Patterns and root-causes

Have you ever noticed similar behaviour patterns of different people?

By behaviour patterns I mean for example level of autonomy or independence, ability to ask for help, speaking up in the audience, etc. And sometimes we can be frustrated by someone’s behaviour or even our own reactions or patterns. Then, what can be done?

Well, clearly, we have no control on someone else’s behaviour, but we can control and change our own. I think for this what can help is understanding the root-cause of certain reactions, and if possible, working with the root-cause first.

Let’s take a situation from the previous post as an example: certain actions of other people are frustrating and cause a desire for feeling of being in control.

First step is to understand if we are happy with that reaction or feeling, if we are, then no problem and move on.

However, if we are not, then let’s explore. Second step – analyse the reaction pattern: what trigger brought it up; what is my behaviour; what do I find not helpful in this reaction; how more helpful pattern would look like. We can go deeper in psychological analysis and dig out where this reaction is coming from and why (maybe there was something in the childhood that brought it up) this may bring a deep root-cause understanding and make the recognition and change of the pattern easier.

The final step would be to connect the trigger and new pattern: recognize the trigger on time and consciously apply desired pattern or at least acknowledge that “now my reaction means X”. That would create the path to change.

And further down the line we can analyse those patterns in other people, and although we cannot change those, understanding of the root-cause can help with finding a better way of interaction.

What do you think?