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January 19, 2019
A trigger is any stimulus that reshapes our thoughts and actions. In every waking hour we are being triggered by people, events, and circumstances that have the potential to change us.
Fate is the hand of cards we’ve been dealt. Choice is how we play the hand.
Regret is the emotion we experience when we assess our present circumstances and reconsider how we got here. We replay what we actually did against what we should have done—and find ourselves wanting in some way. Regret can hurt.
The pain that comes with regret should be mandatory, not something to be shooed away like an annoying pet. When we make bad choices and fail ourselves or hurt the people we love, we should feel pain. That pain can be motivating and in the best sense, triggering—a reminder that maybe we messed up but we can do better. It’s one of the most powerful feelings guiding us to change.
what should we call the rationalizations we privately harbor when we disappoint ourselves? Mere “excuse” is somehow inadequate to describe these inner beliefs that represent how we interpret our world. An excuse explains why we fell short of expectations after the fact. Our inner beliefs trigger failure before it happens. They sabotage lasting change by canceling its possibility. We employ these beliefs as articles of faith to justify our inaction and then wish away the result. I call them belief triggers.
there’s a difference between understanding and doing. Just because people understand what to do doesn’t ensure that they will actually do it. This belief triggers confusion.
the willpower we assume when we set a goal rarely measures up to the willpower we display in achieving that goal. Something always comes up to sink our boat. This belief triggers overconfidence.
Excusing our momentary lapses as an outlier event triggers a self-indulgent inconsistency—
Other people have to change more than we do. We’ve triggered a false sense of immunity.
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. In combination these three trigger an unappealing exceptionalism in us. 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.
As we become tired our self-control begins to waver and may eventually disappear. The sheer effort of sticking with the plan triggers depletion.
This faith in time’s infinite patience triggers procrastination. We will start getting better tomorrow. There’s no urgency to do it today.
high probability of low-probability events.
We are all victimized, more frequently than we like, by traffic jams and flat tires and accidents. This belief triggers unrealistic expectations.
magical thinking. I’m skeptical of any “instant conversion experience.”
we so casually assume that any positive change we make will change us forever?
This belief triggers a false sense of permanence.
If we don’t follow up, our positive change doesn’t last.
Fairy tales end with “and they lived happily ever after.” That is why they are called fairy tales, not documentaries.
we forget that as we usher an old problem out the door a new problem usually enters.
This belief triggers a fundamental misunderstanding of our future challenges.
From childhood we are brought up to believe that life is supposed to be fair. Our noble efforts and good works will be rewarded. When we are not properly rewarded we feel cheated. Our dashed expectations trigger resentment.
Getting better is its own reward. If we do that, we can never feel cheated.
We believe that we can occasionally lapse back into bad behavior because people aren’t paying close attention. We are practically invisible, triggering a dangerous preference for isolation.
If we change, we are somehow not being true to who we really are. This belief triggers stubbornness.
triggers an impaired sense of objectivity. It convinces us that while other people consistently overrate themselves, our own self-assessment is fair and accurate.
When we experience “road rage” on a crowded freeway, it’s not because we’re sociopathic monsters. It’s because the temporary condition of being behind the wheel in a car, surrounded by rude impatient drivers, triggers a change in our otherwise placid demeanor. We’ve unwittingly placed ourselves in an environment of impatience, competitiveness, and hostility—and it alters us.
Our environment is a nonstop triggering mechanism whose impact on our behavior is too significant to be ignored.
It’s not all bad. Our environment can be the angel on our shoulder, making us a better person—like when we find ourselves at a wedding or class reunion or awards dinner and the joyous spark of fellow feeling in the room overwhelms people.
Much of the time, however, our environment is the devil. That’s the part that eludes us: entering a new environment changes our behavior in sly ways, whether we’re sitting in a conference room with colleagues or visiting friends for dinner or enduring our weekly phone call with an aging parent.
The most pernicious environments are the ones that compel us to compromise our sense of right and wrong. In the ultracompetitive environment of the workplace, it can happen to the most solid citizens.
Some environments are designed precisely to lure us into acting against our interest. That’s what happens when we overspend at the high-end mall.
The environment that I’m most concerned with is actually smaller, more particular than that. It’s situational, and it’s a hyperactive shape-shifter. Every time we enter a new situation, with its mutating who-what-when-where-and-why specifics, we are surrendering ourselves to a new environment—and putting our goals, our plans, our behavioral integrity at risk. It’s a simple dynamic: a changing environment changes us.
that our environment is a relentless triggering machine. If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us. And the result turns us into someone we do not recognize.
A feedback loop comprises four stages: evidence, relevance, consequence, and action.
As a trigger, our environment has the potential to resemble a feedback loop. After all, our environment is constantly providing new information that has meaning and consequence for us and alters our behavior. But the resemblance ends there. 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. We don’t know we’ve changed.
A behavioral trigger is any stimulus that impacts our behavior.
A behavioral trigger can be direct or indirect.
A trigger can be internal or external.
trigger can be conscious or unconscious.
A trigger can be anticipated or unexpected.
A trigger can be encouraging
or discouraging.
A trigger can be productive
or counterproductive.
Triggers are not inherently “good” or “bad.” What matters is our response to them.
Fear—of shame, punishment, reprisal, regret, disrespect, ostracism—is a hugely discouraging trigger, often appearing after we fail to follow a rule.
Pain, of course, is the ultimate discouraging trigger: we immediately stop a behavior that hurts.
