Why Does This Keep Happening to Me?

Moments of the Loop

Noticing → Deciding → Effort → Override → Belief → Doubling Down → The End of Trying → Management Ends

Noticing

You notice something. It’s subtle at first, and familiar.

You may not call it a loop, but you can see that something keeps repeating. You’re not rushing to fix it. It just catches your attention.

It’s something you keep doing. Or something you keep not doing.

Whichever it is, it comes up again and again. You find yourself asking why this keeps happening. Not in a dramatic, life-ruining way. But you know it isn’t doing you any favours either.

It’s been on your list for a long time.

It’s in your calendar, on your phone, because you’ve scheduled it before. The same entry again. Checking it off makes it go away but it pops back the next day.

You wrote it down in your notebook and you can sense it when you look back at photos of yourself. It stands out when you review what matters and then tell yourself you’ll come back to it later.

You’ve meant to get to it. You’ve gone to bed telling yourself, tomorrow. You'll get to it once you’ve finished something else first.

Sometimes you follow through on everything else. And sometimes you achieve impressive things.

And still, that one thing to (not) do remains. Solidly.

Most of the time, you don’t think about it at all. You’re excellent at tuning it out.

But it doesn’t disappear. It retreats. It waits. Then it’s there again.

Whatever this is…the thought, the action, the feeling attached to it, the avoiding…it isn’t resolving.

Something’s looping.

The orientation guide explains why patterns like this persist even when you’re aware of them.

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Next in the series:  Deciding