Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be

by Marshall Goldsmith

For example, your teenage daughter borrows the car and two hours later calls to say it’s been stolen. She left the keys in the car while she ran into a convenience store for a snack. A low-probability event (the theft) made more probable by a silly mistake (forgetting the keys). As a parent, how do you respond? Your daughter wasn’t harmed. She’s not in danger or legal peril. She’s a victim. At worst, you’ve lost property. What’s your first impulse? You can get angry. You can do a variation on “I told you so” or “You always do this,” reinforcing the message that 1) parent knows best or 2) your daughter is not as smart as she thinks she is. You can be consoling. You can ask, “Do you need a ride home?” You have options. I don’t have the perfect answer. I do know that this phone call is a supercharged triggering moment, even though it is brief and unexpected and in the grand scheme of things, small. The damage is done. It’s not a tall tale to entertain your grandkids years from now. But how you respond is important and consequential. Will this unfortunate event trigger more damage in the relationship between parent and child, or will something good come out of it? Will you give in to the perfectly natural impulse to express your scorn, or will you take a breath and make a smarter choice?