Knowing yourself · Lesson 3 of 5

Your patterns and triggers

You repeat certain reactions in certain situations. Spotting the pattern is the first step to choosing something different.

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Each of us has patterns: situations that reliably bring out the same reaction. Criticism might make you defensive. Deadlines might make you freeze or rush. Certain people might make you quiet or loud. These patterns often started for good reasons, long ago, and have simply continued.

A trigger is the moment that sets the pattern off, such as a tone of voice, a type of request, being ignored, feeling rushed or tiredness late at night. Once you know your triggers, you can often see a pattern starting before it takes over.

A useful exercise is to look back at the last few times you reacted in a way you did not like. What was happening just before? Where were you, who were you with, how tired or hungry were you? Patterns tend to appear when you look at several moments together.

See it happen

Gabriel keeps snapping at his partner in the evenings, then apologising. Each time it feels like a separate argument about a different thing.

The first reaction

The arguments are about different topics, so it seems each one should be solved on its own terms as it comes up.

With the idea

He looks at the last five arguments together and notices all happened after 9pm, when he had not eaten since lunch and had worked late. He starts eating earlier and saying "can we talk about this tomorrow?" after nine.

What changed

He looked at several moments together and found the shared trigger.

Easy to take the wrong way

Knowing your pattern is not an excuse for it ("that is just how I am"). It is the information you need to start choosing a different response.