Module 4 · Change & break habits · Research-supported

Find the triggers

The times, places, feelings and people that set the habit off.

6 min read · Level: Beginner · Free — no account needed to read

The problem it solves

What actually sets off the habit you want to change?

The concept

Triggers are the cues that reliably come before a habit. Common kinds: a time of day, a place, a feeling (boredom, stress, tiredness), other people, and the action you just finished.

Situations are the combinations — “alone, in the evening, on the sofa, tired” — where the habit almost always happens. Once you know the situations, you know where your efforts will matter most.

Finding triggers takes noticing rather than guessing. For a week, each time the habit happens, jot down what was going on just before.

Why it matters

Everything else in habit change — removing cues, adding friction, if–then plans — depends on knowing the trigger. Awareness of early signs is also the first step of habit-reversal methods.

Research-supported: Good studies support it, but there are fewer of them, the effects are modest, or they come from a narrow set of situations.

See it happen

Adam checks social media “all the time” and can’t see a pattern.

The ordinary first approach

It just happens whenever he’s near his phone.

With the idea

He notes each time for a week and finds three triggers: waiting in queues, the first minutes after waking, and whenever work gets hard.

What changed

“All the time” became three specific situations he can plan for.

Easy to get wrong

• Guessing triggers instead of noticing them.
• Ignoring feelings as triggers.
• Trying to address every trigger at once.

Try it now: A one-week trigger log

1. Each time the habit happens, note: time, place, feeling, who was there, what you just did.
2. After a few days, look for what repeats.
3. Pick the most common situation to work on first.

Apply it to one of your habits

For one habit you want to change, what situation does it happen in most?

Reflect

• Which of your triggers is a feeling rather than a place or time?

Go deeper — evidence & sources

• Azrin & Nunn (1973). Habit-reversal: A method of eliminating nervous habits and tics. Behaviour Research and Therapy. doi:10.1016/0005-7967(73)90119-8
• Wood & Rünger (2016). Psychology of Habit. Annual Review of Psychology. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033417