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The routines you’re living your life with make you predictable. Depending on how closely you follow the various routines that you live your life by, you can become an easy target for deception. It is generally believed that following a set routine is a net positive. However, if you constantly find yourself in a competitive environment, you may be doing yourself a lot of harm by following a set routine in the things that you do.
People who are trying to win against you will analyze all aspects of your life. No routine or set of habits is bulletproof. The more others study your routines and the habits which govern them, the easier it will be for them to figure out your weaknesses. There is an inherit danger that comes with others knowing what you do at what time of the day, and where you are during those times. This information can be used for a myriad of malicious actions towards you. Below are two aspects of being predictable that are worth analyzing.
The Timing With Which You Do Things
Knowing what others are doing at a specific time during the day is information which you can use to win against them. Say for example you find yourself in a nasty disagreement via email at work. Knowing what time your opponent in that email chain has lunch on a daily basis can help you win the email argument against them. You can continue your battle when they are out for lunch and sway a third party to your way of thinking while they are unknowingly indulging in their Pad Thai.
Another example is a cheating spouse knowing what time you are home on a daily basis, leave for work, and when you call them to check in during the day. You may not have considered how powerful information about what time you leave for work can be, but it can be used to cause tremendous amounts of pain. It takes the right person to act on this knowledge, but if they do and you are not prepared, it can introduce chaos into your life.
The timing of which you do things should be as random as you can possibly manage. You must not let others view your patterns of timing as predictable. Make sure that the samples of your behavior which is exposed to others are random. Make it difficult for a malicious home burglar to predict your schedule after only a few samples of your behavior.
The Way You Do the Things You Do
Apart from the timing with which you do things, you must also keep in mind the way you do them. The people around you tend to notice how you partake in certain behaviors. The may see that you get anxious speaking in large meetings, or that tend to forget about certain steps in a particular process. Information about the way you do the things that are asked of you, especially in a professional environment, can give opportunity for others to place you in situations in which your weaknesses are exposed.
Limit the ability for others to expose your weaknesses in behavior by consistently analyzing yourself for them. Work on the things that are consistently brought to your attention, as these are the things that are evident to third parties. Be weary of the little bad habits that humans are susceptible to, and think your actions through carefully with conscious effort. Do not let your weaknesses become predictable to others, as their predictability will cause their exploitation.