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Types of Patterns
Types of Patterns
Once you can name a pattern, you can start reshaping it.
Types of Patterns
Welcome to the next step in the Patterns stage. You’ve already explored the Cliff Edge, where you can see old habits keeping you from moving forward.
”Now, we’ll take a closer look at what those habits actually are — the patterns that shape how you think, feel, and act. Once you can name a pattern, you can start reshaping it.”
patternSession Objectives
Session Objectives – Types of Patterns
This session explores the different types of patterns that shape your retirement — how you think, behave, feel, and relate to others and to yourself. Recognising these patterns is the first step towards understanding how they influence your daily experience and where change might be needed. By the end of this session, you will be able to:
Examples of Helpful and Unhelpful Patterns
Patterns appear in many areas of life. They can be internal — shaped by your thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and physical responses — or external, reflected in your actions, relationships, routines, and surroundings. Most patterns combine both, adapting to the context you’re in.
Attention
- arrow_rightHelpful (Over There Place): Staying focused on what matters most day to day.
- arrow_rightUnhelpful (Cliff Edge): Becoming preoccupied with minor worries or other people’s opinions.
Thinking
- arrow_rightHelpful (Over There Place): Reflecting before reacting; seeing setbacks as opportunities to learn.
- arrow_rightUnhelpful (Cliff Edge): Overthinking decisions or replaying the past.
Believing
- arrow_rightHelpful (Over There Place): Trusting that growth and fulfilment are still possible after retirement.
- arrow_rightUnhelpful (Cliff Edge): Believing it’s too late to change or start something new.
Behaving
- arrow_rightHelpful (Over There Place): Taking small, consistent actions; maintaining structure and balance.
- arrow_rightUnhelpful (Cliff Edge): Procrastination, avoidance, or overplanning instead of acting.
Examples of Helpful and Unhelpful Patterns
Each type represents a recurring way of thinking, behaving, feeling, or relating that can either strengthen or undermine your retirement.
Feeling
- arrow_rightHelpful (Over There Place): Allowing emotions to guide your choices with calm and perspective.
- arrow_rightUnhelpful (Cliff Edge): Suppressing or ignoring emotions until they surface as stress or anxiety.
Relating
- arrow_rightHelpful (Over There Place): Building supportive, reciprocal relationships and setting healthy boundaries.
- arrow_rightUnhelpful (Cliff Edge): People-pleasing, avoiding conflict, or withdrawing from connection.
Time
- arrow_rightHelpful (Over There Place): Prioritising what brings meaning, rest, and enjoyment.
- arrow_rightUnhelpful (Cliff Edge): Overcommitting or filling every hour to avoid stillness.
Physical
- arrow_rightHelpful (Over There Place): Moving regularly and holding yourself with energy and confidence.
- arrow_rightUnhelpful (Cliff Edge): Physical tension, low energy, or inactivity reinforcing low mood.
Transformation
Helpful (Over There Place): Staying curious, learning new skills, and welcoming growth.
Unhelpful (Cliff Edge): Resisting change, clinging to routine, or fearing the unknown.
Each pattern type offers valuable clues about how you live and respond to retirement. Recognising them, both internally and externally, is the first step toward strengthening what helps and replacing what holds you back.
Doing, Causing, or Occurring Patterns
Another way to understand patterns is by looking at whether they are doing, causing, or occurring ones. This helps you understand the extent of your influence and awareness over the patterns that shape your life in retirement.
Doing and Causing Patterns — anything you do or cause that is either helpful or unhelpful. These patterns involve actions or reactions you recognise, even if you don’t yet understand why they happen.
Occurring Patterns — anything that happens to you, experiences or outcomes that seem to occur without your awareness or direct involvement. These can feel puzzling or automatic, as if they’re beyond your control.
Levels of Awareness — you may know you do or cause a pattern and know why; know you do or cause it but not understand why; notice that something keeps occurring without realising your role in it; or be entirely unaware of the pattern altogether.
Peter’s Story — Peter’s pattern was occurring: his obsession with savings and investments became his refuge after leaving work. It gave him control but left him isolated. Only when a friend confronted him did he realise how unaware he’d become of the emotional need driving this behaviour — the loss of structure and identity that work had provided.
Developing awareness of whether your patterns are doing, causing, or occurring gives you clarity. If you understand what you do and why, you can interrupt or replace unhelpful patterns and strengthen or repeat the helpful ones. Again, make a mental note of what you connect with.
Past, Present, and Future Patterns
A third way to understand your patterns is through their connection to the past, present, and future. Although your awareness of patterns happens in the present, it’s useful to explore where they originated and where they’re leading.
Past Patterns — patterns shaped by earlier experiences, beliefs, or roles that continue to influence you. Some are worth bringing forward; others may need to be left behind.
Present Patterns — the patterns currently shaping your daily life, such as routines, habits, and emotional responses. Some are working well and need reinforcing, while others are no longer helpful and require change.
Future Patterns — emerging tendencies and intentions that will define how you grow and adapt over time. Becoming aware of them early helps you nurture what supports your wellbeing and interrupt what could cause problems later.
Peter’s Story — in Peter’s case, his financial obsession wasn’t really about the present moment, but was driven by future fears and anxiety about a life without work at its centre. Recognising this allowed him to see that his pattern was future-focused and could be addressed by building a sense of purpose in the present.
Understanding whether your patterns belong to the past, present, or future helps you locate the real source of difficulty. It prevents you from “looking in the wrong place” and gives you the insight needed to replace unhelpful patterns with those that create balance and fulfilment in retirement. Don’t forget to note down your thoughts about these types, too.
How Can I Tell if My Patterns Are Helpful or Unhelpful?
Your Emotional Self is Your Fail-Safe Guide
Your Emotional Self is deeply invested in your patterns because they directly affect your ability to thrive and survive in retirement. It approves of patterns that support your well-being and strongly objects to those that don’t.
Unhelpful patterns are accompanied by emotional messages such as stress, anxiety, frustration, depression, or anger. Helpful patterns produce feelings of calm, satisfaction, energy, and balance.
What Your Emotional Self Needs You to Understand
Your Emotional Self needs you to understand: that your patterns exist in the first place; what their type is; whether they are helpful or unhelpful; and what you will do to ensure they support your thriving and surviving.
Listening to the Messages
Listening to these emotional messages allows you to identify where your attention is most needed — and which patterns to strengthen, interrupt, or replace in order to move closer to your Over There place.
Completed Example
Anne
Anne’s Cliff Edge Activity – Completed Example
PLACEHOLDER — Add Anne’s case study from the book here.
The Cliff Edge Activity
Introducing The Cliff Edge Activity
Before starting, take a moment to reflect on Anne’s completed example. Notice how she identified her patterns and the small, practical steps that helped her move from her Cliff Edge behaviours to her Over There ones. Then, complete your own version.
Complete it more than once, leaving time in between — awareness develops gradually. Revisit your Meaning Map to remind yourself which areas of life are most influenced by your patterns.
Do the activity alone first, then, if possible, share it with someone you trust — such as a partner, friend, coach, or therapist. Remember that you cannot afford to keep repeating unhelpful patterns or neglect helpful ones.
Appreciate your findings, whatever they are. At this stage, it’s not about how often you go over your Cliff Edges, only that you notice when you do. Becoming aware of your Cliff Edges is the first step in changing direction and building the patterns that support your best life in retirement.
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Cliff Edge Activity
copy and paste from book
Awareness is your turning point. Each time you notice a pattern and choose what to do with it, you strengthen your ability to build the retirement you want.
What Did You Discover? – The Cliff Edge Activity
Now that you’ve completed the Cliff Edge Activity, take a few moments to reflect on what you’ve learned about your patterns. If you get stuck or feel unsure, refer back to Anne’s completed version.
Your Starting Point Depending on how aware you already were of your patterns, your discoveries may have confirmed what you suspected or revealed something new. You may have found yourself going over more Cliff Edges than you realised, or you may have discovered that your Over There Place is closer than you thought.
Cliff Edge Patterns Which patterns keep leading you toward your Cliff Edges?
Triggers What triggers them — negative self-talk, other people, or certain situations?
Over There Patterns Which helpful patterns take you down the path to your Over There place?
Surprises What surprised you most about what you discovered?
Making a Difference What difference might it make now that you can see these patterns clearly?
Each time you notice them, pause, and choose differently, you move closer to becoming a permanent resident of Over There place.
Like Anne, You’ve Reached the Point Where Awareness Becomes Action
Like Anne, you’ve reached the point where awareness becomes action. Through the Cliff Edge Activity, you’ve started to see your patterns more clearly, recognising the moments when you move toward your Cliff Edges and the choices that take you Over There.
Anne’s example demonstrated how insights lead to meaningful change. By mapping her patterns honestly, she began to understand why she repeated certain ones and what it would take to step away from them. You’ve now started the same process.
This stage takes courage. It means facing patterns that once protected you but now hold you back. However, each time you notice them, pause, and choose differently, you move closer to becoming a permanent resident of Over There place.
Progress depends on awareness. Keep noticing, keep adjusting.