I make my living by identifying patterns. Whether it’s making sense of consumer needs, looking at what’s going on in the world of commerce to identify trends or opportunities, or helping a colleague get better at what they do, it all follows a similar logic: These are some things we’ve seen a few times. Here’s how they’re related. Here’s what it means. And here’s what you can do about it.
So it’s no surprise that I find patterns in other aspects in my life, too. I’ve been traveling like crazy for a few weeks. I kind of hate it. My natural instinct is to to see the pattern: I’m on a plane very frequently. My job requires lots of travel. I don’t like traveling this much, so I must not like my job. I should probably quit. That was last week.
Today’s ’pattern’ was different. At about 6 PM, right before dinner, both boys totally lost it, in different ways. So this was the pattern: My kids are making me crazy. I’m not handling it that well. I’m not a good mom. Maybe I should travel more often.
When you’re accustomed to looking for patterns, you find them everywhere. Even when what you’re seeing isn’t really a pattern, it’s just a coincidence of events. On the travel issue, yes, sometimes I travel too much for my job. But often I don’t. So which is the pattern and which is breaking the pattern? With my kids, sometimes they lose it and I don’t handle it very well. But most of the time we’re together, we have a great time. And most of the time we encounter problems, I get through them pretty well. So which is the pattern?
I’ve fallen into a pattern of seeing patterns. Sounds kinda silly, doesn’t it. When I’m working with clients, or with colleagues, I have folks to keep me honest. Knowing that I have an audience to prove my patterns to keeps me honest abotu when it really exists and when it doesn’t. With no clients at home (not a bad thing at all) I I need to work on reminding myself to be more rigorous in pattern identification. I don’t want to jump to the final conclusion, here’s what I should do about it, if it’s really an instance and not a pattern.
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