Are you stuck doing the same thing over and over again?

You might be willing to try something different in your conversations with your friends and family but find yourself falling into a trap – doing the same thing over and over again. Or the person you are talking to might be prone to that.  That’s what author and negotiation consultant Daniel Shapiro calls the repetition compulsion. It’s dysfunctional (meaning it isn’t working) but you keep doing it anyway.

I’ve heard it said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

I identify with that. For years, my husband and I would have arguments because I would act as a know-it-all, answering questions when I really didn’t know what I was talking about. The arguments seemed to be about what I was saying, but they really weren’t. They were about me not being honest about the limits of my expertise.

Of course, we never got anywhere, and our relationship suffered.

In his book, “Negotiating the Non-Negotiable”, Shapiro has some tips drawn from neuroscience about how to break a pattern of doing the same thing repeatedly.

He says that the key is to catch the compulsion early. The way to do this is to identify the triggers, the cycle and the impact.

Once you know these, you can identify ways to disrupt this cycle.

This can apply to you or to the person you are talking with. If they are falling into the same old trap, what can you do to disrupt the cycle?  A lot of the techniques I have been writing about are possibilities.

What I did differently, instead of answering a question I didn’t really know the answer to, was to say, “I don’t know”.  Those were some of the hardest words I have come to say, and I still have to practice that to this day.

But then you must resist the compulsion to go back. If you can own the feelings underneath the compulsion and work through them, this can help. It can also help to create new routines.

To get to the point where I could say “I don’t know”, I had to deal with the emotions I had about what it meant to me to not know the answer. That required work on my part to undo the old tapes about how important it was that I know what I am talking about, but it all started with just those three little words, “I don’t know.”

If it’s the other person who is repeating the same pattern, you can still disrupt the old cycle by doing something different. There are many possible alternatives. Leaving the room, calling a friend, singing a song, lots of different things you can try. If you break the cycle, it just might help. 

I also love Shapiro’s suggestion to create a new routine. If you acknowledge that the routine that the two of you fall into isn’t working, then you might suggest a new way of talking about things.

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