SPOT

Name the observable cue that triggered you and the exact mental function it blocked, before doing anything else.

At dinner your phone lights up with your boss's name, and 10 seconds later you're snapping at your kid about elbows on the table. If someone asked what happened, you'd say "I'm stressed," which explains nothing and fixes less.

SPOT is the first step of any real intervention: before doing anything else, name two things precisely. First, the observable cue that triggered you, not a mood but a fact a camera could record: "boss's name appeared on the lock screen at 6:40." Second, the exact mental function it knocked out: not "I lost it" but "I lost the ability to keep my attention on the conversation in front of me." That pairing, cue plus blocked function, is the whole move. What changes when you run it: the fog of "stressed" becomes a specific, addressable event, the fix chooses itself more easily because you know what's actually broken, and over weeks you start seeing the pattern, since the same cue tends to block the same function. The trap to avoid is vague or story-laden naming, "my boss is ruining my life" is an interpretation, not a cue. And when nothing is actually blocked, there's nothing to spot; don't manufacture triggers to analyze.