Visual cues remind you about your goals. But there’s another reason they’re effective: they can help you gradually develop better habits. At Budgets are Sexy, blogger J. Money explains that adding a trigger to your natural environment can force you to change your behaviour.
Photo by kristy
J. Money says there are two simple steps to creating a visual trigger:
- Find an item that motivates you to take action.
- Put that item in a prime location.
I remember reading a different story of a guy who installed a pull-up bar at the bottom of his stairs to get himself to work out more. Every time he went downstairs to get to the kitchen, take a shower, go outdoors, whatev, he’d do a pushup or two on his way and habitually snuck in over 60 a day! Simply by adding a trigger in his natural environment.
Adding a trigger to your everyday environment makes it easy to complete the action. After a while, the action becomes a part of your everyday routine. You’ve developed a habit.
J. Money points out a money-related example of this. One writer created a paper chain of debt. Each link was worth $100. She put the chain somewhere she would see it every day, and when she paid off $100 of debt, she could remove a link. The chain served as a visual motivator to take action.
A visual trigger that’s incorporated into your everyday life makes your action automatic. And, over time, this turns into habit. Check out the full post for more detail.
Physical Triggers [Budgets are Sexy]
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