What does it mean that name your patterns?

An unnamed pattern is invisible — naming it makes it manipulable.

Example: You notice you always volunteer for extra work when you feel insecure about your standing on a team. That behavior has been running for years, but it never had a name. Call it 'competence signaling.' Now you can see it the next time it activates. You can ask: is this commitment something I actually want, or is competence signaling running again? The pattern didn't change. Your ability to intervene did — because it has a name.

Try this: Review your past week. Identify one behavior that repeated at least twice — a reaction, a decision pattern, a conversational habit, a way you responded to stress. Give it a short, specific name (2-4 words). Write the name down along with a one-sentence description of what triggers it. Over the next three days, watch for it. Every time you notice it, write down: the name, the trigger, and what happened. You are building a named-pattern log.