#39 Are Old Patterns Keeping You From Your Goals?

Releasing Old Patterns to Empower Your Vision!

Welcome to The Calm Entrepreneur Podcast, where we explore transformative ideas to help you grow both personally and professionally. 

In today’s episode, we dive deep into the theme of "Releasing Old Patterns," inspired by Gate 44 of Human Design. We’ll look at how breaking free from unproductive habits and routines can open up new pathways to success and fulfillment.

This episode is part of my series called EMPOWER YOUR VISION!  

**Understanding Old Patterns:** Discover what patterns are, how they form, and why they’re crucial to address for anyone looking to make meaningful life changes.

**Common Negative Routines:** We discuss ten common negative routines and patterns that entrepreneurs face, such as procrastination, overcommitting, and neglecting self-care, and how these can impede both personal and business growth.

**Steps to Break Free:** Practical advice on how to identify your own patterns and start making changes. Simple strategies like setting small goals, seeking feedback, and prioritizing effectively can be foundational in transforming these patterns.

LINKS: 

Download my Goal-Setting eBook and get planning:
https://www.corinneoflynn.com/goals 

Check out my new BE*INWARD membership:
https://www.corinneoflynn.com/membership

Reach out and let me know what you thought of this episode:
https://www.instagram.com/corinneoflynn

Chapters

• 0:05 Identifying and Breaking Old Patterns
• 12:22 Empower Your Vision Through Pattern Identification

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome. Welcome to the Calm Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, corinne O'Flynn, and this week we're talking about making meaningful change in our lives. That's the energy theme for the next few weeks, and I'm calling it Empower your Vision, and I just love the energy of this. It makes me want to start making lists and getting things started, you know, because we're rolling into the end of Q2 and into the start of Q3 and there's nothing better than a new month to start thinking about, you know, the future and planning ahead. And but today I want to focus on the one thing that just might be the most important thing we need to do when we're thinking about chasing new dreams and empowering our vision, and that is releasing old patterns.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Old patterns are the bane of any new vision, and it's the reason why New Year's resolutions never stick. It's why many of us have a hard time sticking with a new workout schedule. It's why I can't stop putting sugar in my tea, right? Old patterns are what cause us to get stuck. We lose momentum and that's why we continue to repeat and retry, repeat and retry. Even then, we can't seem to get over the hump. But, you know, all is not lost, because we can look forward with hope because we have a plan. Right Awareness is the first step toward changing anything and you know, it's really important that we understand the impact of old patterns that we are lost in, that no longer serve us, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:44

So the first question is what are these patterns? And, of course, a pattern is a routine. You know, it's a habit that we fall into, often without thinking, and these can be physical things, like having coffee at eight o'clock in the morning every day, or, if you're like me, reaching for the sugar with one hand as I pour the water into my tea mug with the other hand. Or maybe they're emotional. Maybe it's like getting instantly frustrated because one of your kids leaves their shoes in the middle of the floor, or getting defensive when certain conversations activate you predictably. You know, recognizing the patterns that we have is crucial, because the way that we behave in response to these patterns can shape our decisions, it can impact our outcomes and often, with negative patterns, it can limit our potential right, and you know, negative patterns especially can keep us stuck. We can get stuck in a rut, both personally and professionally.

Speaker 1: 2:41

And so some patterns, some common patterns that need breaking oftentimes are procrastination, right, delaying tasks until the very last minute and that can lead to, you know, increased stress and reduced quality of work. You know, and as entrepreneurs, we often procrastinate on tasks that we find daunting or unpleasant, and you know I'm going to raise my hand on that one because that's definitely something that I am guilty of. Another one that I am familiar with is overcommitting. You know, saying yes to too many projects or commitments. You know this leads to overwhelm and this inability to focus effectively on any one single task, and that can cause missed deadlines and lots of missed opportunities, and that can cause missed deadlines and lots of missed opportunities.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Another one that I call my old friend is perfectionism. You know, spending a lot of time perfecting details. This is often done at the expense of progress and, while quality is important, excessive perfectionism can prevent completion. It can stall stuff right in its tracks, and you know nobody wants that.

Speaker 1: 3:48

Another habit is neglecting self-care. Right when we prioritize work at the expense of our health and wellness, this leads us to burnout and reduced productivity. You know, and we also, as entrepreneurs, we work long hours and we sacrifice sleep and exercise and proper nutrition. And you know that is also a byproduct of procrastination, overcommitting and perfectionism, because when we procrastinate or overcommit or we commit to perfectionism, we then will find ourselves running right up against deadlines, which, you know, the first thing that we drop is self care. So poor time management is another one. Failing to prioritize tasks effectively leads to inefficient work time right, and as entrepreneurs we can really struggle with that because we find a difficulty distinguishing between urgent and important tasks. And so, if you know, if everything is important and everything is urgent, then nothing is important and nothing is urgent. And so you know, managing our time properly is vital to our success. But poor time management can be a habit. It's often just a pattern that we're stuck in. And this other one I was surprised to see it on the list, but it was resistance to delegation being unable to hand tasks off to others, being unable to ask for help, either due to trust issues or belief that nobody can do it as well as we can. That hints on some perfectionism stuff too, but this can cause limitations in our business scalability and in our personal bandwidth, and again, that connects back to the lack of self-care.

Speaker 1: 5:33

The over-reliance on multitasking is an insidious pattern that I think that there's been a lot of talk over recent years. You know multitasking is actually a myth. It's not something that's actually happening, we're just juggling tasks in our brain and we've become really efficient at doing that effectively. Or you know what we think is effectively because we're seeing results. But the truth is that, you know, trying to handle more than one thing at a time causes us reduce our efficiency because it costs us focus and again, on its surface it feels it seems like it's efficient but it's not, and it leads to mistakes and less effectiveness, which then bites back in that need for perfectionism, because we're never going to get quality work if we continue to multitask and demand multitasking from our brain, which you know it's just not going to work.

Speaker 1: 6:31

So, avoidance of networking this is something that I think that COVID has exacerbated in the world, because we've really come to appreciate working from home and staying home and you know that whole pants optional thing where we're working remotely. But you know, if we avoid networking opportunities, you know we're going to miss out and that's a pattern. That is a habit that we can recognize and we can break. And if it is like it's not a pattern for everybody, this is a list of potential patterns. You know there are some things that we do that are not habits or patterns, but it's actually done, you know, thoughtfully and intentionally. And that's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is this avoidance of networking and this unwillingness to connect and undervaluing the power of networking, and, again, this can limit us in our business and also with finding clients and other peers in our sphere that can help us, you know, grow our business and grow our energy.

Speaker 1: 7:42

And, you know, one of the most valuable things that I have in my business is my mastermind group, and that is done through networking. And you know, if you're feeling a lack of that in your business today, maybe this is something that's a pattern for you that might, you know, demand some exploration. The next one I have on my list is ignoring customer feedback, and this is one of those things that it doesn't really feel like a pattern, but it is definitely a behavior, that, because we don't want to look at complaints, we don't want to look at our shortcomings, we don't want to look at the things where we dropped the ball. And, you know, failing to do that and mindfully avoiding it, like making it a pattern, you know, can prevent us from improving, it can prevent us from innovating, and I have so many examples of this in my business, where something happens and you get negative feedback from a client and you didn't even see it as a potential pitfall, but now it's like, oh, I don't ever want that to happen again. And so what you do, what I do in that situation is I build a new system, I change the steps in my protocol so that I make sure that, if it's because somebody felt like they fell through the cracks, I will make sure that I have an additional touch point for myself to remind myself to reach out more and connect. You know, connect more and be more mindful about the way that I'm interacting with people in my business.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Or it could be that, you know, a ball was dropped and you didn't even know. I remember years ago in my author business, I had spent all this time creating this email automation for this big promotion that I was doing. And I had this you know, go here to get the new, the first free chapters of my book, and you know you can download it for free and get it in there before anybody else. And I spent a week developing this email autoresponder and I launched my promotion and I had everything going. And you know guess who forgot to turn on the autoresponder and the feedback from from my readers was like, hey, something's wrong here. Oh my gosh, what's? I didn't get my thing. And it's like oh you know. But if my insistence was to, you know, ignore feedback from people, ignore the complaints, I would never have checked on that from people. Ignore the complaints, I would never have checked on that. And so you can bet that I now have a step by step process when I'm creating email sequences for new promotions, that testing that whole thing on myself is part of the deal. So we learn how to iterate, we learn how to innovate when we pay attention to the negatives that come through feedback in our business. And so if you find that that is something that you struggle with, you know that's a place for exploration.

Speaker 1: 10:39

And the last one is about your finances. You know financial mismanagement being unwilling or unable or afraid to really focus on the things that you need financially in your business can cost you enormously. And you know, as businesses are moving more and more online, we have all kinds of things that move beyond taxes. You know how do we manage cash flow? How do we manage our budget? How do we budget for expenses? How do we know if we're in the black and how do we scale our business responsibly? How do we make sure that we have money in the account that we need to have it in in order to pay all of our bills? You know, I know that this is one of those things that years ago, I struggled with and I avoided dealing with my finances at any cost. And you know, sitting down with an accountant and learning about something like Profit First, for example, I'm actually going to be attending a class on the Profit First accounting system because that's something that I want to do in my business, and I found out about an upcoming class through networking, through a friend. So, again, all of these different things that we might shy away from, we might have as patterns in our business, can cost us in ways that we don't even know, like we don't know what we don't know, and a lot of the things that we're fighting with are in our heads. So, you know, the things that we do, that are patterns, that are habits that are costing us, really do need to be cleared out of the way so that we can step forward and empower our vision right Again.

Speaker 1: 12:22

Bringing it back to the theme. The theme right now is empower your vision. So what can you do to empower your vision? And the first step is like where am I? Where am I holding myself back? Where am I putting up the roadblocks? So the first step is to become a detective, right? How do I identify and then break these patterns?

Speaker 1: 12:39

When you spot yourself in the midst of a pattern, stop and say, oh okay, what's going on here? Where does this feeling arise in my body? Did something happen that caused me to fall into this pattern? Notice, you know. Do you feel anxious? Do you feel distracted? Do you feel upset? You know, really, dig deep and ask what is what is really triggering this? Is this something that somebody said? Is this the actions of somebody else? Is it a particular time of day? Is it, you know, related to eating or not eating? Is it related to getting enough sleep? Is it maybe a specific type of task, you know, or maybe this thing is pulling on a deeper thread that is connecting to a limiting belief, and I have a story to share with you about that, you know. But once we identify the pattern, the way to break that pattern is to really start small and change one thing at a time and be really mindful and you know, for example, if procrastination is your pattern.

Speaker 1: 13:41

Try changing up the way that you handle deadlines Like maybe you set an earlier deadline or maybe you chunk your project into smaller segments instead of the one big task and hold yourself accountable. Find yourself an accountability buddy who can keep you on task, and just talking about your goals and the hurdles that you're facing with somebody else can really make a big difference. And I want to tell you about a time when I realized all the ways in which one of my habits was getting in the way of everything for me and that was kind of under the overcommitting tab. It was discovering that I was a people pleaser. And when I realized all the different ways in which being a people pleaser stole time and energy from me as somebody who always struggled with saying yes to every request, meaning I said yes to every request. You know that pattern ran really deep and it was old and it had really super strong roots, that you know it wasn't easy as just saying no more.

Speaker 1: 14:50

Right, I had to do this big deep dive, I had to do this big exploration and it didn't take long before I was like, okay, peeling back the onion. Peeling back the onion. What's underneath this? Why am I doing this? What is pushing me toward that? And it was fear, right, it was fear that I would disappoint other people. It was fear that if I didn't do this thing that they needed, they wouldn't like me. Or, before they could even ask me, it was me jumping in to do the thing so that I would be liked. Right, that was a big one for me and you know.

Speaker 1: 15:24

But the moment that I recognized it as a pattern, I started to understand where those triggers popped up and what those situations activated in me. And I started to pay attention to that stress and that anxiety and where it lived in my body. And I worked first to deactivate that stress response right, I worked to settle my nervous system. And then I found myself in this whole new world, right, this world where I could say no and it didn't mean that everybody was going to break up with me. And it was this whole new world, right, this world where I could say no and it didn't mean that everybody was going to break up with me. And it was this whole new world where I had more time and I had more energy to use in that time on the things that I wanted to work on right. So the outcome of identifying this pattern of people-pleasing caused a huge boost in my own self-confidence. It increased my own sense of self-worth, it allowed me to take pride in my ability to set and hold boundaries and there was a whole lot less stress in my everyday because I realized that this pattern was not just a time management problem. It wasn't because I had too much to do, it was because I was taking on things and I was taking on things for all the wrong reasons. So you know, I encourage you to do that kind of reflection.

Speaker 1: 16:41

When you come across a pattern in your life, you know, think about, you know what patterns in your life, in your business, in your day-to-day might be holding you back. And is there one thing that you could change that might make that pattern less powerful? Pick one thing that you've identified and adjust one action. If we're going to make changes, small, incremental change is so much more powerful and so much more sustainable over time. So when you identify a pattern, take one action, one action to correct it each day and see what happens. You know you might find yourself in a whole new world where you have more time and more energy and more joy. You know, just because you started to pay attention and really be truthful with yourself about the costs associated to sticking with this habit, sticking with this pattern. You know you can keep a journal, you could use a notes app or a habit tracker to track how you keep track of these things, you know, and also track your mood, see how you feel as you change through this habit and see how it feels in your body and, of course, see how it impacts your productivity, because the power here you know it, really it cannot be overstated.

Speaker 1: 18:04

So, yeah, that's what I wanted to talk to you about, because we are embarking on this whole new theme right now of empower your vision, and we talked about how breaking old patterns is the first step toward clearing the way to achieving your goals. Right, it's really crucial to be realistic and you know we have to be as realistic about ourselves as we are realistic about our goals. Our goals need to be achievable. They need to be, you know, something that we can get to, and the way that we know we can get to them is by being really honest and making sure that we identify and we become aware of those patterns where we are the ones that are being the roadblock. So, as you reflect on your patterns and look forward into empowering your vision, I have a tool for you if you're interested in getting moving on your goals.

Speaker 1: 19:07

As we close out Q2 and we move into Q3 for June, this is the perfect time to start really getting clear on what we want to achieve for June. This is the perfect time to start really getting clear on what we want to achieve for the second half of the year. You know we're out of all this energy of, of mercury, retrograde and and all this stagnation and all this heaviness and we can now move forward. You know and we can. We can make plans again and we can act.

Speaker 1: 19:29

So if you're looking to um get some help with your goals, I have a free workbook at corinoflynncom forward slash goals and I will put that link in the show notes for you. But I want to hear from you what points that I made in this episode resonated with you today and you know, what did you find most useful? And I would. I would love to hear if you start applying these insights. You know, share your stories with me, share your feedback with me. You can find me on Instagram, or you can find me through my website, or you can email me at hello at CorinneOFlynncom, which, again, I will add to the show notes. So thank you so much for listening and I hope to. I hope to catch up with you later. Bye.