterns in your relationships with your partner, family, friends, and wider social world, as well as your relationship with your home, possessions, and the places where you spend your time. Retirement can alter existing relationships and create opportunities to develop new ones.

Time: how do you use and manage your time? Work once accounted for a substantial part of your week. Retirement gives much of that time back to you. Notice whether you fill it, protect it, waste it, enjoy it, organise it or struggle with it, and whether the way you use your time supports the retirement you want.

Physical: what patterns can you recognise in how you use and experience your body? Consider your posture, movement and physical expression, as well as patterns of activity and inactivity. Retirement may change how much you move, where you spend your time and how physically engaged you are with everyday life.

Transformation: how do you approach your continuing development? Retirement does not mean that your academic, personal or professional development has finished. Consider how you respond to learning, challenge and change. Do you continue developing existing abilities, explore new ones and allow yourself to change, or have patterns emerged that make development less likely?

None of these types operates entirely in isolation. A pattern of thinking can influence how you feel; how you feel can affect what you do; what you do can affect your relationships; and all of these can influence where you direct your attention next. Becoming familiar with the different types helps you see more clearly how patterns operate across your retirement.

David retired eighteen months ago after more than thirty years in senior management. He had looked forward to retirement, and he and his wife were financially secure. He imagined having more time for golf, travelling, seeing friends and finally getting around to the jobs he had been putting off at home.

Within weeks of retiring, David had created a long list of things that needed doing. He reorganised the garage, redecorated two rooms, took responsibility for managing the household finances and began helping his daughter with childcare twice a week. When a friend asked whether he was enjoying retirement, David laughed and said he was busier than he had been at work.

At first, he liked this. Being busy gave his days structure and the satisfaction of getting things done. These were familiar feelings. During his career, David had been known as someone who took responsibility, solved problems and could always be relied upon. If something needed doing, his instinct was to deal with it. Gradually, however, some of the same patterns began producing different results.

David found it difficult to sit down during the day without thinking he should be doing something useful. If his diary looked empty, he would find a job to fill it. He started noticing things around the house that needed fixing and became irritated when other people didn't seem equally concerned. His attention increasingly turned to problems, tasks, and responsibilities.

He also began turning down invitations without an obvious purpose. His wife suggested joining a local walking group, but David dismissed the idea. He could walk perfectly well by himself. When an old colleague mentioned an evening photography course, David briefly considered it before deciding there was little point starting something he would probably never be particularly good at.

Yet not everything about David's retirement was taking him towards his Cliff Edge. He continued playing golf every Thursday with three friends and noticed that he almost always felt better afterwards. He and his wife had started looking after their grandson one day a week, something David genuinely enjoyed. He had also begun cooking on Friday evenings, initially because he saw it as another job he could take responsibility for, but increasingly because he enjoyed learning new recipes.

When David began looking at his retirement in terms of patterns rather than individual events, he noticed something important. His problem was not simply that he was "too busy". Several patterns were operating together.

His attention repeatedly went to what needed doing. His thinking quickly converted free time into a problem to solve. He believed that time should be used productively and that being useful was an important part of who he was. His behaviour followed: he created jobs and filled his diary. When he stopped, he frequently felt restless or guilty. His pattern of relating meant he readily took responsibility for other people's problems, while his use of time left relatively little room for activities without an obvious purpose.

Some of these patterns had served David extremely well during his career. They had helped him become dependable, organised and successful. Retirement had not suddenly made them bad patterns. The circumstances they operated in had changed.

David could also see patterns taking him towards his Over There. Golf maintained friendships and got him out of the house. Looking after his grandson strengthened an important relationship. Cooking gave him something new to learn. These patterns were already helping him build parts of a retirement he enjoyed.

David's question therefore changed. Rather than asking, "Why can't I relax?", he began asking: 'Which of my patterns are helping me create the retirement I want, and which keep taking me back towards my Cliff Edge?'

Janet was 68 and had been retired for just over three years when we met. She had worked as a teaching assistant in the same primary school for more than 20 years and had been widowed several years before retiring.

Unlike some of the retirees I work with, Janet had enjoyed retirement almost immediately. She joined a walking group, spent more time gardening and reconnected with friends she had struggled to see while working. She also had two adult children and four grandchildren living nearby and loved being more available to them.

‘For the first year, I thought I’d cracked retirement,’ she told me. ‘I couldn't understand what everyone was worried about.’

By the time we met, however, things looked rather different. Janet collected two of her grandchildren from school three afternoons a week. She regularly looked after another grandchild when childcare arrangements fell through. She did shopping for an elderly neighbour, volunteered twice a week at a charity shop and had become the person several friends contacted if they needed a lift to an appointment or help with something.

None of these things was a problem in isolation. In fact, Janet enjoyed nearly all of them. The difficulty was the pattern they had created.

‘I can't remember the last time somebody asked me to do something and I said no.’

‘Why don't you?’

‘I suppose I like being useful.’

‘And what happens if you're not?’

Janet was quiet for a while. ‘I don't know. That's a horrible question.’

We began looking at what happened whenever somebody asked her for something. She rarely considered whether she wanted to do it, whether she already had plans or even whether she was tired. Her first response was almost always yes. Only afterwards did she think about the consequences.

Those consequences were becoming increasingly obvious. She had stopped attending her walking group regularly because someone invariably needed her that day. She had abandoned an evening class after missing several sessions. Her garden, once one of her favourite places, had become another job she struggled to find time for. More surprisingly, Janet was becoming irritated with the very people she kept agreeing to help.

‘My daughter phoned yesterday and asked whether I could have the kids on Friday. I said yes and then spent half the morning being angry with her.’

‘Did she know you were angry?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Did she know you didn't want to do it?’

‘No.’

‘What did she know?’

‘That I'd said yes.’

There was the pattern. Janet had spent much of her adult life being dependable. As a mother, wife and teaching assistant, noticing what other people needed and responding to it had been enormously valuable. It was one of the qualities she liked most about herself.

Retirement had not created this pattern. It had changed the circumstances around it. Without work occupying six or seven hours of her day, Janet had become much more available. Other people noticed that availability and, quite reasonably, asked whether she could help. Janet interpreted having the time as meaning she should help.

A helpful pattern, such as caring for people, being dependable and enjoying being useful, was beginning to have unhelpful consequences. When we looked for exceptions, however, Janet discovered something interesting. Every Wednesday morning she attended a gardening group. She had told her family from the beginning that Wednesday mornings were ‘hers’, and nobody asked her to give them up.

‘So you can protect your time?’

‘Apparently.’

‘And what happens to everybody else on Wednesday mornings?’

She laughed. ‘They survive.’

That small exception gave us useful information. Janet did not need to become less caring or stop helping her family. Nor did she need to transform herself into someone who found saying no easy. She needed to understand the pattern well enough to recognise when being helpful stopped helping her.

Her retirement Cliff Edge was not looking after her grandchildren, volunteering or helping her neighbour. It was repeatedly saying yes without first asking herself whether she wanted, needed or was able to. Her Over There place looked different. Janet still saw herself as generous and dependable, but she began protecting parts of her week before offering the remaining time to other people. She returned to her walking group, enrolled on another evening course and kept Wednesday mornings firmly in the diary.

A few months later, she described the difference to me.

‘I thought saying no would make me selfish. It turns out saying yes to everything was making me resentful. I'm probably nicer to everyone now that I'm doing less for them.’

Janet's experience demonstrates something important about patterns. A pattern does not have to begin badly to become unhelpful. Some patterns that cause difficulties in retirement developed because they worked extremely well earlier in life. If the circumstances change while the pattern remains the same, however, the outcome can change too.

Understanding the pattern allowed Janet to keep what was valuable while changing what no longer worked.

David and Janet's cases show why identifying patterns involves looking beyond individual thoughts or behaviours, for example. What we repeatedly pay attention to, think, believe, do, and feel; how we relate to others; how we use our time; how we engage physically with life; and how we keep developing can all become part of a pattern.

The purpose of this activity is not yet to change or interrupt your patterns. You will do more of that work later. For now, your task is to become curious about what repeatedly shows up in your retirement and where those patterns seem to be taking you.

Think about your retirement as it is now, rather than how you think it should be. Then consider the following questions, recording your observations and insights on the following slide.

1. What repeatedly features in your retirement?

Look across the different types of patterns introduced in this session:

• Attention: Where, who or what repeatedly gets your attention?
• Thinking: What do you repeatedly think about, and how do you tend to think about it?
• Believing: What beliefs about yourself, retirement or life repeatedly influence you?
• Behaving: What actions, routines or responses keep recurring?
• Feeling: Which emotions regularly feature?
• Relating: What patterns can you recognise in how you relate to people, places and stuff?
• Time: What do you repeatedly do with your time?
• Physical: What patterns can you recognise in how you use and experience your body?
• Transformation: What patterns can you see in how you approach learning, challenge, change and your continuing development?

You do not need to identify something in every category. Record the patterns that stand out to you.

2. Where did these patterns come from?

Look at the patterns you have identified and ask:

Which were already part of my life before I retired?

Which appear to have developed since I retired?

For patterns carried over from your working life, consider what they previously did for you. Did they help you succeed, cope, stay safe, feel useful, maintain control, fulfil responsibilities or meet an important need?

Remember: a pattern can have been extremely helpful in one set of circumstances and become less helpful when those circumstances change.

3. Which patterns are taking you towards Over There?

Identify the patterns that help you thrive and survive in retirement.

Ask yourself:

What repeatedly happens in my life that helps me become who I want to be, do what I want to do and live the retirement I want to live?

Include patterns that you would like to protect, strengthen or do more of.

4. Which patterns are keeping you close to your Cliff Edge?

Now identify patterns that may be undermining your ability to thrive and survive.

Ask yourself:

What do I repeatedly think, believe, feel or do, or where do I repeatedly direct my attention, that takes me somewhere I don't want to go?

Also consider your patterns of relating, time, physical activity and continuing development.

Avoid judging yourself for what you find. At this stage, recognising that something is a pattern is more important than knowing what to do about it.

5. What are you beginning to notice?

Step back and look at everything you have written.

Do any of your patterns connect with one another?

For example, does where you direct your attention influence how you think? Does a belief influence how you use your time? Does an emotion lead to a familiar behaviour? Does that behaviour then reinforce the original thought or feeling?

Finally, complete these three sentences:

One helpful pattern I want to understand and develop further is...

One unhelpful pattern I want to understand better is...

Something I hadn't previously recognised as a pattern is . . .