PDF Summary:Triggers, by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter

Changing your behavior is hard. Changing the way you behave around other people is even harder. But if you can understand why you’re not always the best version of yourself, you can put yourself on the path toward being a better partner, parent, colleague, or friend.

In Triggers, Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter explore the environmental and psychological triggers that trap us in negative or unproductive patterns of behavior, and they reveal strategies for breaking the cycle. Goldsmith is an executive coach who has worked with more than 200 CEOs who have the same problems as the rest of us with staying calm, patient, and present in their relationships.

In this guide, we’ll compare Goldsmith and Reiter’s main insights to other popular theories about habits and routines. We’ll also look at the research on how our decisions play out in the real world and explain how that research supports and challenges the theories in Triggers.

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This tendency may play a role in the behaviors that you’d like to change in your relationships, where you’d probably like to be a more positive person. For example, when a colleague annoys you, your partner asks you the same question for the 20th time, or your neighbor makes an obnoxious demand, making a cutting remark feels easier (and more rewarding) than being patient and empathetic.

(Shortform note: A fundamental reason why we often react negatively rather than positively might be that our negativity bias causes us to devote more attention to the negative (and to remember it more vividly). Studies have shown that we focus on adverse outcomes and experiences, which can impact the choices we make and the risks we’re willing to take. To counter this bias, psychologists suggest curbing negative thoughts, reframing events more positively, redirecting your attention to an activity that makes you happy, and consciously focusing on positive moments.)

We Have a Finite Capacity for Self-Regulation

Another reason we struggle with triggers is that we can practice only so much self-control in regulating our emotions and curbing our impulses. Goldsmith and Reiter explain that we gradually exhaust our capacity for self-regulation as we suppress our opinions, watch our behavior, and handle unexpected challenges. At each turn, we become more vulnerable to our triggers.

No matter how committed we feel to changing our behavior, we tend to make worse decisions after running down this gauntlet of tasks. That means we typically find it more difficult to be decisive or disciplined—and to avoid reacting to our triggers—at the end of the day.

The authors attribute this to a phenomenon called “ego depletion.” When we’ve used up our self-control, decisions become progressively more difficult to the point that we become reckless with them (or just decide to avoid them by sticking with the status quo).

Why Our Experience With Self-Control Goes Beyond “Ego Depletion”

To explain the common experience of a sense of finite self-control, Goldsmith and Reiter draw on the theory of “ego depletion,” which suggests that willpower is a limited resource that can be depleted. However, some researchers disagree with the model. Psychologists across 36 laboratories recently tested the theory and found no evidence that the “ego depletion” effect really exists.

We still experience something like ego depletion subjectively. But researchers think that instead of being a fixed and limited resource, motivation to curb our impulses might be subjective—and we might experience ego depletion because we expect to experience it. The theory is that motivation is elastic, and our expectations determine the amount of self-control we can exercise.

We Don’t Push Ourselves Hard Enough Toward Our Goals

When we encounter a trigger, it can feel tempting to settle for “good enough” and let ourselves give in to our impulses. But we end up hurting or disappointing people when we decide that we can be on our best behavior later and go with “good enough” right now.

Goldsmith and Reiter use the term “satisficing” to describe how we’re often inclined to go with the good-enough option rather than put in the extra time, effort, or resources to get the best. But they note that we can’t (or shouldn’t) satisfice with our behavior toward other people.

The authors posit that we often satisfice in situations where we have marginal motivation, where we’re volunteering our time, where we consider ourselves amateurs, or where we want to opt out of other people’s rules. We might justify our actions to ourselves, but settling for good enough still means falling short of the goals we’ve set for ourselves.

(Shortform note: The way we behave every day has long-lasting consequences. Psychologist Jonathan Baron wrote in Thinking and Deciding that every decision we make sets a precedent for future decisions. The plans we make and the precedents we set gradually become our goals. Our goals then determine who we are as people. We often don’t think about the cumulative effect of the choices we make every day, but according to Baron, these seemingly small choices form a substantial part of who we are.)

Resisting Triggers

Understanding why we fall prey to triggers is the first step; the next step is actively resisting them. The writers argue that we can stop triggers from controlling our behavior. We’re not helpless against them. The authors offer many tools you can use to keep your environment from throwing you off course from the goals that you’ve set for yourself.

In this section of the guide, we’ve divided these strategies into two groups. The first group consists of plans or structures you can build ahead of time (or otherwise outside of the time when you’re in a triggering situation). The second group comprises strategies you can implement in the moment to stay focused on changing your behavior.

Before or Beyond the Triggering Situation

First, let’s look at some strategies that can help you get ahead of your triggers, either when you’re planning ahead and anticipating what your day might throw at you or when you’re recalibrating after a difficult day and trying to refocus on what matters most to you.

Ask for Help

The writers suggest that you ask the people around you to share their observations about the behavior you’re trying to change. You might not know why you’re acting in a way that’s inconsistent with your goals or values in a specific situation. And you might struggle to identify the trigger, like when you end up in a bad mood after a family dinner without realizing that your brother’s remarks about politics make you feel irritable.

Your family, friends, or colleagues can likely point out your triggers. Then, you can come up with a plan to change your reaction. Feedback from other people can also help you see how strongly the environment influences your behavior, which can motivate you to change.

(Shortform note: Goldsmith has long preached accountability as a powerful tool for changing your behavior. In a 2002 interview, Goldsmith said that his clients learn more from their friends, family, and colleagues than they learn from him. He believes that anybody in your life can help you change your behavior because they can offer you specific, concrete suggestions. This squares with Gretchen Rubin’s advice on accountability in Better Than Before, where she writes that you’re much more likely to change your behavior if you have others to check in with about your progress on specific goals.)

Decide What to Keep and What to Change

Another way to get ahead of your triggers is to think about what you want to keep and what you want to change. Even in an area where you have room for improvement, you probably don’t need to change everything you’re doing. Instead, as you identify what you’re doing well and what you’d like to do better, you’ll find that you’ll want to build positive new behaviors (and continue existing ones) while stopping behaviors that don’t serve you. The writers note that that may even include realizing that some things are beyond your control and can’t be changed.

For example, if you want to connect with your partner, you could change your habit of going straight to the TV after dinner by sharing a cup of coffee instead. On the other hand, you could keep your habit of checking in with short texts throughout the day.

(Shortform note: Committing to changing in the future feels easier than making a change right now. That’s because the future feels more abstract. Psychologists explain that the farther away something feels—temporally, spatially, socially, or hypothetically—the more abstractly we think about it. This theory, called construal level theory, suggests that when we think about changing our behavior in the future, we don’t think about the practical inconveniences. So we’re more willing to commit to changing our behavior in the future than to changing it right now.)

Test Yourself Every Day

Once you know what’s important to you and what you want to change, you can ask yourself a set of “daily questions” to track your progress. Goldsmith and Reiter explain that when you know you’re going to test yourself, you’ll feel more motivated to make productive choices during the day. In this way, the daily questions can help you stay engaged with the changes you want to make.

These are the steps involved:

1. Ask yourself, “Did I do my best?” about each important area of your life.

Each evening, measure your efforts toward your goals by asking whether you did your best to meet them. (This wording helps you reflect on effort, not performance.) Each question you ask yourself should assess a goal that’s important to you—a goal that, when you work toward achieving it, will help you become the person you want to be. For example, if you want to be a more engaged parent, you might ask yourself, “Did I do my best to give my child one-on-one attention today?”

(Shortform note: Asking yourself whether you did your best helps you focus on actions you can take each day. In The Bullet Journal Method, Ryder Carroll recommends breaking large goals down into smaller, more concrete projects. He suggests asking yourself questions like, “What small step can I take to move forward right now?” Like Goldsmith and Reiter, his advice is aimed at finding realistic steps that, when taken every day, can help you make significant changes.)

2. Score your effort on a scale of 1 to 10.

Score your effort toward each goal on a scale from 1 to 10. Think about the actions you did or didn’t take. A score of 1 indicates minimal effort, while a score of 10 indicates maximum effort. You don’t necessarily have to have succeeded to earn a 10. You just need to have made a substantial and honest effort to work toward your goal.

You can even ask someone you trust to help you with this process. The writers recommend reporting your scores to someone else each day. Having someone to hold you accountable can give you more structure to push yourself to change.

(Shortform note: Scoring yourself on effort rather than performance can solve some common problems with tracking progress. In Measure What Matters, John Doerr recommends using subjective self-assessment to look at what you did in light of the circumstances. If you only look at objective scores based on results, a low score might fail to capture extraordinary but unsuccessful effort. Similarly, a high score could obscure lackluster effort that, through luck or coincidence, happened to yield a good result.)

3. Track your progress over time.

Track your answers to the daily questions over time. The daily questions have their utility in the moment. But if you collect your scores, patterns will likely emerge. For example, if you look at your data and see 9s and 10s for one goal but 1s and 2s for another, you can assess whether the latter goal really matters to you. If it does, you can change something to make a more substantial effort toward achieving it.

(Shortform note: Paying attention to your progress can help you stay on track. It’s not enough to score your efforts each day and then forget about it. In Goals, Brian Tracy explains that reaching your goals requires monitoring your progress over time. Tracy suggests setting daily, weekly, and monthly benchmarks that will help you quantify whether you’re moving toward your goals. That way, you’ll be able to make changes if you see that you aren’t making the steady progress you expected.)

Criticism of the Daily Questions

The idea of committing to the routine of the daily questions has drawn some skepticism and some criticism—in part because it’s challenging. Several writers have shared their struggles with Goldsmith and Reiter’s ideas.

Journalist John Dickerson reports that he tried the daily questions after interviewing Goldsmith and initially didn’t stick with it. Goldsmith told Dickerson that keeping up the daily routine is the hard part—and most people drop it after just two weeks. Dickerson writes that making his list felt like a chore and failing felt unpleasant. But the questions he asked himself in the evening began to insinuate themselves into his days, and he returned to the routine after dropping it.

Reviewing Triggers, author Art Kleiner gets a little more colorful when expressing his skepticism about the daily questions, particularly Goldsmith’s personal practice, which involves 22 questions. Kleiner characterizes Goldsmith’s dedication to the routine as “a neo-Calvinist 21st-century form of mental self-flagellation,” referring to a branch of Protestantism that emphasizes the independence of individuals. But Kleiner notes that he does want the results that Goldsmith and Reiter promise are possible—and he believes the writers when they say that self-discipline is necessary to make lasting behavior change.

Think Ahead

To put yourself in the best position to resist your triggers before they happen, you can recognize ahead of time when a situation might trigger you. Goldsmith and Reiter clarify that when you know a particular environment is likely to influence you, you can choose not to engage with it. If you must spend time in that environment, you can alter your behavior to avoid reacting to the trigger.

For example, you might predict that a long conversation with a coworker who disagrees with everything you say might wear your patience thin. You might skip that conversation by taking an alternate route through the office. Or, you might change your behavior by not taking the bait.

(Shortform note: Though it makes sense to prepare for your triggers, experts recommend against starting your day by focusing on the stressful events to come. A study found that anticipating a stressful event reduces your working memory’s capacity. By fixating on a stressful event, you feel its impacts before it even happens—and whether or not it happens.)

In the Moment

Finally, let’s outline some strategies you can use as triggers arise to resist temptation, keep your behavior in check, and stay on track toward your most important goals.

Cultivate Awareness

Focus on cultivating awareness and practicing engagement. These are two tools that the authors assert will help you to notice the triggers in your environment and become more capable of responding to them in positive and productive ways. Think of a trigger as a catalyst: Normally, the catalyst sets off a chemical reaction. But you can add that moment of awareness as an inhibitor to stop the reaction.

We tend to think of many of our reactions as automatic, but they aren’t. If you train yourself to become aware of the impulse, then you can interrupt the progression from experiencing a trigger to reacting to that trigger. And when you engage, then you can choose how to act.

Why Engaging With the Present Is Essential

The book’s lessons on awareness take on additional nuance when you learn that Goldsmith has been a “philosophical Buddhist” for decades. He points out that one of the core tenets of Buddhism is that everything we are and have is impermanent. Your thoughts, emotions, achievements, and possessions are fleeting, and the person you are one moment is not the same as the person you will be in the next. Therefore it makes a lot of sense to engage with the present moment.

Psychiatrist Mark Epstein, a practicing Buddhist, takes this a step further. Epstein believes that many of us cling too tightly to stories and feelings that have a hold over us and our happiness. So, just as Goldsmith describes paying attention to your triggers but not acting on your natural impulses to respond to them, Epstein recommends simply observing those persistent thoughts or feelings and letting them be what they are.

Remember to React Positively

You can’t become the person you want to be without learning to react in positive ways to unexpected triggers. It might help you just to remember this focus on positivity. Or, you can use structure to limit your options and attenuate your focus, which leads to better decisions that align with your long-term goals.

For those inclined to use a mantra, Goldsmith and Reiter recommend asking yourself: “Am I willing, at this time, to make the investment required to make a positive difference on this topic?” They shorten it to the acronym “AIWATT.”

(Shortform note: Acronyms like “AIWATT” can aid memory or learning and help you remember abstract concepts—as long as you make them work for you. Joshua Spodek tweaked Goldsmith and Reiter’s acronym to make it easier to remember and apply. “AIWATT” becomes “WINDETIT,” which stands for “Will I now do enough to improve this?” Spodek’s version still reminds you to focus on positive actions in a more self-contained form than Goldsmith and Reiter’s.)

Whether or not you use the acronym, you can focus on responding in positive and productive ways. Remind yourself of what you need to do in the present moment and consider whether the action you want to take would make the best use of your time, energy, and resources.

(Shortform note: Staying in the present moment and making thoughtful decisions is a form of mindfulness. Though people use the term in a few different ways, mindfulness is technically a meditation practice that involves focusing your awareness on what you’re currently experiencing without judging it or trying to interpret it. By focusing on the present moment and paying attention to what’s happening around you, you can break out of negative patterns and take a more balanced view of the situations that might typically throw you off track during your day.)

Compensate for Flagging Self-Discipline

When you know that a situation will test your ability to resist your triggers, you can add even more structure to keep your behavior in line. The writers recommend adapting the salient “daily questions” to check in with yourself more frequently during a challenging situation, as often as every hour. By continually restating your goal (and holding yourself accountable), you create a structure that helps you to practice self-discipline.

Questioning yourself each hour of a demanding workday or a weekend with your in-laws can help you stay aware of your behavior. So even if you don’t score perfect 10s, you’ve still gained the advantage of awareness.

(Shortform note: An additional benefit of checking in with yourself frequently in stressful situations is that you’ll have more opportunities to label your emotions. Scientists say that labeling difficult emotions can make them feel less urgent and distracting. Similar to Goldsmith and Reiter, some experts recommend checking in with yourself hourly on challenging days so that you can notice and label your emotions and thereby reduce their power over you.)

What Scientists Do and Don’t Know About Behavior Change

Does behavior change work the way Goldsmith and Reiter think it does? It’s hard to know. However, researchers at the NIH’s Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) program are studying the underlying processes that determine why people fail or succeed at changing their behavior.

Scientists don’t yet fully understand the mechanisms of behavior change, and research often focuses on the changes that help people live healthier lives. But this work might also help us map what happens in your brain when you implement an intervention (like Goldsmith and Reiter’s daily questions) and see a change in your behavior.

Even though there’s still a lot that scientists don’t know, the researchers make a few recommendations for strategies you can use to change your behavior, such as:

• Thinking about your decisions instead of making them on “autopilot”

• Considering the future benefits of changing your behavior now

• Identifying stress triggers to anticipate when you might be in a situation that could derail your behavior

• Finding people who can support you through the changes you want to make