How much does it take?

Amazing how much we put up with things just because we are used to it.
Let’s go to one extreme; a woman goes home every day from her high powered career terrified she will find her cat dead because the man in her life is holding it to ransom with a gun on the table ready to shoot it; she is terrified to say or do anything and although she is a strong woman has been made powerless to resist the constraints of this man. You may laugh but I know that to be true. Here is another one:
You have neighbours from hell and they not only make your life a misery, but they do the same for others who are close by. You accept the noise, their comments, their rudeness and sometimes their abuse and you put up with the banging and crashing which comes through the walls as they lose their temper with each other and throw things about.
You wince and get nervous at their activity but do nothing, just shrink quietly somewhere in your home, less impacted upon and hope it will go away.
So what does it take to trigger a response? How far does the discomfort have to travel before we say, enough?
These are extremes, but we respond to triggers all the time. Whilst writing the last page of this newsletter I went off to make a cup of tea because something inside me said, I have reached that point where I want a cup. Now it could be because I am thirsty, or it could be because I no longer smoke and use this as the new way of stopping for a few minutes and resting my brain. Which ever it is, there is a trigger being reached and when it goes ‘click’ I respond by making tea. How many times have you gone off and made tea or coffee only to let it go cold? Or, as Tim used to do, go in the kitchen, switch on the kettle and then walk away, only to think hours later, ‘hang on wasn’t I making a drink?’
So what is the difference between a habit and a trigger? Nothing really, the trigger is the part of the habit which sets it in motion, the starting point if you like which generates the habit to begin. Here’s a simple one, you smoke, you have a few minutes to yourself, you take that opportunity to light a cigarette. You drink, and are out with the lads/ladies; you have half an hour to kill before you go to the restaurant, the club, the show so you go into a pub and have a drink. What are the triggers? Well for some it could be time available, others it could be nervous necessity, and others it could be time spent prior not satisfying the craving/fix.
They say once a smoker, always a smoker: my mother and I were talking about something to do with school and we both had the same response—that would be the time to sit with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. The trigger? By smoking we make ourselves unavailable to children for ten minutes, the trigger was the growing need to escape their noise, intense hormonal state and their potential behaviour.
So let’s turn this all on its head because all I have mentioned so far are the negative triggers; we have positive ones too and wouldn’t it be great to know how to set these off so we could experience them more frequency?

Try these questions and find some triggers for yourself.
What events/activities/sensations really makes you happy?
How do you know when you are feeling happy? What are the feelings you get inside your head, your body which translate into you saying, I’m really happy today?
What has to happen to make these feelings click on in your brain so you recognise them as feeling happy or successful or blissful what ever the word is you are using?
How much of this can you take? How much pleasure can you stand? (sounds an odd question but its interesting what comes back)
It is said, too much of a good thing is bad for you. Think about being happy/successful/in the zone all the time, how would that transform your life?
How much of it can you stand and if you had all of this , how would it transform your life?
How much of this can you create without doing anything except changing how you feel and behave on the inside, and what would be the trigger to set these great feelings in motion?

You can create a trigger which you operate manually, its called an anchor. I have one on my index finger which I press if I want to gain the feelings of confidence. I created it by noticing when I felt confident and pressing a specific point on my hand telling myself this was going to be the trigger for this great feeling. It worked and now when I need it, as soon as I go to press it, the sight of me going for the trigger acts like a trigger itself and sets the whole thing rolling.
Triggers are great when they are in our control, when they are not it can be tough trying to cope with the rowdy neighbours, or an abusing partner or a dictatorial boss.
To learn more about anchors, Google ‘anchoring in NLP’ and a series of articles will come down for you to read. If there are some by Robert Dilts, Richard Bandler or Michael Hall, then these are the best sources. They maybe old school but they are tried and tested masters and their methods work.