The Pattern Running Your Life (It runs your whole show)

For the last 20 years, I have been a practitioner, observer and decoder of human behavioural patterns.

Patterns in our reactions.

Patterns that are universal

Patterns that are unique to certain personality types.

Patterns that are unique to specific individuals and most important of all…..

The Most Crucial Pattern – the one running the whole show….

Here it is straight down the barrel……..– become great at recognising and utilising the patterns associated specifically with how we react, respond and embrace uncertainty and you can fully live whatever version of life you want to lead.

As shared in previous articles, Naval Ravikant said that intelligence is having the ability to get what we want out of life. How do we create, expand and have this crucial ability?

The quality of our relationship with uncertainty determines how well we grow. Growth is a perpetual need, a requirement of life and good living.

We need to grow into our next version of ourselves. We either grow or we start dying – Ray Kroc said “we are green and growing or ripe and rotting.”

Become emotionally fit – become great at recognising and utilising the patterns associated specifically with how we react, respond and embrace uncertainty.  

If there is something in your life you don’t have that you want – whether that be deeper connections, healthier relationships, and abundance of energy or more giving and receiving of love in your life, then aspects of your identity will need to change.

In other words, the reason why anybody has gaps in their ability to get what they want out of life is because you aren’t the person who would be there – yet.

According to Dan Koe, “you aren’t where you want to be because you’re afraid to be there”. Sounds crazy right? If I want to be there, wherever ‘there’ is why would I be scared? Because most of us suffer from a silent addiction. An addiction to certainty.  

Ordinary certainty is more attractive to the ego than the unfamiliar unknown. Many people settle and never come back. Our spirit or soul is always looking for growth opportunities.  

Growth always requires an IDENTITY upgrade.

Your Core Behavioural Operating System

I want you to imagine something.

If you’re turning 56 this year, you’re becoming version 5.6.
If you’re turning 32, you’re becoming version 3.2

Every single year, you upgrade.

The question isn’t whether upgrades are happening. They are. The question is whether you’re participating consciously in them.

Have you noticed that what used to bother you 10 years ago doesn’t even register now?

That’s an upgrade.

Have you noticed the responsibilities you carry now that your 2010 self couldn’t handle?

That’s an upgrade.

Your psychological operating system is evolving whether you’re aware of it or not. Patterns are shifting. Perceptions are changing. Your capacity is expanding.

But if you want to accelerate that process, you must become a pattern recogniser.

Life Is What You Focus On

There’s a principle I often share:

Life is what we focus on.

If you tune your radio to 101 FM and it’s playing 80s music, that’s all you’ll hear. The talkback station, the classical station, the rock station all disappears from your experience. They still exist. You’re just not tuned into them.

Focus works the same way.

What you focus on expands.
What you stop focusing on fades from your experience.

And what determines your focus?
The questions you ask yourself.

If I ask you, “name all the green things in your purview right now?”  your mind immediately filters everything that is green. It will cease to notice, experience or even see all the blue items.

Questions are directional. They tune your attention.

So if you want to upgrade your operating system, ask better questions.

Questions That Accelerate Growth

As I approach my own next version of me, I’ve been sitting with questions like these:

• What aspects of me no longer serve this next version?
•  What aspects of me cannot survive this next upgrade?
•  What strengths do I want to bring forward?
•  What must I let go of to step fully into this next version?

These questions change focus. And changing focus changes behaviour.

One of my favourite examples of this comes from language itself.

Take the word anger.

If you look at the ancient linguistic roots of this word, it traces back to a term meaning constriction.

Constriction.

Now that’s interesting.

Because if anger is an expression of constriction, then instead of asking “Why am I so angry?” we might ask:

• Where do I feel constricted?
• What or who makes me feel squeezed?
• What boundary is being crossed?

Solve the constriction, and the anger loses its fuel.

In other words, recognising the pattern transforms what question needs to be asked.

Where I feel constricted? Is a question we can answer in comparison to why am I angry?

Patterns are the cause, the experience is the symptom. Wrong questions focus on symptom (anger) the right questions focus on the pattern (constriction).

That’s pattern recognition.

That’s upgrading consciously.

The Greatest Upgrade of All

There’s something deeper here.

In my view, the ultimate benefit of navigating uncertainty well, the ultimate expression of emotional fitness, is the ability to love unconditionally and to allow yourself to be loved unconditionally.

It’s not easy.

Even in small, everyday moments, we see how quickly we tighten, judge, defend or react. Yet each moment is an opportunity to notice the pattern and soften it.

Upgrades don’t just add new features. Sometimes they remove outdated programs.

Letting go of resentment.
 Releasing defensiveness.
 Dropping old sabotage patterns.

That’s an upgrade.

You Are Already Becoming

Here’s what I want you to sit with:

You are already upgrading.

Life is pushing you forward whether you resist it or embrace it.

The only real choice you have is whether you do it unconsciously over years… or consciously starting now.

So ask yourself:

• What version am I becoming?
• What patterns must end here?
• What qualities deserve to come forward?

Because intelligence, emotional fitness, growth — all of it — rests on your willingness to see the code that’s running your life.

Once you see the pattern, you can change it.

And that’s when the real upgrade begins.

Thank you for reading,

Love,
Joe.