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

by Marshall Goldsmith

Tales of backsliding after extreme weight loss are clichés (two-thirds of people regain all the lost weight after three years). Our environment—that mocking rascal waging war against our best interests—makes that a certainty. We must always be vigilant. We can always get better at something, even if it’s just preserving the progress we’ve made.

Daily Questions are what behavioral economists refer to as a “commitment device.” The questions announce our intention to do something and, at the risk of private disappointment or public humiliation, they commit us to doing it. Emily asking for help from friends and family is a commitment device. So is setting an alarm clock at night, which commits us to waking up on time. I know people who brush their teeth early in the evening as a commitment device to avoid late-night snacking, in the dubious hope that they’d rather stifle a food craving than re-brush before bedtime. A “swear jar” to which we donate cash every time we use vulgar language is a common commitment device. So is betting with friends that we’ll finish a project on time, the loss of money presumably spurring us on to success (right!).

Self-discipline refers to achieving desirable behavior. Self-control refers to avoiding undesirable behavior

Most people are better at one than the other. They’re good at repeating positive actions, not so good at avoiding negative ones. Or vice versa. This disconnect explains the walking oxymorons among us—the strict vegetarians who smoke, the flabby personal trainers, the accountants declaring personal bankruptcy, the executive coaches who need their own coach.

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.

Commitment. Motivation. Self-discipline. Self-control. Patience. Those are powerful allies when we try to change our ways, courtesy of Daily Questions.

All of these factors—shame, guilt, cost, obligation, decency—conspire to influence us, solely because of the trainer’s presence. This is how we do what we intend to do. The Coach meshes our inner Planner with our inner Doer. This is how successful change happens: in situations big or small, we make choices

that marry intention with execution.

But beyond the structured hierarchies of the workplace, where we’re always answerable to someone for our paycheck and where we have clear incentives for getting better, we don’t appreciate the dynamic as well. In our private lives, where our chaotic environment triggers undesirable behavior, we don’t always welcome coaching.

My antennae perk up whenever I’m asked to conduct research that proves someone’s predetermined conclusion. Something wasn’t right.

Griffin couldn’t change his environment, so he changed how he reacted to it.

once they’ve learned how to change one behavior, they can do it again with another behavior—more smoothly and swiftly than the first time.

The Coach in us takes many forms. It can be an inner voice, akin to conscience, whispering in our ear to remember an earlier time when we did the right thing. It can be a song lyric, a spiritual talisman, a meaningful motto, an instruction on a card, a memory of someone important to us, anything that

triggers desired behavior. It can even be a photograph. This one coaches me.

The picture triggers gratitude, as if the 1984 me is coaching today’s me. It sends a simple message:

Be grateful for what you have. No matter the disappointment or supposed tribulation, do not whine or complain, do not get angry, do not lash out at another person to express your entitlement. You are no better than these African children. Their terrible fate, undeserved and tragic, could have been your fate. Never forget this day.

Every endeavor comes with a first principle that dramatically improves our chances of success at that endeavor. • In carpentry it’s Measure twice, cut once. • In sailing it’s Know where the wind is coming from. • In women’s fashion it’s Buy a little black dress.

I have a first principle for becoming the person you want to be. Follow it and it will shrink your daily volume of stress, conflict, unpleasant debate, and wasted time. It is phrased in the form of a question you should be asking yourself whenever you must choose to either engage or “let it go.” Am I willing,

at this time, to make the investment required to make a positive diff...

The Buddhist wisdom is contained in the Parable of the Empty Boat: A young farmer was covered with sweat as he paddled his boat up the river. He was going upstream to deliver his produce to the village. It was a hot day, and he wanted to make his delivery and get home before dark. As he looked ahead, he spied another vessel, heading rapidly downstream toward his boat. He rowed furiously to get out of the way, but it didn’t seem to help. He shouted, “Change direction! You are going to hit me!” To no avail. The vessel hit his boat with a violent thud. He cried out, “You idiot! How could you manage to hit my boat in the middle of this wide river?” As he glared into the boat, seeking out the individual responsible for the accident, he realized no one was there. He had

been screaming at an empty boat that had broken free of its moorings and was floating downstream with the current.

We behave one way when we believe that there is another person at the helm. We can blame that stupid, uncaring person for our misfortune. This blaming permits us to get angry, act out, assign blame, and play the victim. We behave more calmly when we learn that it’s an empty boat. With no available scapegoat, we can’t get upset. We make peace with the fact that our misfortune was the result of fate or bad luck. We may even laugh at the absurdity of a random unmanned boat finding a way to collide with us in a vast body of water.

The moral: there’s never anyone in the other boat. We are always screaming at an empty vessel. An empty boat isn’t targeting us. And neither are all the

people creating the sour notes in the soundtr...

The chair cannot help but be a chair, and neither can most of the people we encounter. If there’s a person who drives you crazy, you don’t have to like, agree with, or respect him, just accept him for being who he is.

Peter Drucker, who said, “Our mission in life should be to make a positive difference, not to prove how smart or right we are.”

This is profoundly counterproductive behavior that achieves the opposite of its intended effect. We don’t instruct when we correct someone in public for a small error; or heal a sore wound with “I told you so”; or cure people’s bad habits by suggesting they should be more like us; or improve our superiors by complaining about them to others.

From wake-up to bedtime, when we’re in contact with another human being, we face the option of being helpful, hurtful, or neutral. If we’re not paying attention we often choose hurtful, largely to prove we’re smarter, better, more right than the “other guy.”

When we lash out or belittle others—that is, fail to make a positive contribution to a situation—we’re not aware that we’re being counterproductive. Nor is it our intention to be cruel, as if we have chosen to speak our minds and “Damn the consequences!” Consequences don’t enter the picture. We’re only thinking about elevating ourselves. We’re trying to prove how smart we are to an empty boat!

Honesty is stating enough truth to satisfy the other person’s need to know. Too much disclosure has a more ambitious reach—often to a point where the other person suffers and feels ashamed.

Larry had done his private risk-reward analysis and determined that writing a review was worth his time and, in warning readers away from the book, made a positive contribution. He wasn’t being a troll. In his mind, he was doing good—and enjoying it.

Confirmation bias—our tendency to favor information that confirms our opinions, whether it’s true or not—is an established psychological concept. It afflicts how we gather information (selectively), interpret it (prejudicially), and recall it (unreliably).

Of all the pointless debates we can get trapped in, the worst is when facts and beliefs commingle. It never ends well. Whether the subject is climate change or the life span of unicorns, when you cite demonstrable facts to counter another person’s belief, a phenomenon that researchers call “the backfire effect” takes over. Your brilliant marshaling of data not only fails to persuade the believer, it backfires and strengthens his or her belief.

“Every decision in the world is made by the person who has the power to make the decision. Make peace with that.”

It’s the rare person who can make peace with that fact. From the schoolkid complaining about a teacher’s grade to the teen sulking about a parental grounding to the rejected suitor moaning about a lost love to an imperious CEO ignoring his board’s directives, we go through life grumbling about what should be at the expense of accepting what is. Within that bubble of delusion, we grant ourselves an autonomy and superiority we have not earned.

When we regret our own decisions—and do nothing about it—we are no better than a whining employee complaining about his superiors. We are yelling at an empty boat, except it’s our boat.

Like closing our office door so people hesitate before they knock, when we ask ourselves, “Am I willing, at this time, to make the investment required to make a positive difference on this topic?” we have a thin barrier of breathing room, time enough to inhale, exhale, and reflect before we engage or move on. In doing so, we block out the chatter and noise, freeing ourselves to tackle changes that really matter.

We do not get better without structure.

In making everyone repeat name, rank, priorities, and color-coded grading each week, Alan had given them a focused and purposefully narrow vocabulary. Everyone knew the plan. Everyone knew the status. Everyone knew the areas that needed special attention. This is how the executives discussed the only metric that mattered during Ford’s turnaround: How can we help one another more?

Imposing structure on parts of our day is how we seize control of our otherwise unruly environment.

What’s going on here? Why do our discipline and decisiveness fade at the end of the day, to the point where we opt to do nothing instead of doing something enjoyable or useful? It’s not because we’re inherently weak. It’s because we’re weakened.

The more decisions we’re

obliged to make, whether it’s choosing among the dozens of options when buying a new car or reducing the list of attendees at an off-site meeting, the more fatigued we get in handling subsequent decisions. Researchers call this decision fatigue, a state that leaves us with two courses of action: 1) we make careless choices or 2) we surrender to the status quo and do nothing. Decision fatigue is why the head-scratching purchases we make on Tuesday get returned on Wednesday; we’re more clearheaded the next day when we’re not depleted. It’s also why we put off decisions; we’re too drained to decide now

Dealing all day with difficult, high-maintenance colleagues is depleting. Maintaining a compliant façade around a leader you don’t respect is depleting. Excessive multitasking is depleting. Trying to persuade people to agree with you when they are inclined to oppose you is depleting. So is trying to make people like you when they are predisposed to dislike you. Suppressing your opinions—or for that matter, engaging in any effort to control your emotions around others—is depleting.

Unlike being physically tired, however, we’re usually unaware of depletion. It’s not like engaging in strenuous physical activity where we expect to feel the weariness in our muscles—and take time out to rest. Depletion, like stress, is an invisible enemy. Until someone invents a body gauge to tell us we’re running on emotional empty, we can’t measure it, so we don’t appreciate how it’s grinding

us down, affecting our behavioral discipline—and exposing us to bad judgment ...

It’s one thing to engage in depleting activities, but there’s another dimension: How we behave under the influence of depletion. Doing things that deplete us is not the same as doing things when we’re depleted. The former is cause, the latter effect. But the effect isn’t pretty. Under depletion’s influence we are more prone to inappropriate social interactions, such as talking too much, sharing intimate personal information, and being arrogant. We are less likely to follow social norms; for example, we are more likely to cheat. We are less helpful. We can also be more aggressive; the effort of curbing our normal aggression...

others and less adept at coming up with co...

depletion is a way of seeing the world anew and appreciating the

demands placed on us by our constant efforts at self-regulation.