John Assaraf

And so the question is, if the behavior isn't what I want to change, then what is it that I should be changing?

And the answer is, the first step is in the awareness of what is triggering that behavior.

Because 95% of everything we think and feel and do, 95% is automatic behavior.

Habitual.

And so if I can become aware of the trigger, you know, I wake up, I go have a coffee or I wake up and I get on my phone right away.

What if we can say in between the trigger and the behavior, I can insert something a little bit different.

So I'll give you an example.

Somebody wants to drink more water.

What if we said, okay, so when are you most likely to drink?

You know, when I wake up, I go have coffee.

take a glass of water and stick it right by where you make coffee.

So trigger, wake up, automatic behavior, go get coffee, but place something that you want to do

right at the point of the behavior.

So now you're going to get a double reward.

So the double reward is water plus coffee, activates the reward system in the brain, you drink the coffee, you feel good, you get more focused, you have a little bit more energy, boom, boom, boom, we got the reward.

So now if I place this thing before the behavior, I can actually move the second part of it if I want to and still get the reward.

and replace water for coffee.

That's just a simple neuro-associative conditioning mechanism that we could use to add a new behavior that's more empowering.

Let's say we want to start to exercise and we don't have the habit of exercising.

Get your clothes out for exercise and let's say you're running shoes.