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

by Marshall Goldsmith

Forecasting is what we must do after acknowledging the environment’s power over us. It comprises three interconnected stages: anticipation, avoidance, and adjustment.

trial attorneys who never ask a question to which they don’t know the answer. Their entire line of questioning a witness is based on anticipation.

mollifying

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. The problem is that the majority of our day consists of minor moments, when we’re not thinking about the environment or our behavior because we don’t associate the situation with any consequences.

When we’re not anticipating the environment, anything can happen.

“the triumph of hope over experience.”

we rarely triumph over an environment that is enjoyable. We’d rather continue enjoying it than abandon or avoid it. Part of the reason is inertia. It takes enormous willpower to stop doing something enjoyable.

Temptation is the mocking sidekick who shows up in any enjoyable environment, urging us to relax, try a little of this or that, stay a little longer. Temptation can corrupt our values, health, relationships, and careers.

Because of our delusional belief that we control our environment, we choose to flirt with temptation rather than walk away. We are constantly testing ourselves against it. And dealing with the shock and distress when we fail.

specter

Adjustment, if we’re lucky, is the end product of forecasting—but only after we anticipate our environment’s impact and eliminate avoidance as an option.

Most of us continue our errant ways unchecked. We succeed despite, not because of, falling into the same behavioral traps again and again. 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).

reproached

“dramatic narrative fallacy”—the notion that we have to spice up our day by accepting more, if not all, challenges, as if our life resembled a TV drama where the script says we overcome seemingly insurmountable odds rather than avoid them. That’s okay for recreational pursuits, like training for a triathlon. But life becomes exhaustingly risky if we apply that attitude to everything. Sometimes the better part of valor—and common sense—is saying, “I’ll pass.”

no harder task for adults than changing our behavior.

We are geniuses at coming up with reasons to avoid change. We make excuses. We rationalize. We harbor beliefs that trigger all manner of denial and resistance. As a result, we continually fail at becoming the person we want to be.

We’re often too distracted to hear what the environment is telling us. But in those moments when we’re dialed in and paying attention, the seemingly covert triggers that shape our behavior become apparent.

we have a bifurcated response to the environment in which we display two discrete personas I call “planner” and “doer.” The planner who wakes up in the morning with clear plans for the day is not the same person later in the day who has to execute those plans. Basic tools such as anticipating, avoiding, and adjusting to risky environments are a good place to start correcting this conflict between planner and doer in us. But they are Band-Aid solutions to immediate challenges; they don’t alter our behavior permanently.

abject losers in our ongoing war with the environment,

To understand a problem, you not only have to admit there is a problem; you also have to appreciate all your options.

Creating represents the positive elements that we want to create in our future. • Preserving represents the positive elements that we want to keep in the future. • Eliminating represents the negative elements that we want to eliminate in the future. • Accepting represents the negative elements that we need to accept in the future.

If we’re satisfied with our life—not necessarily happy or delighted that we’ve exceeded our wildest expectations, just satisfied—we yield to inertia. We continue doing what we’ve always done.

falling for any and every idea, never pursuing one idea long enough so that it takes root and actually shapes a recognizably new us.

“Tradition with a future,”

“The most thankless decision I make is the one that prevents something bad from happening, because I can never prove that I prevented something even worse.”

“What in my life is worth keeping?” The answer can save us a lot of time and energy. After all, preserving a valuable behavior means one less behavior we have to change.

“You’re not researching and writing and coming up with new things to say. You can continue doing what you’re doing for a long time. But you’ll never become the person you want to be.”

In Peter Drucker’s words, I was “sacrificing the future on the altar of today.”

stultifying

acquiescence.”

whims

We take in what we want to hear, but tune out the displeasing notes that we need to hear.

Accepting is most valuable when we are powerless to make a difference.

niggling

Good things happen when we ask ourselves what we need to create, preserve, eliminate, and accept—a

rote

I host several “What are you going to do with the rest of your life” get-togethers at my home for my clients. They’re not thinking about it. They’re not in creation mode.

In my coaching I have only a handful of “magic moves.” Apologizing is a magic move. Only the hardest of hearts will fail to forgive a person who admits they were wrong. Apology is where behavioral change begins.

Asking for help is a magic move. Few people will refuse your sincere plea for help. Asking for help sustains the change process, keeps it moving forward.

Optimism—not only feeling it inside but showing it on the outside—is a magic move. People are automatically drawn to the confident individual who believes everything wil...

What makes these gestures magical is how effectively they trigger decent behavior in other people and how easy they are to do.

This chapter introduces a fourth magic move: asking active questions.

Its objective is to alter our behavior, not the behavior of others. But that doesn’t make it less magical. The act of self-questioning—so simple, so misunderstood, so infrequently pursued—changes everything.

When people are asked passive questions they almost invariably provide “environmental” answers.

There is nothing inherently evil or bad about passive questions. They can be a very useful tool for helping companies know what they can do to improve. On the other hand, they can produce a very negative unintended consequence. When asked exclusively, passive questions can be the natural enemy of taking personal responsibility and demonstrating accountability. They can give people the unearned permission to pass the buck to anyone and anything but themselves.

Active questions are the alternative to passive questions. There’s a difference between “Do you have clear goals?” and “Did you do your best to set clear goals for yourself?”

exhortations

People don’t get better without follow-up. So let’s get better at following up with our people.

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”)