How to Build the One Habit Every Expert Accidentally Chose

Forget the habit stacks and the morning routines. When I sat down with four coaches and two therapists something surprising happened.

Every single one of them, without planning it, built the same habit.

Not meditation. Not journaling. Not a morning routine. They all learned to pause. The moment between stimulus and response. The breath before the reaction. The check‑in before the yes. And here’s the part that matters most:

This habit is learnable. Trainable. Repeatable. And it will change your life faster than anything else.

This article teaches you exactly how to build it.

In This Article

Episode 32 of The Better You Show

This article was born from a conversation that surprised even us. In Episode 32, four coaches and two therapists (each with different backgrounds, specialties, and lived experiences) sat down to answer one simple question: What’s the one habit that changed your life? What unfolded wasn’t a list of routines or productivity hacks, but a shared discovery of the same unplanned habit they had all built on their own. Their stories, insights, and lived examples became the foundation for this article. If you want to hear the full conversation that inspired this article, you can watch the episode below.

Why This Habit Matters (and Why Every Expert Landed on It)

Across the episode, each coach described a moment when they realized they were:

• reacting instead of responding
• overriding their body instead of listening
• performing instead of leading
• living in the past/future instead of the present
• misunderstanding instead of understanding
• repeating patterns instead of examining them

Different stories. Different backgrounds. Same solution:
Pause → Notice → Interpret → Choose.

This is not a personality trait. It’s a skill — one backed by decades of research on self-awareness, somatic markers, emotional regulation, and neuroplasticity.^{1 2 3}

And once you learn it, everything changes.

Get the tools to go deeper — delivered weekly.

Build the Pause Habit in 5 Ways

Explore how to build the same habit as the coaches did based on what they do and apply it to the particular area you are looking to make a difference in.

1. Pause to Listen for Understanding

Most people listen to respond. Tiffany realized she was doing the same — even with her own sister.

“My sister said, ‘You never listen to me.’ And I thought… are you serious?”
— Coach Tiffany Bayne

That moment woke her up.

How to build this habit:

• Let the other person finish. Fully.
• Ask one clarifying question before responding: “When you said X, what did you mean?”
• Notice the urge to interrupt — that’s your cue to pause.

This single shift reduces conflict, builds resilience, and prevents the “talking past each other” dynamic that dominates modern communication. ⁴

2. Pause to Listen to Your Body

Shelley’s story is one many women recognize in varying degrees:

Before her wedding, she kept waking up with stomach pain so severe she collapsed and ended up in the hospital. Doctors found nothing wrong.

“I didn’t want to marry this man. And I did anyway.”
— Counsellor Shelley McInroy

Her body knew before she did. This is a phenomenon neuroscientists call somatic markers. ⁵

How to build this habit:

When something feels off, ask:

• Where do I feel this?
• What is this sensation trying to tell me?
• Is this a yes or a no?

Your body processes information milliseconds before your conscious mind. The pause gives you access to that intelligence.

3. Pause When You’re Triggered

Nicky calls triggers “golden nuggets.”

“When someone says something and I have a massive reaction, I know it’s not about them. It’s about me.”
— Nicky Yazbeck, LCSW

This is shadow work in its most accessible form. It brings unconscious material into conscious awareness.⁶

How to build this habit:

Start a Trigger Journal (Coach Tiffany does this too):

When something hits harder than it should, write:

• What happened
• What you felt in your body
• The story your mind told you
• What older experience it connects to

You don’t have to fix it immediately. The pause is the work.

4. Pause to Return to the Present

Joyce spent years mentally absent — even during major life moments.

It took a breakdown to change that; but, it doesn’t have to.

“I can remember the births of my grandchildren in a way I couldn’t remember my own child’s.”
— Coach Joyce Erickson

Her habit? Presence — built through micro‑pauses.

How to build this habit:

Use sensory anchors:

• Birds
• Wind
• Sunlight
• Touching something cold
• A visual cue (Joyce imagines “pushing open mental curtains” of the past and future to expose the present)

Presence isn’t meditation. It’s noticing you’ve left the moment — and choosing to return.

5. Pause to Choose Intentionally

Sarah grew up in a culture where obedience was the highest virtue.

Say yes. Don’t break the pattern. Don’t question.

During her separation, she realized she’d been performing her life instead of leading it.

“Taking a pause shifted my whole identity.”
— Coach Sarah Rajkumar

How to build this habit:

When you feel pressure to react:

• Scan your body
• Identify the emotion
• Ask: “Is this my conditioning or my choice?”
• Respond only after you’ve gathered yourself

This is how you break generational patterns — one pause at a time.

6. Pause to Examine Your Patterns

Every one of us lives inside patterns — emotional patterns, reaction patterns, relationship patterns, even thought patterns. Some serve us. Some drain us. Most people don’t change their patterns because they never slow down long enough to notice them. This habit is exactly that; pausing to examine what’s happening inside before deciding what to do next.

“I would either stop and analyze why something triggered me… or make a note to deal with it later.”
— Coach Doris Efford

This is the habit that ties all the others together: Nothing gets bypassed. Everything gets met — even if on a delay. This is the foundation of true self-awareness.⁷

What Happens When You Build This Habit

The pause doesn’t just change how you respond in hard moments; it changes the entire trajectory of your life. When you stop bypassing yourself and start meeting what’s actually happening inside you, everything else reorganizes around that clarity.

Ready to Build This Habit With Someone in Your Corner?

If something today made you think, “I need more of this,” trust that.

Start the conversation in our complimentary connection call where in minutes you’ll have a clear picture of your whole life including where you’re thriving, where you’re stuck, and what actually needs attention first. All before you commit to anything.

The Research Behind This Article

1. Eurich, T. (2018). What Self‑Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It). Harvard Business Review. Demonstrates that most people overestimate their self‑awareness and outlines the two types (internal and external), supporting the claim that self‑awareness is a skill that can be intentionally developed. ↩︎
2. Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Penguin Books. Establishes the somatic marker hypothesis, showing that the body sends intuitive signals milliseconds before conscious thought — supporting the claim that the body “knows” before the mind. ↩︎
3. Siegel, D. (2010). Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation. Bantam Books. Defines mindsight as the ability to observe one’s own internal processes, supporting the claim that pausing to notice triggers interrupts automatic emotional loops. ↩︎
4. Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Free Press. Introduces Habit 5 — “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” — supporting the claim that clarifying questions reduce conflict and prevent conversational misinterpretation. ↩︎
5. Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Penguin Books. Explains how physiological sensations guide decision‑making under uncertainty, supporting the claim that listening to bodily cues improves alignment and reduces self‑betrayal. ↩︎
6. Jung, C. G. (1938). Psychology and Religion. Yale University Press. Establishes the principle that unconscious material drives behavior until brought into awareness, supporting the claim that triggers reveal unresolved wounds.ng, C.G. (1938). Psychology and Religion. Yale University Press. ↩︎
7. Eurich, T. (2018). What self-awareness really is (and how to cultivate it). Harvard Business Review. Identifies that true self‑awareness requires ongoing, deliberate reflection rather than avoidance or emotional bypassing, supporting the claim that meeting internal experiences — even on a delay — is foundational to accurate self‑understanding. ↩︎