Spiral Character Development: Why Your Recurring Patterns Are Part of Your Heroic Journey

"There are patterns that are holding me back. And even though I'm progressing and can see myself improving, I tend to fall back into these patterns. But I want to be free from them once and for all."

Does this sound familiar?

Maybe it's relieving to know that someone understands how you feel. Well, maybe this will be even more relieving: There is not a single human who is trying to become more self-aware and grow who can't relate to this.

But here's my challenge: you can't and perhaps shouldn't be free of these challenges "once and for all." This seemingly counterintuitive truth might be the key to your liberation.

You Are a Character in Your Personal Myth

Myth is not falsehood. Myth is eternal truth and reflection of psychological patterns. The great stories that have endured across civilizations aren't mere entertainment. They are mirrors reflecting the fundamental architecture of the human psyche and universal elements of everyone's character development. Thinkers like Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Rollo May wrote at length how looking at myths as nothing more than made up stories hurt modern humans psychologically and spiritually.

You really are a character in your personal myth. Your life is a story unfolding in real time, with you as both protagonist and author. The only question is whether you will author your story consciously or unconsciously.

To help you take ownership of your story and rethink the meaning of your patterns, let's look at three types of character development. For the record, I identified these three types in my own attempts to write and make sense of my personal myth. This is not to say I discovered something revolutionary, but rather to point out that I cannot borrow authority from above mentioned writers.

The Non-Character: Development Without Challenge

Let's start by imagining the most unrealistic and most boring character development.

No inner obstacles, no patterns to overcome. Therefore, no real growth to be made. Not a story worth being told. Not really a development—just a bland character.

That's why you've never seen a movie or read a story about a character who's a "finished product" and isn't facing any challenges. And that's why characters that are too close to being perfect, whether fictional or real (like athletes and actors with overly-polished public personas) are never as popular as their more raw and real counterparts.

Perfect characters don't inspire us because they offer no path we can follow.

The Unrealistic Character: One-and-Done Development

Next stage—seemingly ideal but unrealistic character development.

A character who learns every lesson on their first try and doesn't have to repeat it. They overcome their self-defeating patterns on their first attempt, once and for all.

Maybe this is less boring and more impressive than the previous example. But still not quite an inspiring hero's journey.

How many characters that have genuinely inspired you have gone through this kind of development? I'm not even saying there aren't any. I'm asking you to pause reading for a moment and think.

Few, if any, come to mind, don't they? Because this isn't how human transformation works.

The Human Character: Spiral Development

Now, what I consider to be the most universal, most relatable, and therefore most inspiring and informative character development:

Doesn't every compelling character continue over and over again to face the same internal patterns that they thought they defeated, but now they're facing them on a higher level or as a result of greater challenges?

Batman with his anger. Frodo with his tendency toward avoidance. Aragorn with self-doubt. Harry Potter with his resentment and arrogance. Shinji Ikari with his fear of connection.

Most of my favorite characters had to defeat fear and feelings of inferiority over and over again. (Maybe that says something about me.)

And isn't it true that, every time our most inspiring characters find themselves in the final battle of the story, they are faced with their most dominant self-defeating pattern once again; they have to overcome themselves one more time? And even that isn't the ultimate annihilation of their inner patterns. It's just the last battle of the story as it's given to us. We don't know how many more times they will have to deal with those patterns after the end of the book or the show.

The Psychology of Spiral Development

Now I can reference a higher authority. (Maybe that's my pattern of feeling like my ideas are not worthy of standing on their own two feet, without a stamp of approval from a great philosopher or psychologist?)

This recurring confrontation with our inner patterns isn't a bug in human development—it's a feature. As Carl Jung observed:

"Psychologically you develop in a spiral, you always come over the same point where you have been before, but it is never exactly the same, it is either above or below. A patient will say, 'I am just at the place where I was three years ago,' but I say, 'At least you have travelled three years."

This spiral development is fundamental to authentic human growth. When you encounter a familiar pattern you thought you'd overcome, you're not failing. You're instead being invited to address this challenge at a deeper level, with greater awareness and courage.

The circle appears the same, but you're standing at a higher elevation on the spiral.

It's not just the more recent myths I mentioned earlier that show us this. Every myth across cultures reflects this truth. Odysseus confronts his hubris repeatedly throughout his journey home. The Buddha encountered Mara (embodiment of attachment and delusion) not just before his enlightenment, but several times after.

These myths endure because they capture something essential about our nature—that growth isn't linear but cyclical, and that our greatest strengths often emerge from our recurring confrontations with our deepest patterns.

Reframing Your Recurring Patterns

What if your recurring patterns aren't evidence of failure but are actually the terrain of your heroic journey?

What if the expectation that you should permanently transcend your challenges is itself the trap?

I gave you an insight into my pattern of dealing with feelings of inferiority when presenting my ideas. However, every time I encounter this pattern it's at a higher stage in my writing journey. And every time, I am better prepared to face and overcome it. Otherwise I wouldn't even be writing this.

Practical Application: Working With Your Patterns