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The Law

Habit - X

An identical systematic approach has to be adopted for identifying the trigger. However the quest for the trigger is much more structured than the quest for reward. Charles Duhigg, in his book "The Power of Habit"has explained that the triggers, normally, fall into one of the following five categories:

1. Location (Where am I when I start to get the the urge for smoking?)

2. Time (What time is it when I get the urge?)

3. Emotional state (Am I bored, agitated when the urge comes?)

4. Other people (Who else was there with me when I felt the urge to smoke?)

5. Immediately preceding action (What was I doing just after which I felt the                                                      urge?)

Answer all these questions for a few days and record the answers somewhere. After a week or so a pattern will most likely emerge. one will find that the answers to one or two questions are nearly same on all days. 

In my case, I found two issues which were common on all days. Firstly, I felt the urge when I became agitated. Secondly I felt the urge building up, albeit to a much lesser intensity, when the immediately preceding action was consuming a cup of tea or coffee.

I had my trigger and the reward. Modification of the routine, according to the trigger and the reward, will then need to be done. Modification of routines has been amply discussed in the previous posts.

With this I conclude my posts on Habit. The next subject which we will examine is "Mindset". 

Till then.

Prabir