11 reasons to use the I Keep on Making the Same Mistakes workbook
Updated: 5 hours ago
If you keep making the same mistakes, repeating the same patterns or struggling to break old cycles, this pattern recognition workbook helps you recognise recurring thoughts and behaviours, track your progress and use journalling and inner work to start doing things differently.
Here are 11 practical ways to use the I Keep on Making the Same Mistakes workbook.
1. Give yourself a Saturday morning check-in
On those Saturday mornings when you tell yourself, “I’m going to make some time for my mind today,” actually make a morning of it.
Go to a café. Order your coffee, macchiato or Frappuccino, find a comfortable spot and open the workbook.
Give yourself 30 minutes and work through the Pattern Recognition Matrix. See if your thinking has changed, notice whether old patterns showed up during the week and recognise where you responded differently. Then think about what you want to take into the week ahead. No complicated morning routine.
Just you, your drink, your workbook and some proper time with your own thoughts. Doing the inner work can be as simple and relaxing as that.
2. Make it part of your Sunday new-week reset
You do not want to start Monday with your head already full. Sometimes one little problem, one conversation or one situation you keep going over can lay heavy on your whole week.
Use Sunday to take one specific thing that has been on your mind and work through it properly.
Use the workbook prompts to ask yourself new questions and journal around that particular topic, rather than opening a blank page and trying to figure out what to write.
Look at the pattern underneath it, what keeps repeating and what you want to leave behind before a new week begins.
3. End your evening by catching the pattern
Some evenings, you are annoyed with yourself because you did it again. You caved in, went back on a decision or repeated the same mistake you promised yourself you would stop making. Now it is playing around in your mind and you are wondering why you keep ending up back here.
Before you disappear into the rest of your evening, take 15 minutes for yourself. Put your phone down, get comfortable and open I Keep on Making the Same Mistakes. Go back over the moment while you can still remember what you were thinking, feeling and telling yourself. Where did the pattern begin? What did you miss?
Instead of replaying the mistake all evening, use it to recognise the pattern you want to break.
4. Reach for it during a 4 a.m. spiral
When you are awake at 4 a.m. replaying something you did, wondering why you did it again or telling yourself I should have known better, use the workbook to interrupt the spiral. Instead of repeatedly judging the mistake, turn to Life on the Universal Grid.
Read what life looks like in each space, recognise where you are right now and visualise where you are trying to get to. If you have found yourself back on the same thinking Roundabout, use the section to remind yourself that where you are tonight does not have to be where you stay.
5. Focus on the Orange when you start to feel anxious
At Grid Society, we have a saying: Orange Tales Only. It means being intentional about the story you tell yourself, but we take it a little further. Visualise orange tales and tell yourself orange tales.
When you start to feel anxious about the problem, go back through the workbook and focus on all of the Orange sections. Use them to help you picture what life could look like on the other side of the problem. See yourself thinking differently, responding differently and overcoming the pattern.
Then make sure the story you are telling yourself matches the picture you are creating.
6. Track the changes that are difficult to see
The beauty of this workbook is that it makes it easy to track changes that are not always obvious.
Use the Pattern Recognition Matrix to come back to a particular pattern from day to day, week to week or even months later and see how you feel about it now.
You can see whether your thinking has changed, whether you are responding differently and where you are making progress.
It gives you a visual record of changes you might not have noticed otherwise.
7. See what the pattern can look like at different life stages
The Life on the Grid section gives you a chance to read about the problem using our metaphor. Step outside of your feelings for a moment and focus on the problem itself.
1. What the problem looks like right now
2. What it can look like during a 4 a.m. spiral
3. What it looks like while you are working through it
4. What life can look like when you have overcome it
Sometimes removing yourself from the centre of the problem makes it easier to see where you are and where you are trying to get to.
8. Ask yourself different questions.
If you keep asking yourself “Why do I keep doing this? Why do I keep making the same mistakes?” you can end up going round in circles and arriving at the same answers.
The prompts inside the I Keep on Making the Same Mistakes workbook give you different questions to ask yourself about the problem, helping you look at it from angles you may not have considered before.
You might uncover something you have never connected to the mistake before. A trigger. A reaction. A choice you keep making without noticing. Sometimes a different question is all it takes to look at the same problem from a completely different angle.
9. Give your journalling a new lease of life
If you are tired of traditional journalling, or you want to journal but never know what to write, use the Grid Society concepts to get creative with it. Bring in our Grid Life colours, places, moods and emotions. Create your own affirmations, new sayings and personal reminders inspired by the Grid Society concepts.
Instead of silently telling yourself, “I keep on making the same mistakes,” writing another diary entry or simply offloading how you feel, use your journalling to start rewriting your thinking.
Create a new narrative: “I no longer make that mistake.” What does that version of you look like? What do you do differently? What do you tell yourself now?
There are nuggets throughout the workbook. Take them off the page and make them your own.
10. Use it as a starting point before seeking professional support
Sometimes working through a repeating pattern can make you realise there may be something deeper you would like to explore. Perhaps the same mistake keeps showing up in certain relationships, when you feel under pressure or when a particular situation triggers the same response.
Use the workbook to start identifying the thoughts, behaviours, situations and patterns that keep coming up for you. It can help you put some of what you have been experiencing into words, so if you decide to speak to a counsellor, therapist or another qualified professional, you already have somewhere to start the conversation.
11. Use the workbook concepts in real life
Use the whole workbook as an inspiration platform and take the Grid concepts into your everyday thinking.
1. Stay off the Grey Grid
Be conscious of the patterns you do not want to repeat.
2. Find the nearest exit
When you find yourself slipping, overthinking or becoming anxious, find your exit.
3. Make Gridmoves
Recognise when you are improving or doing things differently.
4. Orange tales only
Keep visualising yourself overcoming the problem and winning.
These are more than concepts. They are real-life anchors you can carry into your everyday life.
At work, on a date, in a conversation, making a decision or right in the middle of a situation, they give you something familiar to come back to and help you navigate the moment differently.
The Pattern Recognition
Collection™
by Grid Society
See your patterns.
Name your patterns.
Change your patterns.
Copyright
The Grid Society concept and Universal Grid™ were created by E. Lee and Dr N. Michelle to provide a structured framework and original lexicon for understanding thinking patterns and behaviours, and acting on them positively in real time. The Universal Grid™ incorporates the Grey Grid™, the Green Grid™ and the Orange Grid™, together with all associated frameworks, principles, concepts, terminology and methodologies. All original content and supporting materials are the intellectual property of Grid Society. All rights reserved.
Disclaimer
Grid Society content is created for personal development, self-reflection and educational purposes. It is not intended to replace professional medical, mental health, legal or financial advice. We are affiliated with qualified mental health professionals who can provide professional support where needed.
Pattern Recognition Self-Reflection Workbooks™ Volumes 1–7 | Live Online Workshops and Masterclasses | In-Person Workshops for Organisations in the UK and UAE | CPD Workshops for Counsellors and Organisations | 30-Day Personal Development Challenges | 4 A.M. Motivation Articles that we call THISISGRIDLIFE.
Grid Society Workbooks
Comparison - People-Pleasing and Boundaries - Ghosting and Texting - Inner Critic - Limited Beliefs - Breaking Cycles - Empty Success - Comparing Yourself to Friends - Setting Boundaries - Texting Anxiety - Putting Yourself Down - Repeating the Same Mistakes - Feeling Empty After Success - Red Flags in Relationships
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