In today's society, everyone wants to acquire good habits. The slogan of the 21st century is that we have to follow a healthy diet, exercise frequently, be very happy, avoid being lazy, and many more.
It is very easy to think that someday we will carry it out, but it is not so much when we want to get down to work. We need something to activate us, to direct us to it. We need triggers for action.
Below we will understand exactly what these triggers are, and we will see what types there are and how we can use them to our advantage.
What are triggers for action?
Triggers of action are an exact mental representation of a chain of events, which are located in a certain place, at a specific time or time of day, and can occur with or without the company of other people. That is, it is imagining everything that influences the performance of a certain action and, therefore, in the event that it is repeated on more than one occasion, it contributes to establishing this action as a habit, be it positive or negative.
The exact description of the steps to be followed and the context in which the action is to be carried out contributes significantly to its occurrence. In fact, there are investigations that have tried to see how the simple fact of making participants imagine themselves carrying out a future action increases the chances of it happening, and we will see a particular case below.
The Gollwitzer and Brandstätter experiment
Psychologists Peter Gollwitzer and Veronika Brandstätter discovered in 1999 what they called the implantation intent technique, which is synonymous with triggers for action.
Using college students, they were able to observe the power of describing a future action that contributed to its occurrence. His experiment consisted of taking the students of a subject and proposing to them to carry out an activity to raise the grade. This exercise was to deliver a paper on how they would spend Christmas Eve.
So far everything very normal, but Gollwitzer and Brandstätter asked a different thing from those who were part of the control group and those who were part of the experimental group. Those in control were asked to turn in the paper on December 26, that is, after the action had, in theory, occurred, while those in the experimental group were asked to define, in the highest degree of detail, where they would do the work, and deliver this description before going on vacation.
For us to understand each other: the control group was asked to turn in the work once they had already done the activity, while the experimental group had to describe it, before it was Christmas Eve where they would end up doing it (eg, I will get up soon on the 25th to write the work in the library of my city ...) and then turn in the work of what they had done that day.
While in the control group, of all those who said that they were going to deliver the final work, only 33% ended up doing it, in the experimental this percentage was higher, about 75%, demonstrating that the previously described and precisely an action contributes to its ending.
Triggers of action work because they anticipate the decision. By anticipating the action to be carried out, being very clear about the what, the how, the where, the when and with whom, contributes to our mentalizing and motivating ourselves to do it. They help create an instant habit.
Five types of triggers for action
As we have already seen, wanting to acquire a good habit and get down to work implies knowing exactly what the action we want to carry out is. To contribute to its occurrence, it is necessary to know how to describe it as accurately as possible, allowing us to properly mentalize ourselves and to have a greater tendency to carry it out, as is the case of the students of Gollwitzer and Brandstätter.
Below we will take a closer look at the five main types of action triggers, which can contribute, for better or for worse, to the acquisition of all kinds of habits.
1. Time of the day
The time of day is surely the most important trigger when carrying out a habit. For example, let's think about the habits we have settled down in the morning: we get up, have our coffee or cup of tea, eat a croissant, take a shower, get dressed, and go to work or class. The simple fact of successfully getting out of bed already implies carrying out all these series of actions unconsciously.
But morning is not the only time of day that influences how we behave. It may be that, when we arrive from class or work, we associate the arrival time with having to turn on the TV and wander, or take a snack. We are used to the fact that, at a certain time, we have to behave in a certain way. The time of day induces us to do these habits.
The time of day can be a perfect trigger for action for us to perform actions that bring us some kind of benefit. For example, if we are interested in acquiring more vocabulary in English, we can try to associate breakfast time with taking a dictionary and trying to learn ten new words. At first it will cost us, of course, but as the days go by there will be a time when having breakfast will make us open the book unconsciously.
2. Place
Let's imagine that we are in the kitchen and we see in front of the table a plate of freshly baked cookies. We eat them. The reason? They were there. Did we plan to eat them before entering the kitchen? No, we didn't even know they had been made. Why were we going to the kitchen then? We were going for a glass of water, the plate has been the culprit that we have decided to eat the cookies.
With this example we can understand the importance that the simple fact that something is there can induce us to do a certain behavior, in this case eating the plate of cookies. Being in the right place at the right time influences our behavior, making a good or bad decision without even thinking about it for just a few seconds. The environment or the place is one of the most powerful triggers of the action, although it is not given due importance.
In every room of our house, be it our room or the desk, there may be stimuli that prevent us from studying, for example. Also, in each place of our home we have associated ways of behaving, such as spending hours playing video games in our room, eating cookies in the kitchen or watching TV in the living room. They are "contaminated" with our previous behaviors.
That is why it has been seen that the best way to try to establish a new habit is to do it in a new place. For example, if we want to study and there is no way to concentrate at home, let's go to the library or a cafeteria where we have never been with our friends. Being new places for us, we do not have the precedent of having carried out actions that hinder our study. They are places that foster a more productive environment.
3. Predecessor event
Many habits are conditioned by something that has happened before, or by a stimulus that may seem harmless to the whole of our behavior but that influences us in such a way that it can lead to the failure of our purposes.
For example, and a classic, is to take the mobile when it vibrates and, immediately afterwards, we look at who has sent us the last message. We not only look at the message, since we take the opportunity to look at Instagram, Twitter and curiosities on the last page we have visited. And that makes us waste time, especially if we were doing something important in which we should not allow any distraction to interrupt us. The vibration works in us like Pavlov's famous bell with his dogs.
This conditioning of our behavior before a certain stimulus can be used to our advantage. For example, we want to walk more, and a good way to do this is to go up and down stairs. We can propose that, if the elevator is not on our same floor, we do not call it, and we go down the stairs. So we do a little leg.
4. Emotions
It doesn't take a psychologist to know how being in a bad mood makes us make bad decisions, which can eventually turn into bad habits. For example, there are people who, when stressed, tend to go to the fridge to find something ultra-sugary, such as a chocolate bar, a flan or a pastry. Others choose to smoke as highwaymen or spend hours watching Netflix or videos of presses squashing things on YouTube.
It is clear that being sad, angry, stressed or grumpy in general makes us do unproductive things. That is why the state of mind, as a trigger for a (bad) action is something quite complicated to use for our own benefit. Normally we like to do productive things when we are in a good mood, while if we are a little down or angry the last thing we think about is studying, playing sports or eating a good diet.
This is somewhat difficult to control. Although we can make a great effort to smile at life in the face of adversity, we are human beings, not emotional and emotionless organisms. We feel, and each feeling influences our behavior, for better or for worse. It is what it is.
However, not all bad news. We can try to think coldly when we are angry and, instead of paying for it with the world, channel the tension by doing sports, especially one that involves lifting weight (eg, gym machines), hitting punches (eg, boxing ) or, if you prefer, to make you tired (eg spinning).
5. Other people
It is not surprising that our companies influence our behavior and, in the worst cases, the saying is better to be alone than in bad company. It has happened to all of us that we do not usually drink, but when we are with a friend, we cannot avoid asking for a beer. In other cases, when we are watching what we eat, being with other friends does not invite us to order a salad for dinner. We could put many more cases, but the idea is already being understood: others influence our decisions.
But not everything is bad. On the contrary, proposing to do things with friends or family can be a factor that triggers the realization of what, over time, will be a good habit. For example, let's imagine that we have signed up for the gym with our roommate and, every time he goes, we want to accompany him. Then in the gym, if you're also good at exercising, it can motivate us to try new machines and outdo ourselves. It is a case in which another person influences us positively.
Before finishing and deciding the habit to start
Whether choosing one of the triggers of action previously explained, or being aware of how these influence our behavior, it is very important to specify what is the desired habit, or the specific action, that we want to acquire. It is not much use proposing to be very healthy, study or meditate without first specifying what exactly these actions mean. It is also very important to specify the one or those triggers that we consider to contribute to the action in question.
For example, let's say we want to eat healthier. Very good. Let us ask ourselves the following question: what is healthy? Sure, here we already have a question to solve. Eating a sad lettuce and starving yourself all day is not the same as eating a delicious and varied salad made with lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, a can of tuna, a jet of balsamic oil and walnuts, for later accompany it with a serving of grilled chicken breast accompanied by a little rice and carrots, finishing off with a rich fruit salad.
In the case of the miserable lettuce we have a very vague and general idea of what it is to eat healthy, in addition to that we have not imagined ourselves doing the action or even thinking about all the necessary steps to start being healthy. In the second case, on the other hand, we have carried out an exercise in imagination, we have thought of everything necessary and that we consider essential to do the action, and this is, essentially, as if we had already done the action previously. It is like a mental simulation of the habit to acquire.
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