Generational Behaviour

Here is a biological truth we seem to always forget: generational behaviour either gets continued or it gets changed. It’s literally a choice. The same strategies used for fulfilling needs or protecting ourselves are often the same or very similar to those used by our parents, and their parents before them. We like to think we are making independent decisions, but most of what we do automatically comes from what was modelled before we even had the awareness to question it.

What I mean is that as a child growing up, you witness how one behaviour gets a result, and that result becomes the evidence your mind needs to copy it. We see this in business, from owners down to managers down to employees. A certain strategy gets used for a period of time. Why? Because the programs running in the background say it works. And most people never stop long enough to ask if another strategy would work better. They don’t check if the approach aligns with their values or the person they want to become. They just repeat what got them a result, even if the result only serves them in the short term and creates damage in the long term.

A person can have strong values and high morals they genuinely want to hold themselves to, but they forget to run their default strategies through the filter of those values. They forget to ask, “Does this behaviour actually match the person I want to be?” Many people don’t question the behaviour at all, they just repeat the strategy because it produces an outcome. They rarely stop to look at the negative externalities created from that action.

Economics describes negative externalities like this:

A negative externality is when someone’s actions create a harm, cost, or negative impact on another person or group who didn’t choose it and didn’t cause it. It’s the unintended damage that spills out from one person’s behaviour onto someone else.

This is exactly what happens with generational behaviour. From the perceived positive action, the behaviour we believe “works”, comes hidden harm to others. And when the generational pattern is not analysed or is widely accepted, it goes unchanged. You hear people say, “That’s just how they are,” as if that excuses it. But that phrase isn’t acceptance, it’s endurance. People put up with behaviour that should have been questioned generations ago.

Ask yourself:

What patterns am I continuing from my family or relationship history simply because I perceive that they work?

And even more importantly:

Are those patterns actually creating the results I want for myself and for a current or future partner?

Am I accepting behaviour from my past because I know I can endure it?And if so, why am I continuing to accept it?

This isn’t judgment. It’s not about making yourself wrong. It’s an exercise in discovering what actions you choose without even understanding why you do them. Because once you see the origin of your behaviour, whether it’s yours or inherited, you finally get the opportunity to decide if it deserves to continue, or if you’re the one in your family line who is going to change it.