Triggers
Have you ever experienced that moment of uncertainty right after performing a routine action, like flushing the toilet or locking the door? It's as if your brain momentarily questions whether the action was completed. Strange moment, right? This intriguing phenomenon holds clues to the economical nature of your brain.
Thinking, as it turns out, demands quite a bit of energy. However, these fleeting instances of doubt highlight the fascinating complexity of your brain's operation, paired with its propensity for conserving energy. Your brain is a master of patterns—those autopilot, quick-reference scenarios that help it take the shortest route and save energy.
Patterns enable your brain to streamline daily tasks without the need for constant conscious effort. These autopilot responses are triggered by sensory cues, like hearing the word "FIRE!" or noticing the bathtub filling with water. Similarly, consider a vending machine. Both require a specific trigger to automate what comes out. This link to behavior is how your brain operates on similar principles.
This efficiency is fantastic for tasks you want to carry out quickly and seamlessly, but it poses challenges when it comes to changing behaviors. If change is what you're seeking, awareness becomes your ally in disrupting autopilot mode. Thinking, feeling, and doing aspects of your routines helps to understand the pesky triggers that set these patterns into motion.
Back to the vending machine: imagine your brain as one with each desired behavior linked to a button. While this trigger mechanism is undoubtedly useful for expediency, it can hinder the process of introducing new behaviors. Control begins with awareness—a conscious effort to determine those so-called button-linked-web of triggers that dictate your autopilot responses. Ownership begins emotional regulation by acting in possession of the patterns then doing to be and become the change you seek.
To effect meaningful change, awareness becomes the key to disrupting old patterns and ushering in new behaviors. Take on the mystery of autopilot. Create intentional responses.
Questions to consider.
What triggers poor choices, unwanted behaviors negative self-talk, etc?
What triggers good choices, desired behaviors, positive self-talk, general awesomeness?
What is sometimes a positive trigger, and sometimes not?
