Every time I hear Even When The Water’s Cold by !!! it takes me back to the first time Dave and I presented work to a client together. 

It was the song I picked to put on the studio speakers and get us energised. I know it’s news to no one that music can trigger an emotional response, but what I was doing was adapting a technique I’d learned from my life coach. 

The principle is this – if you’re faced with a situation or an action that makes you anxious or nervous or stressed, find a song that you love and play it. As soon as it’s finished, do the action. 

Because sometimes our brains just need a little push in the right direction. Last week, I heard Matthew Hussey talking about this on Stephen Bartlett’s podcast Diary of a CEO. He calls it emotional buttons. 

The example he gives is about Jujitsu. He feels great once he’s finished a class, but he rarely wants to go. And so he watches a two-minute video of someone talking passionately about Jujitsu and he feels inspired to go.

That video is a trigger for him. He has a list of these emotional buttons that prompt action in him. This got me thinking two things…

It’s not rocket science, just brain science 

1. There’s got to be some science behind this. 

New actions have to happen in the prefrontal cortex, the conscious part at the front of our brain. We have to actively think about doing them. 

What we’re doing with this technique is building habit loops. A cue is followed by an action, an action is followed by a reward.

Listen to a song > go for a run > soak that brain in feel-good chemicals.

As the brain sees these loops repeating, it starts creating paths that identifies the cue as the kick-off to the reward. And once it’s done that, it shifts them to a completely different department – the basal ganglia, the subconscious part. 

So now it’s a lot easier to do the action because it hardly registers. By the time we hear/see the cue, we’re pre-programmed to act.  

The most extreme form of this is bookending. Like when you drive your car to work and don’t really remember the journey. You remember getting in the car and getting out, but for the rest of the time you’re on autopilot and your brain is thinking about something else. 

Cue here for joy

2. As well as combat anxiety, this can be a tool to bring more joy into our lives.

I’ve used music to help take the edge off anxiety since I was a kid, but listening to Hussey I realised I’d got a great tool for focusing on joy. And so I’ve been thinking about the things that I enjoy, and creating emotional cues around them. 

Now, to get me on my bike, I listen to Come Meh Way by Sundan Archives because it makes me want to move. 

When I’m feeling flat creatively, I watch Neil Gaiman’s ‘Make Good Art’ address.

If I’m finding it hard to get off the sofa and go outside, I watch a Beau Miles video. 

Here's a playlist with some button-worthy tracks.

Start today

There’s plenty of reading out there about cues and habits, but I’d start by thinking about the things you want to focus more of your time and energy on, and then figure out what the emotional cues are to get you acting on them.

Knowing I’ve got a cheat sheet to joy in my head feels pretty great. I’d recommend it.