5 Triggers That make new Habits Stick

I am indebted to James Clear for this insightful article.

In his best-selling book, The Power of Habit (audiobook), author Charles Duhigg explains a simple three-step process that all habits follow. This cycle, known as The Habit Loop, says that each habit consists of…

1.   The Trigger: the event that starts the habit.
2.  The Routine: the behavior that you perform, the habit itself.
3. The Reward: the benefit that is associated with the behavior.

The image below shows how these three factors work together to build new habits. 

Each phase of the loop is important for building new habits, but today I’d like to discuss the first factor: habit triggers.

There are five primary ways that a new habit can be triggered. If you understand each of them, then you can select the right one for the particular habit that you are working on.

Before we talk about how to get started, I wanted to let you know I researched and compiled science-backed ways to stick to good habits and stop procrastinating.

Here’s what you need to know about each trigger…

Trigger 1: Time

Time is perhaps the most common way to trigger a new habit. Common morning habits are just one example. Waking up in the morning usually triggers a cascade of habits: go to the bathroom, take a shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, make a cup of coffee, etc.

There are also less commonly recognized ways that time triggers our behavior. For example, if you pay attention you may notice that you repeat certain tasks mindlessly at different points during the day: heading off to get a snack at the same time each afternoon, taking a smoking break at the same time each morning, and so on.

If these patterns are bad habits, then you may want to take stock of how you feel at this time of day. In many cases, your habits are a signal of how you feel. Bored? Maybe your afternoon snacking habit is a way of breaking up the monotony of the day. Feeling lonely? Maybe your smoking break is a way to connect with fellow co-workers. The point is, if you understand the reason why these habits pop up at the same time each day, then it can become easier to find a new habit to fill the void. Bad habits are replaced, not eliminated.

How I use it: Time-based triggers can also be used to stick with routines over and over again. This is my preferred method. For example, every Monday and Thursday I write a new article and post it on JamesClear.com. The time and date drive this pattern. It doesn’t matter how good or how bad I feel about the article. It doesn’t matter how long or how short the article is. All that matters is that I stick to the schedule. The time triggers the habit.

Trigger 2: Location

If you have ever walked into your kitchen, seen a plate of cookies on the counter, and eaten them just because they are there in front of you, then you understand the power of location on our behavior.

In my opinion, location (i.e. environment) is the most powerful driver of mindless habits and also the least recognized. In many cases, our habits and behaviors are simply a response to the environment that surrounds us. The famous study on water versus soft drink consumption is one example of how our environment can either promote good habits or lead us toward bad ones.

However, location-based triggers are not simply things we respond to, they can also be things we create. Multiple research studies by David Neal and Wendy Wood from Duke University have discovered that new habits are actually easier to perform in new locations.

One theory is that we mentally assign habits to a particular location. This means that all of the current places that you’re familiar with (your home, your office, etc.) already have behaviors, habits and routines assigned to them. If you want to build new habits in these familiar locations, then you need to overcome the triggers and cues that your brain has already assigned to that area. Meanwhile, building a new habit in a new location is like having a blank slate. You don’t have to overcome any pre-existing triggers.

How I use it: When I arrive at the gym, I head to the same spot each time to get ready, change into my lifting gear, and start my warm up. This location in the gym is a simple trigger that helps prompt my pre-workout routine (more on the power of a pre-game routine). There are bound to be some days when I don’t feel like exercising, but the location-based trigger helps me overcome that and get into my workout ritual as painlessly as possible.

Trigger 3: Preceding Event

Many habits are a response to something else that happens in your life. Your phone buzzes, so you pick it up to check your latest text message. The little notification bar lights up on Facebook, so you click it to see what it signals. These are examples of habits that are triggered by a preceding event.

When it comes to triggers that are useful for building new habits, I find preceding events to be one of the most useful. Once you understand habit stacking you can develop all sorts of ways to tie new habits into preceding events. (Example: “When I make my morning cup of coffee, I will meditate for one minute.”)

How I use it: For over two years, I have used a preceding event to stick with a daily gratitude habit. Each night, when I sit down to eat dinner, I say one thing that I was grateful for that day. (It’s worth noting, one reason I believe I have been able to stick with this habit so consistently is because it is so small. The smaller the habit, the easier it is to build into your life.)

Trigger 4: Emotional State

In my experience, emotional state is a common trigger for bad habits. For example, you may have a habit of eating when you feel depressed. Or, you may default to online shopping when you feel bored. The emotional states of depression or boredom are triggers for these negative habits.

Unfortunately, although emotions are very common triggers for our behavior, I find that they are harder to control and utilize for building good habits. Mostly, I think this is because if you want an emotion to trigger a positive habit, then you often need to be consciously aware of the emotion as you are experiencing it. In other words, you have to be emotional and aware at the same time … and that can be hard to do. Paying attention is a powerful, but difficult, way to build better habits.

How I use it: I’m trying to get better about noticing when I am holding tension in my body and experiencing stress. When I do notice that I’m feeling particularly stressed, I’ll use this emotional state to trigger a deep breathing habit.

I like to follow a 3-1-5 breathing pattern: three seconds in, pause for one second, five seconds out. I’ll usually repeat this sequence three to five times. I find this little breathing exercise to be a great instant stress reliever. It’s particularly useful because you can literally do it anywhere.

Trigger 5: Other People

It is probably no surprise to you that the people you surround yourself with can play a role on your habits and behaviors. What may be a surprise is just how big of an impact these people can make. One study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that if your friend becomes obese, then your risk of obesity increases by 57 percent — even if your friend lives hundreds of miles away.

As far as I can tell, the best way to make use of this information is to surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself. As Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

How I use it: I'm not a heavy drinker, but nearly every time I go out with friends I get a drink. Why is that? If I'm not yearning for a beer, why get one? It’s simply a response to the environment that I am in and the people I am around. 

Before You Choose Your Trigger

No matter what trigger you choose for your new habit, there is one important thing to understand. The key is to choosing a successful trigger is to pick a trigger that is very specific and immediately actionable.

For example, let’s say you want to build a new habit of doing 10 pushups each day at lunch time. You might start by choosing a time-based trigger and saying something like, “During my lunch break each day, I’ll do 10 pushups.” This might work, but it's not very specific. Do you do your pushups at the beginning of your lunch break? At the end? Any time?

Alternatively, you could create a trigger around a very specific preceding event that happens right around your lunch break. For example, “When I close my laptop to leave for lunch, I’ll do 10 pushups.” In this case, the very specific action of “closing the laptop” is a perfect trigger for what to do next (your 10 pushups). There is no mistaking when you should do the new habit.

As always, self-experimentation is the only real answer. Play around with these five habit triggers and see what works for you.

By James Clear   

It's the feeling that counts

Once upon a time we were happy with our consumer economy, comfortable in the knowledge that what we consumed, stated who we were and defined our position in society. Simple, easy and clear. You knew what you could afford and aspired to move a little further up the social ladder, defined by what you consumed.

Then came “Branding”, the awareness that we could better define who we were by the products we used and the stories they told. We could belong to smaller groups that weren’t socially or ethnically differentiated. That was the consumer economy and the service economy.

Our hopes, desires and aspirations could be targeted and exploited by our desire to belong, to be part of something. The stories brands carried with them bound us together in loyal groups, until consumption became the empty promise of a better life.

Emotion has always been present in consumption, but the realisation that experience is the result emotion and is how we “feel” things, has allowed experience to become the driving force behind contemporary design and economic theory, and so we have the so-called “experience economy”.

The concept was first outlined by Alvin Toffler in his book, Future Shock and was brought into economic and consumer theory by Pine and Gilmore in their 1998 Harvard article. They felt that all consumption can be understood in experiential terms. Building brand value becomes building the stories and collective experiences that we want to share. People will be willing to invest very high percentages of their salaries to live amazing experiences.

Loyalty to a brand is only as strong as the emotions it evokes and the experiences that can be shared. Technology has made this even more evident, as we share the picture of the experience rather than enjoying the experience itself and for its own sake. I don’t think hotels can count on loyalty anymore unless they can deliver collective experiences. Transformational experiences.

So perhaps what we have now is the “transformational economy”. We consume experiences in the same way we consume a theme park experience, always on to the next, more thrilling experience. People are fickle and will switch loyalty for the next experience. It’s a buyer’s market, in hospitality, in fashion, in holidays, in telephones, and almost any other market.

So, is there any place for traditional values such as Authenticity, Service, Glamour, Beauty, Good Design?

Perhaps only if these qualities can deliver a transformational, shareable, emotional experience. Brand values are only as good as the experience they are able to deliver. So, I believe that all the above qualities are only marketable if they can deliver the experience.

On one level Brand loyalty is the reduction of risk, on both sides. You tell me something I value and buy into and I’ll give you my affiliation, affection and trust, we share values and stories and we can believe that we have mutual interests. You are consistent and I feel we are compatible. So, we play a little game, you think you understand my needs and I think you deliver what I want. But if I am fickle and change my desires, will I remain loyal. No. My loyalty depends on my needs not yours. In a very distracting world, with short spans of attention, I will only be loyal if you can change in harmony with me and deliver the values I now hold.

I think it is rare for Brands to be loyal to their customers, because to be loyal they must reverse their role, as object and become subject. Brands can show loyalty to their customers by listening and changing. Consumer research is often focussed on the lowest common denominator. It does give the customer what they want, and it reduces risk for the brand, but it rarely innovates. Technology engagement isn’t the answer, the answer is the question; what problem, need or desire does this solve? If and only if, it enhances the experience, then it has value. And the game is to add value to the experience.

In an experience economy, it seems to me, a brand would need to be perceived to be constantly evolving and innovating as a core quality of its brand. In fact, I think that is the new experiential brand. Not product based but innovation based, change based. It’s a risky business. That’s why people will change hotels according to their changing needs and means, rather than remaining loyal to one brand.

I think hotels are right to diversify and segment their brands into ever smaller niche markets at the moment. That’s how we consume now. If a group can deliver 20 evolving brands and keep its sanity whilst others around it are losing theirs, they will succeed. I don’t think the future is in better technology (unless it enhances the experience), the future is in ever smaller niche brands, that deliver unique and diverse experiences. Perhaps within an overarching “trusted” group. But in order to deliver, they will need to keep innovating. The fickle guest constantly reviews the landscape and changes his or her mind as to where to spend their money.

Loyalty isn’t a thing of the past, but it is changing and it’s changing in favour of fleeting, momentary experiences that can be shared. The future’s bright, but it’s not orange, more like 50 shades of grey.

CL 15/09/2017

Cognitive Biases

A cognitive bias refers to the systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, whereby inferences about other people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion. 

A continually evolving list of cognitive biases has been identified over the last six decades of research on human judgment and decision-making in cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioral economics. Kahneman and Tversky (1996) argue that cognitive biases have efficient practical implications for areas including clinical judgment, entrepreneurship, finance, and management.

Individuals create their own "subjective social reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of social reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the social world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality.

Cognitive biases may lead to more effective actions in a given context. Furthermore, cognitive biases enable faster decisions when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy, as illustrated in heuristics. Other cognitive biases are a "by-product" of human processing limitations, resulting from a lack of appropriate mental mechanisms (bounded rationality), or simply from a limited capacity for information processing.

Cognitive Bias arises from various processes that are sometimes difficult to distinguish. These include

• information-processing shortcuts (heuristics)
• noisy information processing (distortions in the process of storage in and retrieval from memory)
• the brain's limited information processing capacity
• emotional and moral motivations

Creatives are intuitively aware of our cognitive biases and will often use these predilections, albeit without necessarily being aware of what they are called, to influence and manipulate the emotional, cultural and behavioral responses of their audiences. The ability to design (or craft a future) is often the ability to empathize with and identify with the audience, in the same way as an actor will approach a role by identifying the motivations of the character.

CL Sept 2017