Many books that I´ve read talk about how our beliefs create patterns that affect our lives on an ongoing basis. As either a hypnotherapist or executive coach, my job is to listen, ask questions, and to listen some more.

All of my clients come from very different backgrounds, they have different lives, different jobs, some of them are young, others older, some are thin, some are heavy, some are women, some are men, all of them come from different walks in life.

What´s interesting though is the anecdotes they tell me. Their anecdotes have something in common, every time: an event that becomes a pattern in one person's life, but not in somebody else's life.

To my surprise almost everyone comes to me with stories that happen to them over and over again:
These are real stories told by real people.

Story #1
"I feel very frustrated about my work, I left my last company because they did not pay me the commissions they owed me. Right now I´m suing the company for my commissions. The last company I worked for, I left because they didn´t want to pay me my sales commissions either, I threatened to sue them, but after the threat they did pay me. It was a huge ordeal though. Working in sales is very draining, I believe it's very common not to get paid commissions and to end up fighting over them, so far this is the 5th time that happens to me"

I asked him if I he knew any colleague who happened to be in the same situation as him. He said no. "But they are not going to tell me they´re suing the company. Right?"
I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I have had clients who work in sales, I have worked in sales too, but I haven't met anyone yet who had to sue for his commission.

Story #2
"I lost my job because I got hepatitis, I did not go to work for more than a month and when I came back everything was different. I wouldn't be invited to meetings, my opinion was not heard and at the first layoff opportunity they got rid of me. In my previous job what happened was that I was in a car accident, I did not go to work for more than a month and when I came back, everything was different. I wouldn´t be invited to meetings, my opinion was not heard and at the first layoff opportunity they got rid of me. The previous job what happened was that I took a month off to take care of my dying father, he passed away but when I came back everything was different, I wouldn't be invited to meetings, my opinion was not heard"
- And in the first opportunity they got rid of you, - I said.
- Yes, how did you know!

Story #3. One of the most mind blowing cases I´ve had.
"I wish I found a job with no men working there, like an only-women job. I'm tired of putting up with these jerks who are always harassing me, always, in every job…. I´ve been raped twice. One was in the parking lot of my company by one of my colleagues. He even threatened to harm me if I said anything. So I had to swallow that up. I don´t know a guy who doesn't want to be a smart ass with me. I don´t know how the rest of the women handle working with guys. I definitely can't. "

Story #4
"I wish I'd found a job without women, no offense doctor (sometimes my clients call me doctor), but with this liberation women feel like it is ok to abuse men. My boss right now is a slave driver. She yells at me, she mistreats me, I´ve had enough. In my previous job, my boss, a female sargeant, humiliated me every time she had a chance. In the previous one, my boss, female of course, yelled at me all the time. The sad part is that at the job interview in my last job, the person who interviewed me was a guy, he was very nice and he was going to be my boss. When they hired me he quit and this horrible woman came to replace him."

I can go on and on. It amazes me how our mind, our belief system and our environment create these traps in which we fall over and over again. So accurate, so precise. Everyone comes to see me with their own particular truth.

I have also seen positive patterns in my clients. The one that I liked the most was about this young woman called Danielle. She had a positive pattern with no buts about it.
"I have luck with this BUT, this other aspect of my life really sucks" She came with no buts.

She came for help with her resume. But her introduction was something like this:

I´m very happy in my job. I´ve only had wonderful jobs and wonderful people to work with. Everyone in my company likes me and I get promoted quite rapidly despite the fact that I don´t have a college degree. Every manager in my company wants me to work for him, life is good. Little did I know when I was in high school that the working life would be so good.

After listening to her I just wondered what she needed from me then. Everything seemed perfect in her life.

All I need from you, Alba, is help with my resume. I have never written any resume before, and because I got promoted again they asked me for my resume, not because they will interview me, It´s just a formality.

Why do you get promoted so often?
I guess because I´m a hard worker and I have a good attitude. I´ve been promoted a few times already. I started there as a receptionist, then I got promoted and became a secretary, then, an assistant, then a supervisor now I am a manager. Everything in less than 5 years.

What would happen to our lives if every time that something nice happens to us, we´d say something like:
"Wow, I´m so lucky because x happened to me. I suppose I´m ALWAYS on the right place at the right time" Wouldn´t we be starting a track hopefully as appealing as the one Danielle has?