Why do I keep making the same mistakes?

You had told yourself that this time it would go differently.

Then that situation arrives.

The same tone. The same request. The same rush.

And you find yourself saying, once again:

“I fell for it again.”

Pause for a moment. Think about the last time it happened.

What did you tell yourself, right afterward?

Why does the same mistake come back, even when you know how to avoid it?

Knowing what to do and managing to do it at the moment it's needed are not the same thing.

When a familiar situation arrives, you often respond before you've even thought about it.

What you've already done many times comes into play.

In the book I describe the brain as a system that tends to save energy, using familiar patterns and responses already learned.

Mental shortcuts let you decide quickly, without having to analyze every situation from scratch.

It's a useful ability. But the most familiar response isn't always the most suitable one.

The known road can give you a sense of security. Even when it doesn't take you where you want to go.

How many times have you chosen what was familiar, instead of what you truly wanted?

How does a behavior become a mistake that keeps repeating?

Often, at the beginning, it wasn't a mistake.

It was a solution.

A behavior reduces discomfort.

You avoid a difficult conversation and, at least for the moment, the tension decreases.

You repeat it.

The next time you avoid that conversation again. And you find the same relief.

The response gets reinforced.

That relief makes it more likely that you'll use the same strategy again.

It becomes automatic.

When a similar situation comes up again, you might find yourself avoiding it before you've even considered other possibilities.

And yet something, in the meantime, might have changed.

The situation. The people. The consequences. Even what you want to achieve.

But the strategy has stayed the same.

You see the mistake that comes back, not the path that helped build it.

People see the effects. Few see the structure that generates them.

What did the behavior you now call a mistake give you, the first time?

Why, at some point, do you start thinking “that's just how I am”?

When a pattern repeats long enough, it can stop looking like something you do.

It starts looking like something you are.

“I always put things off” becomes “I'm disorganized.”

“I answered badly” becomes “I have a bad temper.”

It's a silent shift: from verb to label.

And a label can become a filter through which you interpret later experiences too.

Every time you put something off, you confirm that you're disorganized.

Every time you react badly, you confirm that you have a bad temper.

But what have you actually observed?

A behavior.

Not an identity.

What you've learned to do can be observed. And what you observe doesn't define you.

If you recognize yourself in a pattern that gets in your way just when it matters, the page on how to recognize self-sabotage may also be useful to you.

When did you start describing yourself with that word?

Why don't you notice it while you're doing it?

When you act, you know your intentions.

You know what you wanted to achieve, what reasons you had and what you were trying to do.

Those who observe you, on the other hand, mostly see what you do and the effect you produce.

You know your intentions. The other person experiences your behavior.

And there can be a difference between the two perspectives.

It's the blind spot: that part of your behavior and its impact that, from your perspective, can remain invisible.

The tone you use when you're tired.

The haste with which you interrupt someone.

The way you change the subject just as the other person is trying to explain themselves.

You might not notice it.

The person in front of you, on the other hand, might have noticed it many times.

It isn't necessarily a character flaw.

It's a difference between what you observe and what others can observe.

Who around you might see what you don't see?

How much does the state you're in matter?

Often you don't respond only to what happens.

You respond to what happens through the state you're in.

You come home after a heavy day.

Someone asks you a harmless question.

The answer comes out harsher than you would have liked.

Maybe, on another day, you would have answered that same question with a smile.

The question is the same.

The state has changed.

Posture, breathing, muscle tension and rhythm can help influence it.

I talk about it on the page dedicated to physiology and mood.

What state were you in the last time the mistake came back?

Does the mistake say who you are?

One of the presuppositions of NLP invites you to consider the result of a behavior as information.

Even when it isn't what you wanted.

Think about these two sentences:

“I answered badly in that meeting.”

“I'm someone who always ruins everything.”

The first describes a behavior, in a specific situation.

The second turns that episode into a definition of yourself.

In the first you can observe what happened, recognize what didn't work and choose how to behave differently.

In the second you risk looking for new confirmations of a label.

Your worth stays where it is. What can change is the way you behaved.

The feedback sandwich also uses an important distinction: recognizing what works, identifying what can be improved and guiding the next step.

You don't need to judge the person to observe a behavior.

What is the mistake that keeps coming back showing you, this time?

Where can you intervene, then?

Between what happens and your response there can be a space.

Often it's so brief that you don't notice it.

That's where a choice can come in.

Imagine receiving a note from your manager about a piece of work you've handed in.

The sentence that starts, once again, is this:

“They've got it in for me.”

From there the day takes the usual turn.

Tension. Defensiveness. Difficulty concentrating.

Every following remark seems to confirm what you've already decided to believe.

It's one of the mechanisms you can explore in more depth on the page on cognitive biases.

Now imagine managing to pause right in that space.

And asking yourself a precise question:

“What, exactly, did they say to me?”

The answer is:

“They asked me to revise the second part.”

This is the fact.

“They've got it in for me” is the meaning you gave it.

Two different things.

Now you can consider another possibility:

“Maybe they want that part of the work to be clearer.”

You don't yet know which interpretation is correct.

So you can check it.

“What do you expect to change in this part?”

Your manager answers:

“The client wants more detail on the timeline.”

Now you have new information.

The note no longer has to be automatically interpreted as a judgment about you as a person.

It can become a concrete indication of what needs to be changed.

And your next step can come from that information, rather than from the usual reaction.

You haven't changed what your manager said.

You've changed the way you tried to understand it.

What would change if, next time, you paused in that space, even for just a moment?

A small exercise

You don't need a notebook.

You need a concrete situation and the willingness to observe it.

You can start by remembering the last time a pattern you'd like to change repeated itself.

1. Choose a mistake that keeps repeating. Just one, concrete, recent. Describe what you do, not how you are.

1. Find the moment before. What happens immediately before? A word, a tone, a request, a recognizable situation.

1. Listen to the sentence you tell yourself. Retrieve your words: “It's pointless anyway,” “They've got it in for me,” “I'll do it later.” Don't correct them. Observe them.

1. Investigate the function. Ask yourself: “What do I get, or avoid, by behaving this way? What does this response give me? In what other way could I get what I need, without giving up what I want?”

1. Change your state before answering. When you recognize that moment, straighten your back, take a slow breath and let a few seconds pass. Notice whether anything changes.

1. Check. What did you notice that was different, even minimally? If you reacted as usual, at what point did the automatic response start? What could you try next time?

You don't need to get the result you want right away.

Even recognizing the moment when a pattern activates is new information.

If these behaviors are tied to persistent or significant suffering, it may be useful to talk to a qualified professional.

And now go back to the sentence we started with:

“I fell for it again.”

Maybe, next time, you'll be able to tell yourself something different.

“This time I saw it coming.”

To go deeper

You've seen how a behavior you now consider a mistake may once have been a solution.

You've observed the shift from behavior to identity, the role of internal state and the way a question can separate a fact from the interpretation you attribute to it.

In the the Premium Edition of Strategic NLP – The Invisible Blade I explore in more depth the shift from “I do it” to “that's how I am,” the techniques for working on limiting beliefs and submodalities, used to act on the characteristics of internal representations.

But to begin you don't need to know all the techniques.

You need to recognize something.

That moment, just before the pattern starts up.

From there you can begin to observe what used to happen automatically.

And discover what other response you could choose.

To explore further:

• Changing beliefs and habits
• The change process model