What the audit does
The 4 patterns
This is for you if:
Who's asking
It doesn't tell you how depleted you are.
You already know that. Severity scores tell you the size of the problem and nothing about what's causing it, which is why they change nothing.
The Pattern Audit does something different. Sixteen statements, four unlabelled blocks, and at the end you find out which of four patterns has been driving your behaviour — and what specifically to do about that one.
Four patterns. Most people run one hard and a second as backup.
The Proving Pattern — worth is earned through output. The finish line moves every time you reach it.
The Rescuing Pattern — you're the one who holds it together. The resentment builds quietly, because you volunteered.
The Guarding Pattern — if you let go, it falls apart. Rest reads as risk, so it never happens.
The Drifting Pattern — still performing, no longer sure why. The quietest one, and the most often missed.
The blocks are lettered rather than named while you answer them. Naming them first would change how you answer.
You're senior, you're still delivering, and you're privately wondering what it's all been for.
You hit the goals. They stopped landing somewhere around the third or fourth one. You wouldn't describe yourself as burned out, and you'd resent anyone who did.
It's not for you if you're in acute crisis or signed off. That needs clinical support, not a PDF, and that's the right call.
I'm Eugene Lee. I spent 18 years mistaking exhaustion for ambition before I saw the pattern underneath it. I host Give Yourself Some Leeway, now in its fifth year, and I coach senior professionals privately through the same work.
This audit is the first thing I do with every client.