In this episode of the Own It Podcast, host Nicole Hollar explains why habits dominate about 40% of our daily actions, drawing on Wendy Wood’s 2006 research that habits conserve cognitive resources. She outlines the habit loop—trigger, behavior, reward—and illustrates how subtle changes in the environment can disrupt established routines, using personal anecdotes about morning habits and a spouse’s schedule shift. Nicole describes her coaching approach that works with the unconscious mind through MER, NLP, and hypnotherapy, but also offers practical, conscious strategies for listeners who lack those tools. She walks through concrete examples: breaking a smoking habit by identifying its trigger (waking up) and reward (stress relief, a moment of solitude) and substituting a healthier routine; and overcoming procrastination by re‑framing pressure as a trigger and redesigning the environment to foster pride rather than panic. Throughout, she emphasizes the importance of modifying triggers, environments, and rewards to reshape unwanted habits, and ends with an invitation for listeners to contact her via nicoleholler.com and a motivational call‑to‑action to seize their own time and empowerment.
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Welcome to the Own It Podcast with me, Nicole Hollar, where we're going to talk about stuff to help you get out of your way, take charge of your life, and, well, other stuff too. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Own It Podcast. Have you ever realized that you don't remember brushing your teeth in the morning? I mean, you're going to remember if you did or you didn't, probably, but the actual act of brushing your teeth is probably not very memorable because You probably do it every morning. It's a habit. There was a 2006 study done by Wendy Wood at Duke University. She actually determined that 40% of our daily actions are actually habit-driven. And the reason we have habits is to conserve cognitive resources. It helps us to do daily tasks efficiently. I know I have a habit and a routine in the morning. A habit loop consists of a trigger, It consists of the behavior itself, and then it consists of a reward. Me getting up in the morning. The trigger is I'm up. Then I immediately go into the bathroom, put on my clothes, into the kitchen. I'm out my door. What happens in there? That is all a habit. Now, you can throw somebody's habit off if there's a new variable put in. God forbid my wife have to go out of town on a work trip and she gets up at the same time as me. I get up very early in the morning. Because now we might exchange words. She might've turned on the coffee and now I think maybe I want coffee. And now it's completely shifted my routine. And so my habit falls apart. Inevitably what happens is this behavior, because it's different now, I leave something at home, I've forgotten some documents, whatever it might be. It happens probably 50% of the time because now I have to use my conscious effort to get my stuff done and out of the door in the morning versus just going through this unconscious routine because habits are stored in the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is what I work with, with my coaching clients in my breakthrough coaching. We manage the unconscious mind. We can actually change and modify habits, behaviors, limiting beliefs from an unconscious level using the tools that I do with MER, NLP, hypnotherapy. However, if you don't have those tools available to you, what's really important to recognize is that you can make Changes to a habit with conscious creation. Now, habits are a good thing. They conserve energy. But what happens if that habit isn't so good for you? What happens if you have a habit that you don't really like? Smoking is always an easy target and a good one. Very many habitual morning smokers, they wake up, they grab their cigarettes, maybe their cup of coffee, go outside and have a cigarette. That is a habit. That is a routine. There's a trigger. It's waking up. Maybe it's coffee, cigarettes, right outside. Identifying what the trigger is and making small changes to the environment or the trigger is going to be the thing that would help a person to be able to consciously reshape those habits. Now, without accessing the unconscious mind directly like I do with my coaching clients, it does require continuous effort in order to make that conscious change because your unconscious mind is ruling 95% of your life. It's like being on a trail horse. That horse knows where to go. It does not need you to touch the reins. Eventually, you might be able to take it down a new path, but you are going to have to pull those reins off the path over and over and over again before that trail horse starts to go on a new path. That's the same as your unconscious mind. So if you want to break a bad habit, You're going to want to consider your environment, implementing a new routine. Maybe it's about identifying not only a trigger, but the reward for that habit. Using smoking as the example, what is the reward? Identify the positive thing that you're taking away from it and figure out, can I get this positive thing a different way in order to help reshape whatever your trigger might be? So you might have a trigger. Now we need a new routine that might yield you a different result. I've used smoking as an example. A lot of people smoke out of habit or stress. And if you think about the process, there's a nice filling inhale and an exhale. And most people are doing it outside. They might be alone and quiet. They just have a minute to themselves. And smoking forces them to go and do that. So I would ask you, is there a way— let's say you wanted to create a new habit rather than smoking in order to be able to have some stress relief and time for yourself— that you could do that without smoking as the routine? So this is something that is common with people who are smokers and in life, and it's, I think, an example that most people can reach even if you aren't What if you are a procrastinator? You know, you're like, I like the pressure. Do you need the pressure? The pressure is your trigger. Can you change your trigger, your environment, in order to yield a different result? You're proud and happy to get it done. Could you be proud and happy to get it done and realize you still had days to go? Can you have a new trigger other than stress and pressure in order to keep you from becoming a procrastinator? Because not only are you happy you got it done, you're also completely crazed while you're trying to get it done. So when we want to have lasting change, we need to consider the habits that we have and how to make that lasting change by changing our environment, the triggers, identifying what reward we get, if there's another way to get it. I love to hear from you guys, by the way. Every now and then I have somebody reach out to me on my website, nicoleholler.com. They might have a question about a podcast, a comment on it. I'm always welcome to hear from you. If you have any feedback you'd like to give me about this podcast or any other podcast, go ahead and do that. Reach out to me. I'd love to hear it. Like I said, I'm going to end that for today, and I want you to remember, this is your time. And what I mean by this is your time, I mean that this is your time to be or do or have anything that you want. It's time for you to go and seize whatever it is you need and find all the empowerment within yourself in order to have that. I hope you have an amazing day.
