In this personal‑development monologue, Travia Steward describes a long‑standing habit of automatically saying “yes” and over‑thinking daily interactions, explaining that the behavior is driven by an unconscious trigger‑behavior‑reward loop that creates a default decision pattern. She illustrates how this pattern shows up across work, relationships, and life changes, and why simply starting over or changing external circumstances does not break it. Travia frames the content as the first episode of a series, inviting viewers to recognize their own hidden patterns, acknowledge that they are not flaws, and promising future videos on how to interrupt and replace these automatic responses with conscious choices.
Chapters
Do you remember her? The version of you who didn't hesitate the way you do, who didn't have to think about things for 3 days before you said something or responded to a meeting. The person who didn't have to go home and then replay and overthink all the things that happened during the day, wishing you had done something differently. Well, she's not completely lost. You just can't find her in the moments. That really matter. And let's talk about why. So I'm Travia Steward, and if you're new here to my channel, I want you to know something before we get into this. What I'm about to walk you through— this isn't a tip, it's not a hack, it's not some mindset thing. It's, it's something that I have lived personally, and it's something that I've helped my clients, you know, walk through It's something I've lived inside for, for a very long time before I even finally understood what was actually happening. So stay with me here. For years, and I mean like years, like decades, I wasn't— I was someone who said yes before I even heard the rest of the sentence. You know, like, hey, Trey, can you help me do this thing? Hey, can you take over this? Can you— you want to meet for lunch? You want to do this thing? You know, can you come to this? Can you come to that? And before they even finished the sentence, like it was already out of my mouth. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll do that. And sometimes I didn't even know what I had just agreed to. I didn't even know like how much time it was going to cost me because in that moment I didn't decide the yes was already gone. And you know that feeling when like there's a 2-second delay, you know, after you have just said yes and you're like, oh my God, what did I just Agreed to. What just happened? That was me for years, for decades. Why did I even say that every time? And then even I would go home and replay it. I would think about what I wanted to say, what I think I should have said in advance. And I tell myself, okay, the next time I'm gonna decide in advance how I'm gonna handle this. I am actually going to say no. I'm gonna think about the choice. And then the next time would come and I would say yes again. Not because I wanted to, not because I was deciding in the moment. It was just because the yes was decided already before I got there. And that was something that was brought upon by a certain trigger that gave me a certain reward that basically automated the behavior of when this thing happens, I respond like this. And once your brain recognizes that, oh, this is something that Trey keeps repeating, this is something that she keeps doing over and over again, it must be really important to her. So we're going to automate that. So anytime there is like that feeling, that smell, that sound, like it could just be something in someone's voice, every time that thing happens, your brain recognizes that as a trigger and it goes, oh yeah, yeah, we know exactly what should be happening right now. This is a trigger and we want this default pattern to run now. And these are patterns that we just can't really see most of the time with our own eyes. It's almost like we're inside of a, a bottle and we can't read the label outside, even though the label says that's a pattern. Here's the thing that I want you to slow down and see right now. There's a difference between making a choice, doing something in the moment, and then automatically defaulting into something. And I know it kind of sounds like the same thing, but it's really not. Because doing something over and over again means— what I'm referring to is that you think you have a choice. And we think in that moment that we're making a choice in the moment. And defaulting means— We don't even get the choice. It just runs automatically. Like the decisions are made before you actually answer. Like, you know what I mean? Like, like there's a pattern that's running so fast that you can't catch it yet. So I want you to think about something. I want you to think about just a regular day, like not the worst moment, not the most dramatic moment, you know, like on a Tuesday, like on a Thursday, you know, at 10 a.m. When something came up, like maybe you were called into a meeting, you had a conversation, someone had a request of you, it came through email, and before you really had time to think about it, you responded. Maybe in that moment you said yes when you actually meant to say no, when you wanted to say no. Maybe you stayed quiet when you actually had an opinion. You wanted to say something, you wanted to speak up in that moment. Maybe it was something that you agreed to and you felt the nervous, sickening stomach feeling in stomach the second you did it. And then you thought again, why on earth did I do that again? Why did I say yes again? It's not actually what I wanted to say, you know? And maybe— and then you replay it on the drive home and you figure out, okay, next time this happens, I'm gonna say this, bling, bling, I'm gonna say this exact thing. And the next time, it doesn't happen. The next time doesn't come because we keep doing the same thing. We keep making these choices because it's a default system. And the whole thing is wrapped up in a nice little bow. Here's a trigger, this is the behavior, and this is the reward that we get. And it happens before we even recognize what's happening in the moment. So I want you to ask yourself if this example sounds familiar, like that feeling of watching yourself actually do something, like you step out And wishing you could reach back in and, and, and like pull it back, but it's like too late. It's happening. And if this does feel familiar to you, it's evidence that you also are running a pattern that you haven't seen yet. And that's all it is. That's it. It's just a pattern. If you are recognizing even the slightest little pattern right now, Drop a yes in the comments. You know, let me know if this is resonating for you. I read every single one. This is why even when you leave one company and you go to the next, one job and you go to the next, and it doesn't fix it, you move cities, countries. Why when you get into a new relationship, it's a fresh start, but it still isn't fixed because we didn't bring like bad choices into a new situation, we brought a pattern into that same situation. And the pattern, it doesn't care where you are, it doesn't care who you're talking to, it doesn't care that you've gone to therapy, it doesn't care that you've read the book, listened to the podcast. It just knows that this is automated and this is the default response, and it moves faster than we can think in the moment until we learn how to catch it. That's what the series is about. Here's what we're doing. I'm gonna walk you through how this pattern works, what it actually could be costing you, what it looks like on the other side, and what it takes to, to stop it, to make different choices. Now, this first video was about you recognizing one thing. That there probably is a main pattern that is running in your life that is on default. But what I want you to know is we can interrupt that, because once you can see something clearly, now we got something to work with. Now we can see— once we can see that this is a pattern, something that I keep doing over and over and over again, we got something to work with. So Here's where we are. This is a pattern. It's not a flaw. It doesn't mean you're bad. It doesn't mean you can't change. It doesn't mean that this is just who I am. This is my identity. It's just a pattern. And I know that you've tried to solve this on your own. You've started over in relationships or jobs, whatever that thing is. You've changed the whole situation. And even if you decide in advance, this is how I'm gonna handle it, There's that pattern that we need to break first because it always comes back until we break it. So the next video is about that, and it's called Why Starting Over Doesn't Work. And if you've done everything that you think is right, a new start, a clean slate, this time will be different, and still ended up in the same place, then watch this next video.
