Ever felt like some areas of your life are circular? You start out in a direction, hoping for progress, only to find yourself at the same starting point again and again. Getting in Shape. Establishing a career. Deepening relationships.
Life does have patterns and seasons, but we want to make progress at the same time. Forward progress instead of circular frustration. Increasing stability and depth instead of ever-deepening, repeating ruts.
While I’m still developing the relationship I want to have with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deciding if I even want to call it a relationship, I do recognize that it has lessons to teach us that can help us move from going in circles to making progress. AI “thinks” by recognizing and predicting patterns. It doesn’t really think or have inner experience, though its conversational mimicking makes it seem that way.
As humans, we can think and have inner experiences. These are tools that AI doesn’t have.
AI’s lesson for us, then, is to pay attention to the patterns in our thinking and experiences. This combination gives us something AI doesn’t have. It makes us human.
This ability to think about our thinking (metacognition) allows us to recognize our own thoughts. We can then question them and adapt based on what we discover.
Intentional pattern recognition can help us get out of ruts. Patterns in behavior and attitude, for example. From there, we can consider elements feeding those patterns. Self-talk. Inputs like people, social media, and entertainment.
With a new year upon us, consider pattern recognition as a valuable tool for goal setting. What feels circular in your life? What feeds the patterns you want to change?
Hi Kari,
I totally agree with you when you talked about making any form of forward progress, no matter how small, is much better than circling back and forth, only to make no progress at all. This post made me think about what makes people give up on their goals the most. Is it a lack of motivation? Is it a lack of purpose? What do you think?
I think people give up on their goals often because they focus on the goals rather than the systems that create the habits, mindset, etc. that allow them to be consistent in working toward something. Goals so often change in their specificity as you travel toward them. Creating the right system for staying consistent is key, and I think this is why people struggle sticking with their goals. What do you think?