Do you feel trapped in a cycle of mistakes? There are several likely reasons for this. Come and learn some practical strategies to overcome bad habits. Identifying repetitive behaviors is key. It helps us understand why we keep making the same mistakes.
Have you ever felt like you’re living a never-ending loop of unpleasant experiences? It feels like the movie Groundhog Day. Here, Phil Connors keeps reliving the same day. If so, you’re not alone.
Repetition is a common occurrence because we are driven by habitual patterns. But have you ever stopped to wonder why negative situations keep manifesting themselves? It relates to the spiritual meaning of Déjà vu.
The Reason For Repeating The Same Mistake
Repeating mistakes and the same harmful decisions can be frustrating and confusing. It often happens because our brains are wired to follow patterns, even if they lead to negative outcomes.
In many cases, people realize why they are making the same errors in judgment. Gaining clarity over the factors behind our decision-making gives us the power to change. However, this isn’t always easy.
There are many factors that can contribute to making errors. For example, emotions driven by fear, stress, or anxiety are often factors at play. We fall back into old habits when we are experiencing emotional turmoil. Understanding the underlying factors is crucial to breaking the cycle of repeating mistakes. Chances are, the reason for repeating the same mistake over and over falls into one or more of the following categories:
1. Subconscious Programming. Our experiences influence our decisions and actions in the present. When we encounter a traumatic event or a negative situation, our mind stores it in our subconscious. These experiences create programs or scripts that guide our behavior. Most of the time, we do not even realize it.
Identifying repetitive behavioral patterns is key to discovering harmful scripts, beliefs, and values. If you repeat similar unpleasant experiences, this programming may be the cause. You need to do some inner work to remove the harmful script. Otherwise, you’ll keep repeating the same mistake over and over.
2. Familiarity Bias. We have a natural tendency toward familiarity, even if it’s unpleasant. Despite the pain or discomfort attached to an experience, we will repeat it because it is familiar. Straying away from familiarity can be challenging. It’s our comfort zone, even if it is uncomfortable or harmful. Our comfort zone calls us back into the cycle of unpleasant experiences.
3. The Lesson Within. Life has an uncanny way of repeating lessons until we learn from them. When we encounter difficult situations, there’s often a valuable lesson hidden within. The universe presents us with repeated scenarios to help us learn.
It’s the path that makes us grow, develop resilience, develop strategies to overcome bad habits and deep-rooted fears. By recognizing the underlying lessons, we can break free from the cycle. Learn to learn the lesson and make room for more positive and fulfilling experiences.
4. Limited Beliefs and Self-Sabotage. Our beliefs shape our reality. If we harbor limiting beliefs, they will drive unhealthy decisions. Harmful beliefs manifest in self-talk, such as saying I don’t deserve happiness or success. These scripts manifest as self-sabotaging behaviors.
Limiting beliefs often stem from religious indoctrination. Past negative experiences can also lead us to make bad decisions. Poor decision-making attracts unpleasant situations, reinforcing the cycle. Recognizing and challenging these beliefs is crucial in breaking the repetition cycle.
5. Unresolved Emotions and Trauma. Unresolved emotions and traumatic experiences create memories that taint our thinking. These imbalances in our thinking perpetuate negative patterns in our lives. These unresolved emotional wounds can spark a subconscious need to repeat similar situations. We do this hoping to find closure or healing. Serious inner work and seeking professional help can help release these emotions.
6. Addiction. An addiction is a complex mental condition that involves several factors. We’ll talk more about this in a moment. It is an uncontrollable urge to do something that overrides our thinking.
Let’s sum up the reason for repeating the same mistake. First of all, we are creatures of habit. So, we naturally fall into habitual patterns. We adopt habitual patterns from our culture and family, which don’t have to be positive. In fact, many are unhealthy. Perhaps your cycle of poor decision-making is the universe trying to teach you an important life lesson. It could simply be because we have an addiction.
You know the saying: he who doesn’t understand history is doomed to repeat it. And when it’s repeated, the stakes are doubled. ― Pittacus Lore, I Am Number Four
Identifying Repetitive Behavioral Patterns
Patterns show up in our lives for several reasons. We often overlook four key areas that may provide the answers we need: déjà vu experiences, lessons, addictions, and inspirations.
Recognizing The Spiritual Meaning of Déjà Vu
Déjà vu is the feeling that you’ve experienced something before. It’s like living through the same situation again. If time is constant, this seems impossible, but time has its quirks. When we dream, we can experience events in a non-linear way, even in reverse.
These experiences aren’t errors in judgment. Some cultures value them highly. There are two main ideas about these eureka moments.
Déjà vu is more than just that fleeting moment of surprise, instantly forgotten because we never bother with things that make no sense. It shows that time doesn’ pass. It’s a leap into something we have already experienced, and that is being repeated. ― Paulo Coelho, Aleph
First, your subconscious could be trying to get your attention by comparing your current experience to past ones. This could be a warning or a way to avoid repeating a mistake. Another idea is that déjà vu helps us focus on the present moment. It might also be an overlap with an alternate reality.
To understand why you repeat mistakes, try journaling. Write down the question: what is the reason for repeating the same mistake? Then, start writing. Observing your behavior can help you catch errors in the thinking phase and prevent judgment mistakes. Déjà vu is a wake-up call. It prompts you to pay attention and avoid doing it again.
Lessons?
Life is about learning lessons, but it also involves making mistakes. The reason for repeating the same mistake could be that you have not learned the lesson contained in the situation. When you find yourself in a familiar situation, stop and ask, What should I learn here? Sometimes, the universe gives you another chance to learn the lesson. When you feel uncomfortable, ask yourself, What is the lesson? Why am I repeating this?
Déjà vu can sometimes reveal the lesson right away, but other times, you need to think about it and compare it to similar experiences. Understanding the reason behind the experience can help you change future outcomes. We all repeat lessons, not because we’re bad, but because life is about learning. When you notice you’re about to repeat something, stop and ask, What lesson should I have learned the first time? Paying attention will help you see patterns and learn the lessons.
I wish someone had told us we’d repeat the same mistakes until we learned the underlying lesson. Life is all about lessons. So when it seems you are about to repeat something, stop. Ask yourself, what lesson should I have learned the first time? Reminding yourself to pay attention will help direct your awareness. Then, you will notice patterns and lessons.
Addiction
Addiction is often the root cause or reason for repeating the same mistake. There probably isn’t any hidden message here. It is the response to addiction. We are all prone to addictive behavior because we are creatures of habit. Even when we know we are repeating the mistake, we do it anyway.
We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking. ― Santosh Kalwar, Quote Me Everyday
Far more things are addictive than people realize. Addiction is why people like skydiving, scary movies, and amusement parks. They all have the same common habit of adrenaline.
It’s simple. We enjoy the adrenaline rush we get from the terror of monsters. It triggers the fight, flight, or freeze response, increasing the heart rate. In turn, this signals the adrenal glands to release cortisol, adrenaline, and glucose. It is a fear-induced high. Here, fear becomes the motive for controlling decisions. It compels people to repeat the experience, and it becomes an addiction to a fear-induced high. It’s the same as the addiction to drugs and the same chronic compulsion.
This same addictive force draws us to certain types of people. Even if we know nothing about them and have no physical attraction toward them, they still pull us in with that same addictive force.
It’s only later that we discover some familiarity with them. After we get to know them, we realize a deeper connection. It might be a personality disorder or a similar life history. It’s something we’ve encountered before, pulling us back because it is familiar, even if it is harmful. Ask yourself some questions: What is the lesson in this experience? What is the reason for repeating the same mistake?
Any pattern of thinking can become a harmful, addictive behavior. Some people fall into addictive behaviors to cope with trauma, others because of personality disorders. One way to find the source of these issues is the Enneagram Personality Profile. This tool uses a questionnaire to identify your default personality and instinctual settings.
When you repeat a mistake, it isn’t a mistake anymore; it’s a decision. ― Paulo Coelho
Inspiration
Repetition can be used as a tactic to spark creativity. To increase inspiration, we can find a stimulus to heighten emotions. You can’t get a higher source of mental stimulation than emotional pain or pleasure. And, since people know what causes their pain, they return to it. Be careful when using negative experiences as the only source of inspiration. You can get stuck in a downward spiral if you relive negative emotions.
When we relive experiences that cause emotional distress, we can use them as a tool for inspiration if we learn to reduce the volume of the emotion. It is not a healthy way to find inspiration in the bad things that happen, but it works. We wouldn’t have any love songs if people didn’t do this.
But inspiration is still sitting there right beside me, and it is trying. Inspiration is trying to send me messages in every form it can—through dreams, through portents, through clues, through coincidences, through déjà vu, through kismet, through surprising waves of attraction and reaction, through the chills that run up my arms, through the hair that stands up on the back of my neck, through the pleasure of something new and surprising, through stubborn ideas that keep me awake all night long — whatever works. Inspiration is always trying to work with me. ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
The misuse of alcohol and drugs as sources of inspiration was a tool for the music recording industry for many years. We do not recommend using alcohol and drugs, as they are a slippery slope toward addiction.
Our commercially oriented culture doesn’t help. It drives artists to create on-demand. So, when inspiration doesn’t come naturally, they need additives to speed up the creative process. But the drive to create can become an addiction. So, the initial reason for taking mind-altering substances is to open up the creative source. But then it becomes a debilitating addiction.
People often commission artists to create specific content on a schedule, which puts pressure on the creative process. It is hard to conjure creativity on demand. Some people argue that we have such glorious music from the 1960s and 70s because the record companies gave drugs to artists. This type of drug abuse led directly to the demise of many artists.
Art can be an excellent vehicle in and of itself. The path to greater creativity is creating more art. However, inspiration comes at its own pace. Almost every artist goes through slumps when creative energy is absent. Creative inspiration is sometimes fleeting. We strongly suggest you seek positive sources of inspiration that do not have harmful side effects.
Five Strategies to Overcome Bad Habits
1. Identify the Harmful Programming
You know exactly what you want to achieve when you set a clear goal. For example, instead of saying, I want to be healthier, you could say, I want to eat a fruit every day. This specific goal gives you a clear target to aim for and helps you stay focused.
Using the repeating question exercise and journaling assists in identifying repetitive behavioral patterns. Thinking is an inward behavior. The repeating question exercise involves asking yourself the same question multiple times, such as Why do I want to change this habit? This can help you uncover deeper motivations and triggers. Journaling allows you to track your progress. It is a great tool for identifying repetitive behavioral patterns.
2. Eliminate the Source of the Harmful Programming
Many harmful habits and beliefs come from outside influences. For example, religion can create bias and prejudice. Also, unhealthy political ideologies can promote nationalism, racism, and discrimination. This affects women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals.
To overcome bad habits, you must find and remove the sources of this harmful programming. Harmful social media platforms are significant contributors. Some of the worst sources are Fox News, known for its misinformation and bias. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram also cause problems. These include cyberbullying, body image issues, and the spread of false information.
This step in the strategies to overcome bad habits is often the hardest part for most people who are addicted to the source. But if you don’t remove the source, attempts to reprogram healthy thinking, beliefs and values will fail.
3. Reprogram Your Mind
Big changes can be overwhelming, so starting with small, manageable steps is better. If you want to exercise more, begin with a 10-minute walk each day. As you get used to this new habit, you can gradually increase the time or intensity.
Using mantras, sutras, and affirmations can also help you make positive changes in your thinking scripts. Mantras and sutras are short, powerful phrases that you repeat to yourself to stay focused and motivated. Affirmations are positive statements that you say to yourself to reinforce your goals and boost your confidence. For example, you might say, I am strong and capable of making healthy choices.
It’s easier to break a bad habit if you replace it with a good one. For instance, if you tend to watch too much TV, you could replace some of that time with reading a book or going for a walk. This way, you’re not just stopping the bad habit but also creating a positive one.
Consistency is key to forming new habits. Try to practice your new habit at the same time every day. This helps your brain recognize the pattern and makes the habit stick. For example, if you want to drink more water, you could start by drinking a glass of water every morning when you wake up.
4. Get Support
Having support from friends and family can make a big difference. They can encourage you, remind you of your goals, and celebrate your successes with you. Sometimes, just knowing that someone else believes in you can give you the extra push you need. Other options for support include joining groups or seeking counseling.
Support groups help you meet others with similar goals. They offer community and shared experiences. Counseling provides professional help designed just for you. It can guide you through tough times and keep you focused on your goals.
5. Reward Yourself
Rewards make the process of changing habits more enjoyable. When you reach a milestone, treat yourself to something you enjoy, like a favorite snack or a fun activity. Rewards help reinforce positive behavior and keep you motivated to continue.
Using these five strategies can help you to overcome bad habits and create good ones.
Finally, Stop Repeating the Same Mistake Over and Over
If we keep making the same errors and mistakes, there’s a reason for it. Déjà vu events help us identify them. It could be our subconscious ringing a bell or the universe reaching out to guide us. The point is we need to narrow down the reason.
We need to ask two essential questions. What is the lesson? Or what is the reason for repeating the same mistake? Then, look deeper. Use inner work tools to find out if you harbor any harmful thought scripts, beliefs and values.
Are you trapped in some type of addiction? The addiction to someone is as powerful as the addiction to a drug. When you are addicted to another person, this is the corruption of your emotional instincts.
Find out which of these reasons resonates with the particular life experience. Then, take steps to either find the lesson or break the habitual pattern that leads to poor decision-making. This process starts with identifying repetitive behavioral patterns. Are you ready to take the steps necessary to overcome your bad habits?
References
(1) Piquing Curiosity: Déjà vu-Like States Are Associated with Feelings of Curiosity and Information-Seeking Behaviors. The National Library of Medicine
(2) Interpersonal Dysfunction in Personality Disorders: A Meta-Analytic Review. The National Library of Medicine