How your behaviour patterns could be affecting your business

Today I'm sharing yet another lesson that I learned in 2020.

So this was a really big one that I realized from starting to work with my coach.

And it is this – all of the patterns that show up in my actions, in my business, my mindset, my default behaviours in my business, they are the exact same patterns that show up elsewhere in my life.

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How patterns in your life can affect your business

 

Business, money, relationships, health, all of these key areas of my life, I show up with very similar behaviours, they're all connected. And it's quite funny, because working with my coach I would often go to her with some kind of dilemma that had shown up in the relationship side of my life or in my health side of my life. And she would somehow be able to connect the dots and say, “See Steph, see how this is the exact same pattern that has you doing this in your business.”

So I'll give you an example. With health, quite often I will procrastinate exercising. I now belong to a gym that is just classes, so I can't just go in and work out whenever I feel like it. Which, it turns out, is a really good thing because if I only have one class I can attend that day, then I have to attend it. Whereas earlier in the year, when I was working from home, earlier in 2020 when I was working out from home, I would put off my workout, put off my workout and then eventually I'd get to the point of the day where I had no energy and I just wouldn't do it.

Funnily enough, this is exactly what I do with my work. If there's a task I don't really want to do, I'll put it off, put it off, put it off, I'll get to the point of the day where my brain's not working and I will just not do it. And the reason why I do both of these is fear. With the workout, I'm afraid of the discomfort of doing that workout. With work, with that task that I'm procrastinating, I'm afraid that I'm not going to do it right, or that it's going to be uncomfortable, boring, maybe I'm going to have to use my brain a bit too much. So I'll put it off, put it off, put it off.

 

Your brain loves predictability

So you can see how this behaviour pattern is connected? It's because your brain just loves predictability. Predictability feels safe to your brain and the number one way to create predictability is by doing the same thing over and over and over, repeating the same behaviours over and over, thinking those same thoughts which then lead to you creating those same outcomes.

Another example for me is breaking things when I get bored. I do this in my business quite a lot. I'll get bored with what I've created, so I'll burn it to the ground and start again. I've done that in past relationships as well. Running away and hiding from my problems, when things get tough I like to bury my head in the sand and I've done that in other areas of my life as well, trying to do more, more, more, more, more, trying to prove that I'm worthy of the success that I've created or in the relationship that I've created or whatever area of my life that it is. And these are my patterns. These are the behaviours that predictably lead me to exactly where I expect to be.

And it's taken a lot of work for me to notice these patterns. And it's been really uncomfortable, I've had a lot of resistance come up around accepting them, but noticing them and accepting them is the first step in changing them.

And while I still consistently have to work through the procrastination, I have to work through breaking things because I get bored, I have to work through the urge to bury my head in the sand. At least now I'm aware of them and I can start to notice when the thoughts come up so that I can try to shift that behaviour.

It is really a process, it's not something that's going to change overnight and I'm aware of it. But it's been such a big game-changer in my business and how I show up, not just in my business I suppose, in other areas of my life as well.

So hopefully this is been a valuable lesson for you. Hopefully, you can start to maybe notice some of those behaviours that aren't really serving you and that aren't creating the outcomes you want in your business. And you can look and see in what other areas of your life they might be showing up. And then thinking about how you can start to break those patterns.

 

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