What holds your attention determines your actions?
William James
Having looked at the schemas (patterns) from childhood and coping modes, a journal is a good place to record happenings and watching out for those patterns and returning to them. The tools below will help you think about the patterns and how to break them
Finding your Patterns
(Ian Stewart, Transaction Analysis Today)
| What keeps happening to me over and over again? | |
| How does it start? | |
| What happens next? | |
| What is my secret message to the other person? | |
| And then what happens? | |
| What is the other person’s secret message to me? | |
| How does it end? | |
| How does it feel? | |
| How do I think the other person feels? | |
| What could I change to beak the script? |
Questioning when things go Wrong
(Ready, et al., 2004)
| What am I aiming to achieve? | ||
| What have I achieved so far? | ||
| What feedback have I had? | ||
| What lessons have I learnt? | ||
| How can I put the lessons to positive use? | ||
| How am I going to measure my success? |
Learning from the pattern
(Ready, et al., 2004)
| What does this mean about me? | ||
| What does this mean to me? | ||
| What does this mean about how others see me? | ||
| What can this tell me about myself? | ||
| How might this link with the past? | ||
| Who has said that sort of thing to me before? | ||
| Why is important to me about this? |