Triggers

The Book In Three Sentences

• “A trigger is any stimulus that reshapes our thoughts and actions”.
• “We don’t know how to execute a change. There’s a difference between motivation and understanding and ability”.
• “Most of us go through life unaware of how our environment shapes our behavior”.

The Five Big Ideas

• “If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us”.
• “Feedback—both the act of giving it and taking it—is our first step in becoming smarter, more mindful about the connection between our environment and our behavior”.
• “A feedback loop comprises four stages: evidence, relevance, consequence, and action”.
• “The [Daily Questions] announce our intention to do something and, at the risk of private disappointment or public humiliation, they commit us to doing it”.
• “Self-discipline refers to achieving desirable behavior. Self-control refers to avoiding undesirable behavior”.

Triggers Summary

• “A trigger is any stimulus that reshapes our thoughts and actions”.
• “Fate is the hand of cards we’ve been dealt. Choice is how we play the hand”.
• “We can’t admit that we need to change—either because we’re unaware that a change is desirable, or more likely, we’re aware but have reasoned our way into elaborate excuses that deny our need for change”.
• “We do not appreciate inertia’s power over us”.
• “Inertia is the reason we never start the process of change. It takes extraordinary effort to stop doing something in our comfort zone (because it’s painless or familiar or mildly pleasurable) in order to start something difficult that will be good for us in the long run”.
• “We don’t know how to execute a change. There’s a difference between motivation and understanding and ability”.
• “If you want to be a better partner at home or a better manager at work, you not only have to change your ways, you have to get some buy-in from your partner or co-workers. Everyone around you has to recognize that you’re changing. Relying on other people increases the degree of difficulty exponentially”.
• “What makes positive, lasting behavioral change so challenging—and causes most of us to give up early in the game—is that we have to do it in our imperfect world, full of triggers that may pull and push us off course”.
• “Our inner beliefs trigger failure before it happens. They sabotage lasting change by canceling its possibilty. We employ these beliefs as articles of faith to justify our inaction and then wish away the result. I call them belief triggers”.

Belief Triggers:

• If I understand, I will do. Just because people understand what to do doesn’t ensure that they will actually do it.
• I have willpower and won’t give in to temptation. We not only overestimate willpower, we chronically underestimate the power of triggers in our environment that lead us astray.
• Today is a special day. If we really want to change we have to make peace with the fact that we cannot self-exempt every time the calendar offers us a more attractive alternative to our usual day.
• “At least I’m better than …” We award ourselves a free pass because we’re not the worst in the world.
• I shouldn’t need help and structure. One of our most dysfunctional beliefs is our contempt for simplicity and structure. This is a natural response that combines three competing impulses: 1) our contempt for simplicity (only complexity is worthy of our attention); 2) our contempt for instruction and follow-up; and 3) our faith, however unfounded, that we can succeed all by ourselves. When we presume that we are better than people who need structure and guidance, we lack one of the most crucial ingredients for change: humility.
• I won’t get tired and my enthusiasm will not fade. When we plan to achieve our goals, we believe that our energy will not flag and that we will never lose our enthusiasm for the process of change.
• I have all the time in the world. Here are two opposing beliefs that we simultaneously hold in our minds and mash into one warped view of time: 1) we chronically underestimate the time it takes to get anything done; 2) we believe that time is open-ended and sufficiently spacious for us to get to all our self-improvement goals eventually.
• I won’t get distracted and nothing unexpected will occur. When we make plans for the future, we seldom plan on distractions.
• An epiphany will suddenly change my life. An epiphany implies that change can arise out of a sudden burst of insight and willpower.
• My change will be permanent and I will never have to worry again. If we don’t follow up, our positive change doesn’t last.
• My elimination of old problems will not bring on new problems. We forget that as we usher an old problem out the door a new problem usually enters.
• My efforts will be fairly rewarded. Getting better is its own reward. If we do that, we can never feel cheated.
• No one is paying attention to me. People always notice.
• If I change I am “inauthentic.”We can change not only our behavior but how we define ourselves. When we put ourselves in a box marked “That’s not me,” we ensure that we’ll never get out of it.
• I have the wisdom to assess my own behavior. We are notoriously inaccurate at assessing ourselves.
• “Most of us go through life unaware of how our environment shapes our behavior”.
• “Our environment is a nonstop triggering mechanism whose impact on our behavior is too significant to be ignored”.
• “The most pernicious environments are the ones that compel us to compromise our sense of right and wrong”.
• “Some environments are designed precisely to lure us into acting against our interest”.
• “If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us”.
• “Feedback—both the act of giving it and taking it—is our first step in becoming smarter, more mindful about the connection between our environment and our behavior”.
• “A feedback loop comprises four stages: evidence, relevance, consequence, and action”.
• “As a trigger, our environment has the potential to resemble a feedback loop”.
• “Where a well-designed feedback loop triggers desirable behavior, our environment often triggers bad behavior, and it does so against our will and better judgment and without our awareness”.
• “A behavioral trigger is any stimulus that impacts our behavior”.
• “A behavioral trigger can be direct or indirect and internal or external”.
• “Direct triggers are stimuli that immediately and obviously impact behavior, with no intermediate steps between the triggering event and your response. Indirect triggers take a more circuitous route before influencing behavior”.
• “External triggers come from the environment. Internal triggers come from thoughts or feelings that are not connected with any outside stimulus”.
• “A trigger can be conscious or unconscious”.
• “Conscious triggers require awareness. Unconscious triggers shape your behavior beyond your awareness”.
• “A trigger can be anticipated or unexpected”.
• “A trigger can be encouraging or discouraging”.
• “Encouraging triggers push us to maintain or expand what we are doing. Discouraging triggers push us to stop or reduce what we are doing”.
• “A trigger can be productive or counterproductive”.
• “Triggers are not inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’. What matters is our response to them”.
• “We are superior planners and inferior doers”.
• “Forecasting is what we must do after acknowledging the environment’s power over us. It comprises three interconnected stages: anticipation, avoidance, and adjustment”.
• “When our performance has clear and immediate consequences, we rise to the occasion. We create our environment. We don’t let it re-create us”.
• “When we’re not anticipating the environment, anything can happen”.
• “To avoid undesirable behavior, avoid the environments where it is most likely to occur”.
• “Adjustment happens when we’re desperate to change, or have an unexpected insight, or are shown the way by another person (such as a friend or coach)”.
• “Good things happen when we ask ourselves what we need to create, preserve, eliminate, and accept—a test I suspect few of us ever self-administer”.
• “This ‘active’ process will help anyone get better at almost anything. It only takes a couple of minutes a day. But be warned: it is tough to face the reality of our own behavior—and our own level of effort—every day”.
• “Daily Questions are what behavioral economists refer to as a ‘commitment device’”.
• “The [Daily Questions] announce our intention to do something and, at the risk of private disappointment or public humiliation, they commit us to doing it”.
• “Daily Questions are serious, too, if only in how they press us to articulate what we really want to change in our lives”.
• “Daily Questions focus us on where we need help, not where we’re doing just fine”.
• “Self-discipline refers to achieving desirable behavior. Self-control refers to avoiding undesirable behavior”.
• “Daily Questions, by definition, compel us to take things one day at a time. In doing so they shrink our objectives into manageable twenty-four-hour increments”.
• “By focusing on effort, they distract us from our obsession with results (because that’s not what we’re measuring). In turn, we are free to appreciate the process of change and our role in making it happen. We’re no longer frustrated by the languid pace of visible progress—because we’re looking in another direction”.
• “Daily Questions remind us that: Change doesn’t happen overnight. Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out. If we make the effort, we will get better. If we don’t, we won’t”.
• “We do not get better without structure”.
• “Structure not only increases our chance of success, it makes us more efficient at it”.
• “We need help when we’re least likely to get it”.

Recommended Reading

If you like Triggers, you may also like the following books:

• Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
• Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

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