Overcoming Behavior Triggers

From Self-Sabotage to Useful . . . The Easy Way!

Triggers Can Support our Success or Limit our Success

Triggers are what cause us to move to our weaknesses and react instead of staying in our strengths. Triggers can be situations, sounds, images, people, etc.

Anxiety, depression and overwhelm are common indicators of a negative trigger response.

Conversely, you can also have triggers/cues that move you toward positive behaviors.

Triggers can either serve you and help you move forward and they can sabotage you and move you backward (keep us stuck). There are indicators can let us know we have been triggered – so learning to become more aware is an important skill.

We actually have visceral indicators that we have been triggered. These are the cues that we are off course, expending massive energy and creating many inflammatory reactions. For example, when I’m stressed or have been working too hard there are changes to one of my eyes and eyebrow. When Forest sees this, he reminds me it’s time to pause and reset my system. For Forest, one of his big indicators is his breathing.

Becoming aware of these indicators can remind you that it is time to pause (take a SNACK break), and perhaps do your breathing drills or other reset drills. If your noticing and body awareness skills are weak, it can be difficult to know how your body feels when triggered. These indicators are very much related to chronic health issues, pain pathways, and mental patterns. For example, tight neck and shoulders are a universal sign of negative triggers and too much stress.

If you want to process and work through a negative response to a situation, the first step is to interrupt your default response and get to neutral. That is why the interrupt tools I teach are so important to master. Interrupts help us get to a neutral place (where you are not just reacting) so that you can process and choose a response. There are many interrupt options. The key is to practice interrupts when they aren’t required so that when you do need them you know them are are skilled at using them. Know the high pay off interrupts that work for you.

Neutral is where energy is not being poured into our reactions, weaknesses and health issues. Neutral allows you to access the frontal lobe of our brain where you can make choices that are actually useful and constructive toward creating a more extraordinary you! Take time to pause, learn and master your assessment skills, your interrupt skills, and your reset skills.

Coaching and mentoring can help you discover this process. We teach this process through weekly, easy lessons, in our Creating an Extraordinay You on-line coaching program. This video was taken from that program and is the introduction to a 4-part series on re-setting your triggers so that they serve you instead of keeping you stuck.

Click here for more details on The Easy Approach to Creating a More Extraordinary You!