How To Be Happy
And Get What You Want
Why is it that kids learn so fast? Better yet. Why is it so hard to teach an old dog new tricks? The reason is patterns.
When we are young everything is new and we don’t have associations of how to do things. We have not created default patterns we go to in order to deal with situations that present themselves. Because of this, we will try any which way to accomplish something. We’ll also go with the flow, accept instruction and continue trying different approaches until we accomplish what we set out to do.
As we get older we create patterns and default actions for everything. In general, this is a useful thing. We see a hot stove and use our default pattern of it being hot equals do not touch it. This saves us pain and the time associated with making a decision. It’s efficient. The only thing is that we create these patterns for everything and sometimes it causes us to do things or not do things that would expand our existence.
So the real patterns that limit us are the ones we assume make up reality but in fact are keeping us from doing things that would set in motion the events that would actualize our goals.
For example. What if your major goal was to lose some weight and you had a belief that bread was full of protein and had a pattern that feeling better included the pattern of eating. Well, when you felt bad about your weight, you would probably eat some bread because you think it’s a great high protein diet food. As long as we are on beliefs, who says that a high protein diet is beneficial to weight loss?
You can see our life is full of beliefs and patterns that we often don’t even think about but may be causing outcomes we don’t want in our lives. Maybe you’ve done your absolute best at something in your past and then had someone come up and totally belittle your results. Things like this set patterns that trying your hardest is linked to pain. Emotional pain that you want to avoid and so you never really fully apply yourself to things. Never applying yourself takes you to a place where you also never achieve your goals. The vicious cycle continues.
So what do you do about all this? You have to become aware of your actions. The patterns that you use and why you use them. Then, over time as you become aware of them, see if they benefit you and where you want to go. Then, associate more pleasure and less pain with the new productive pattern so that it becomes a part of your being.
You owe it to yourself to stop, slow down and notice the things you are doing. Patterns help in general life situations but it’s worth the time to run a check on them and see if any deep routed patterns are holding you back from the life you would really enjoy.
