“I am giving my best in the pursuit of my most cherished dreams.” —
Lailah Gifty Akita
A lot of people have great intentions. But then the day gets in the way.
What do high performers do that others don’t?
They structure their day for success. They build better habits, better strategies, and better routines to support them, so that when they get off track, their habits get them going again.
Whether you want to be more calm, more caring, more energized, more loving, you can use trigger moments to activate your higher self.
Trigger Moments Remind You to Take Action
In psychology and NLP there’s the idea of a trigger or stimulus. Brendon Burchard calls them your trigger moments.
The idea here is when you trigger happens, choose a better response.
You can use trigger moments to add or reinforce habits, build better routines, change how you show up, and to energize yourself throughout the day.
Here’s how to use Trigger moments …
1. Set Up Triggers Throughout Your Day
You can setup alarms to trigger you to do the things you need to do. For example, you can set an alarm on your phone or on your computer to go off at a certain time.
It’s like a little angel in your ear reminding you of who you want to be.
Other triggers might be when you wake up in the morning, or when you walk through your door, or when you open the refrigerator.
2. Practice Your New Behavior
When your trigger happens, use the reminder to choose your new behavior. Practice the response that you want to get better at.
When your trigger moment goes off, perform your action.
Each trigger moment is another chance to practice or to choose a better response.
Sometimes, all we need is just a gentle reminder.
Set Up Trigger Moments to Be More Calm
Let’s say you want to be more present and calm during the day. Brendon suggests a very simple thing:
Setup alarms with your phone during the day to trigger or remind you to be more calm. For example, set an alarm for 10 AM, 2 PM, 6 PM, and 8 PM.
When the trigger goes off, close your eyes, take 10 deep breaths in, and remind yourself to be more calm.
Set Up Trigger Moments to Get Better Energy
Let’s say you want more energy in the day. Brendon shares an example of his most important trigger moment each day. When his butt hits the chair, he grabs his phone, he hits the timer and sets it for every 50 minutes, as a trigger to get energy.
When the trigger goes off, here’s what he knows to do:
Stand up, go get some water
Do some stretches
Sit back down
Every 50 minutes, it triggers him to chane how he’s moving, change his attention. This is how he stays refreshes and maintains his energy throughout the day.
Set Up Trigger Moments to Be Healthier
Let’s say you want to be healthier, Brendon shares an example:
Drop off the kids, stop at the grocery store, and get some fresh produce.
Drop kids off is the trigger to that action. The action is to go to the health food store.
Set Up Trigger Moments to Exercise
Let’s say you want to add a workout routine to your life. Set a trigger that when you wake up in the morning, you drink water, put exercise shoes on, go downstairs, or go you go to the gym.
That’s the trigger.
When you wake up in the morning, nothing interrupts that action. You don’t start something else, you run your routine.
Door Frame Triggers
One of Brendon’s favorite triggers is walking into a new room. When you walk into a new room, you can associate a trigger with that door frame.
When Brendon walks through his front door, he repeats three words to himself:
Caring
Inspiring
Engaged
Those three words reflect how he wants to show up. When he walks through the door, his mind automatically triggers those three words.
What words do you love to describe you? Have those three words and set those up in your life.
Trigger Moments for Execs
Brendon suggests that execs should have a door frame trigger. Have three words go through their mind for how they want to be perceived as a leader.
Maybe as a leader you want to be caring, inspiring, and bold.
Use that door frame trigger to show up at meetings as the kind of leader you want to be.
To recap, think of triggers as “When this happens, do this.”
You’re interrupted in your every day life, trigger moments remind you to stick to the habits you want to add, the routines you want to run, or the actions you want to take.
You can use your trigger moments to feel more energized, more engaged, and more empowered.
Get that little angel on your shoulder reminding you who you want to be.
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