Video: Five Triggers That Promote Good Habits

NEW YORK - July 15, 2019 - PRLog -- I learned about The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg while on a power walk in Windsor  Terrace, Brooklyn.  I ran into a neighbor who recommended the book to me knowing   I like to listen to self help audiobooks. The very next morning I downloaded it from the ITunes store.  The Power of Habit explains a simple three-step process that all habits follow. This cycle, known as The Habit Loop, says that each habit consists of…

The Trigger: the event that starts the habit.

The Routine: the behavior that you perform, the habit itself.

The Reward: the benefit that is associated with the behavior.

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.

The 5 triggers are:

Trigger 1: Time

Trigger 2: Location

Trigger 3: Preceding Event

Trigger 4: Emotional State

Trigger 5: Other People

At times , customers come to Stoop Juice seeking to change how they eat, our job is to create a plan which helps them reach their goal.  Some of the customers know exactly what they want and creating a plan is easy an straight forward.  Others want change but have a though time describing their goal.  In those instances, we help customers clearly define their goals, create and recommend the appropriate cleanse and offer life style adjustment suggestions.  When this is the case, our goal is to help customers create new habits to reach their goals as easy as possible.  These videos explain the five habit triggers in detail to Stoop Juice customers or anyone who finds them useful.  Enjoy.

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 number 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:  anyone for tea at 4pm? heading off to get a drink at the same time each Friday evening after work, going for a run 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 anxious? Maybe your morning run is a way to release endorphins to relieve your anxiety.  Another person feeling anxious may reach for the big bag of potato chips in the pantry. 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.

Application: Time-based triggers can also be used to stick with routines over and over again.. For example, every morning at 5am I do the 6 Phase meditation which promotes harmony, task completion and goal setting in my life. The 6 phases are:

Connection (See yourself for what we all are, a piece of consciousness directly connected to every other life form on the planet)

Gratitude (Know that when you express gratitude for beautiful moments in life, you open the way for these moments to repeat themselves and grow in terms of their magnitude)

Forgiveness (Know that at a deeper level we are one, and any negative charge towards any other living person is a charge against yourself)

Visualizing (As you wrap up, mentally tell yourself, let this or something better unfold in my life)

Daily Intention (Visualize yourself making today amazingly wonderful too)

Blessings (Know that you create your own luck and the universe has your back)

Trigger 2: Location

If you have ever walked into your house right before the big game starts on TV, see several pizza pies 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.  Being in the moment will help you create good habits as you'll be aware of your surroundings and avoid the mindless bad habits since location-based triggers are not simply things we respond to, they can also be things we create. According to David Neal and Wendy Wood researchers from Duke University, 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.  Application: When I arrive at Stoop Juice, I clean up, change to my work clothes and setup. After setup, I have 32 ounces of green juice.  My trigger for my juice is the completion of morning setup. Some days I don't feel like having a juice, but the location-based trigger helps me overcome that and I make and drink my green juice daily.  For those of you who juice at home, find a similar place to trigger the juice drinking habit. Click to watch video here http://stoopjuice.com/video-five-triggers-that.html