Tal, the hero of the story, is a junior in the psychology department of Harvard University and the main force of the school squash team. He gets up early and runs every day, and then goes to school. After the one-day course, he will go to the stadium for regular training and play games with the coach. After that, he will go to the gym to exercise, then go home, do homework, read books, study and sleep. Day after day, without interruption.

So everyone thinks that Tal children's shoes are a highly self-disciplined schoolmaster. Tal children's shoes also look at themselves in this way until the winter vacation comes.

As a schoolmaster, winter vacation will certainly not be satisfied with Christmas. Look at China's hit drama Nirvana in Fire. Tal plans to take two courses next semester and complete a research project, and insist on exercising 1 hour every day on average.

Well, the ending is happy: Tal's children's shoes knelt down, and his only achievement was to finish reading this masterpiece starring Hugue as he wished. Oh, yes, he gained four pounds. What, you mean study, research and exercise? Tal only read 10 page two days ago, adding up to one hour's exercise.

Seeing this, I know someone will jump out and say, "No! It's not true! Learn to bully yourself. How can the winter vacation plan fail? ! You must be making it up! "

Yes, as you can see, I made up 25% of the story, but that's just the details of the failure. The fact remains the same-tal's plan for children's shoes really fell through. If you don't believe me, here are his exact words, and there are video screenshots to prove it.

I can't wait to have the freedom without squash and concentrate on my lessons. Make up all the reading and writing materials. The winter vacation is coming. I don't play at all. Instead of becoming more efficient, I became more inefficient.

Without the freedom of squash, I can't wait to concentrate on my studies and catch up with the progress of reading and writing. The winter vacation is coming, so I don't need to train (squash), but contrary to efficient study, my efficiency is much lower.

Some readers recognized Tal. Yes, he is now Professor Tal of Harvard University. This picture comes from 39 minutes and 47 seconds in his widely circulated positive psychology course 1 1. (Amway, as one of the most popular elective courses in Harvard, was included in the open class of Netease 20 10, and was named "Harvard Happy Course", which was very chicken soup. Since then, it has occupied the first place in the rankings for a long time, and the cumulative number of views has already exceeded 10 million. )

2. The headmaster's troubles

Professor Tal proved with personal experience that in the winter vacation plan, Xueba and ordinary people actually have the same troubles. Some people will say that Tal is an example, but it is not. Many of my friends are schoolmasters. Even my doctoral buddies at MIT will face the problem of sleeping at home until noon, which will delay the implementation of the study plan.

Of course, some people will raise their hands and say, no, I know that the winter vacation plan is very substantial, and all of them have been implemented! Yes, that's right. Let's call such people "mature sports masters", while those whose previous plans failed are called "young sports masters". Quite a few of the schoolmasters you have met are still in infancy, and they will still have self-control and procrastination like ordinary people.

Then the question is, how did the "young sports master" grow into a "mature sports master"?

(The above picture reveals the age! )

Although the plan fell through, Xueba was a Xueba after all, and soon showed the difference between him and ordinary people:

Ordinary people are like this: the plan failed-> Depressed-> Scold yourself-> Make a new plan->; Continue to fail

Xueba is like this: the plan failed-> Depressed-> Scold yourself-> Think deeply about the reasons for the failure of this plan-> Improve the problem-> Make a new plan

Of course, the new plan may succeed or fail. After failure, Xueba will repeat the above process. Over time, there are fewer and fewer failures and more and more successes in the new plan, and Xueba has also realized the evolution from infancy to maturity.

So why did this plan fail? Obviously, schoolmasters usually have high self-control. Will self-control fail in winter vacation?

This is about the illusion of self-control.

3. The illusion and truth of self-control

I don't know if you have this feeling: before the college entrance examination, it is the peak of your learning ability and self-control. At that time, you had to do many problems every day and study late, but the next day you were still full of energy and continued to fight; After I went to college, I had plenty of time, but I became lazy. I didn't have the energy and perseverance to study before. I don't even bother to lose control during the holidays. Stay up late to watch movies, stay up late and get up late, and overeating is common.

Why is this happening? Is the more time, the weaker the self-control? This is obviously unscientific. That's because the more time we have, the easier it is to slack off and degenerate? But this is the result, not the cause. We thought that our self-control was once very strong, and it weakened after going to college, but it weakened after the holiday because of laziness-this is actually an illusion. So what is the truth?

Teacher Tal revealed two truths for us:

1. It is habit, not self-control, which ensures our efficient operation.

Think about the tense study atmosphere before the college entrance examination. We have passively developed many habits-regular classes, daily self-study, eating and sleeping, and clear goals-and what to review every month, every week, and even every day, the teacher has arranged for us. We take these things for granted, just as it is natural for you to brush your teeth automatically every morning (walk away without brushing your teeth! )

Think about the process of brushing your teeth after getting up: get dressed (well, I know some people don't wear them), pick up a cup and toothbrush, go to the bathroom, get water, squeeze toothpaste and start brushing your teeth. Even though you may still be sleepy, you can still perform this process very accurately and effortlessly. Does this process require self-control to lose everything? It's basically unnecessary, right?

So those studies in high school don't really need much self-control. When you enter the university, the course arrangement becomes free, you throw away those passive habits and start planning your study and life. That's when you need self-control. At this point, many people have to face the second fact:

Man's self-control is limited.

Many people don't know that self-control is as limited as muscle strength. This conclusion has been proved by a large number of psychological experiments, and you can see it by searching online. I don't need to go into details here. For example, I believe it will help you better understand this conclusion:

Imagine that when you move a dormitory or change classrooms, your arms are weak and your back hurts after you laboriously move piles of heavy books from one room to another. In severe cases, you may not even be able to lift a glass of water-because your muscle strength is exhausted.

The same is true of self-control. In daily life, we have to face all kinds of temptations: a lot of snacks we bought yesterday, a dazzling array of goods on the home page of Double Eleven Taobao, and the new drama of Male God Hugh has started again ... We must resist these temptations repeatedly in order to focus on those important goals, such as learning and losing weight. Every time you refuse a temptation, your self-control will consume one point. Faced with too many temptations, there will always be a moment when we will be too tired to resist, and let overeating, brushing Taobao and staying up late to watch dramas dominate our lives.

Of course, the reality is not so terrible. Muscle soreness will recover in two days. Self-control, a good sleep will return to normal. Interestingly, different people have different natural advantages and different self-control. Self-control is better or weaker than slag, which accounts for a small proportion in the crowd. Most people are in the middle-neither good nor bad.

So we come to the conclusion that Xueba is a group of people with super self-control? If so, it would be boring for me to write this article.

The witty children's shoes immediately reacted: Oh! Since we can exercise muscles, so can self-control, right? We just need to exercise our self-control to a strong degree!

That's true, but muscle strength has its limits, and so does self-control. In life, we are faced with so many temptations, and the acquired self-control will still be insufficient. On the other hand, just like the first point mentioned above, whether they are "mature academic tyrants" on campus or elites in society, their efficient study and life do not depend on strong self-control as we always think, but benefit from the habit system built the day after tomorrow.

How to use our limited self-control to build such a system is what I want to say most. At that time, Tal children's shoes realized this problem, and started his comeback journey, successfully evolved into a mature sports master, and finally became a professor at Harvard and embarked on the peak of his life. Ok, don't hit me, I admit that I made up the last paragraph. )

But building a habit system is not an easy task for two reasons:

1. Many people don't realize that an invisible enemy is blocking our action.

2. Many people don't know the principle behind habits.

Four. Invisible enemy

Many people want to lose weight and keep fit, but in most cases, after deciding to lose weight or keep fit, they made a detailed plan, bought a bunch of equipment and set up thousands of fitness cards, but after less than three visits, they put all these things on the shelf.

Why is it so difficult to establish an exercise habit? Because too many people don't understand the principle behind habits, the more important reason is that too many people are too eager to see major changes in the short term.

Yes, we all hope to get rich overnight and become famous once. We all like to watch the story of "poor boy started his business from scratch and became a billionaire in one year" and "Fat girl lost 80 pounds in half a year to capture the heart of the male god". But it's not our fault. The reason why we are naturally short-sighted and like instant feedback and satisfaction is because there is an invisible enemy in our brain making trouble. First of all, you should realize its existence, and then you can defeat it.

Millions of years ago, when our ancestors were still eating like animals, resources were scarce, and the brain needed to constantly secrete chemicals, prompting people to find and eat food. The higher the heat, the better. The more fat they store, the better. Without this mechanism, human beings would probably not live today.

But we are not primitive people, we have evolved more advanced control units, so we have learned to plan and give up short-term interests in order to achieve long-term goals. But the primitive part of the brain has not died out, and it is still fighting for the control of the body all the time, prompting us to tirelessly seek instant satisfaction.

Are you clear? Why is it that when you are studying hard, suddenly "I have studied for so long, watch an American TV series!" " This idea; Why do you eat a lot for dinner and still can't help reaching for snacks before going to bed? Why do you want to recite words when you open your mobile phone, but the devil pokes Weibo? The essence of these is that the primitive brain is at work.

Well, seeing here, you realize the existence of the enemy, that is, the original part of the brain; You also know its usual trick-instant satisfaction. But even this would not be enough To defeat it, you have to master the weapon of science, which is the principle of habit.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) customary principle

The formation of habits depends on four parts: clues, routines, rewards and beliefs:

Touch the machine: that is the reason that triggers the habit. You can think of it as the trigger of a pistol. Press the trigger and the bullet will go out. There are many habits of touching mobile phones, which may be time, place or scene. When you brush your teeth in the morning, you get up. Go to lunch because it's time (well, I'm hungry); Some people are used to brushing Weibo before going to bed, so maybe you lie down and cover yourself with a quilt. There is no difference between good and bad touch machines, but it is the inertial behavior that determines habits.

Inertia behavior: it is called inertia because it is unconscious, such as watching entertainment news online as soon as the computer is turned on; For example, you must brush your circle of friends before going to bed. In the process of establishing new habits, our self-control is used to correct the old behaviors that lead to procrastination and replace them with new inertia. When correcting a bad habit, you need to pay special attention to the trigger point, pay attention to your own behavior, and constantly remind yourself not to make the same mistake. This step is the most time-consuming and labor-intensive process, and it may be necessary to repeatedly pull old habits, because the establishment of good inertia behavior requires not only self-control to overcome old behaviors, but also positive feedback at the end of the behavior, which is called "reward" below.

Reward: this is a crucial part of habit formation, which is often ignored by people. Why are bad habits easy to form and difficult to change? Because their rewards are often immediate and obvious: playing games, surfing the internet and eating snacks, which one is not? Good habits are difficult to form, precisely because the short-term returns are not obvious enough. Memorizing words, exercising and practicing calligraphy often take a long time to see the effect. Some people are naturally inspired by the process, but many people can't. Then you need to give yourself artificial rewards: for example, record your growth and progress, send an Weibo to encourage yourself from time to time, eat a good meal when you achieve some small goals, and so on (Oh, don't overeat! )

Tell me more about the reward. Learning to keep fit is somewhat anti-human. Is there any way to quickly establish a positive reward mechanism? This expansion can write two books ... There are many high-quality answers about learning and fitness in Zhihu, so I won't go into details here. I want to provide a kind of thinking: positive, open and growing thinking. Just look at how those who enjoy learning fitness do these things, try to learn their methods and focus on the positive side, instead of doubting their abilities and feeling that they can't do it well.

In addition, strengthening your "faith" will help you get positive spiritual feedback.

Faith: this is the internal motivation to support your habit: you want to recite words every day for the English exam; You want to learn to play the guitar so that you can show your skills at various parties; You should eat regularly, go to bed early and get up early, for health; You want to keep fit and lose weight, maybe you want to win the heart of the goddess/goddess. In a word, you want to be a better person. When you form good habits, faith can give you positive spiritual feedback. At the same time, the stronger your belief, the more you can endure the pain and repetition in the process of change.

Knowing this can better help you build habits, and there are too many skills about how to build habits, such as staying away from temptation, breaking down goals, and establishing a recording and feedback mechanism ... Many can write a book (in fact, there are many books about habits, and I will recommend one later). Here I want to talk about my mentality, which is also an important experience I gained with blood and tears after stepping on countless pits:

Six. Three-point mentality

Accept yourself as an ordinary person.

Really, we are all ordinary people, and there is no shame in admitting this. Take my favorite muscle model as an example. I always think that forming habits, developing abilities and exercising muscles are the same thing: you can only lift 30 kilograms of dumbbells today, and you can lift up to 35 kilograms next week. You can't say I'm going to lift 60 kilograms tomorrow. Similarly, if you have never been to the gym before, don't expect to go there three times a week at first. A more scientific plan is to go once a week. If you have ever been addicted to games, play seven days a week, and don't expect to quit tomorrow. The goal of science is to play for only six days next week.

Admitting that you can't eat a fat man in one breath and dare to face the reality is also one of the signs of maturity, isn't it? The advice in positive psychology is that it is good for the average person to form one or two habits a month. Don't be too greedy, you really can. You can get at least 12 habits a year, which can explode most people.

Allow yourself to fail and rest. On this basis, I would like to emphasize in particular: be less hard on yourself and encourage more.

2. Less criticism and more encouragement.

The education we received from childhood overemphasized strict self-discipline and self-criticism, but rarely taught us how to encourage ourselves. Too many people give up change because they put out the inner fire with criticism and harsh criticism after repeated failures.

In the most depraved two years of my university, I was deeply hurt by this idea. In the end, I not only didn't want to degenerate, but also encouraged myself like a friend or even a child after every failure, coaxing myself: "I planned to exercise three times this week, but I only exercised once? Nothing, it's better than not exercising. Is this plan unreasonable? Try twice next week! " "I didn't finish what I planned to learn today. I spent two hours surfing the internet in the afternoon ... it doesn't matter, it's better than yesterday! I brushed it for a long time yesterday! " .

When the plan fails, most people will feel ashamed, miserable and blame themselves. But few people comfort themselves and tell themselves, "It doesn't matter, you are an ordinary person and you will always be vulnerable"; Few people encourage themselves like friends and say to themselves, "Come on, there is still a chance, come on! Think about how you can do better next time. "

Really, in the process of struggling with desires and weaknesses, we have no teammates most of the time. You have to cheer yourself up.

Well, some people worry that too much self-comfort will make them relax, so the last point I want to emphasize is action.

Take action, from now on.

Whether you criticize or encourage yourself, it is action that ultimately leads to change. Do what you want to do now, don't wait until later. As far as I know, 90% of "talk tomorrow" equals "forget tomorrow". If you want to read a book, pick it up before going to bed tonight, even if you only read one page; If you want to exercise, jump up today, even if it's just a 4-minute fat burning training; If you want to learn to draw, draw today, even if it's just a water cup.

As long as you do it, no matter how much, you are acting and changing. As mentioned above, even the smallest change is commendable.

For example, although 90% of people read this answer, they will forget it in a couple of days. But I think it doesn't matter. We are all ordinary people. Don't embarrass yourself. At least this long article is almost finished, right? You are still great! And reading this article itself is the embodiment of "from now on"!

You see, applying what I have learned is how I overcome it.

Finally, send you a sentence I like very much:

Gradual change is better than ambitious failure.

Progressive improvement is better than ambitious failure.

End. Postscript-Why did you write this article?

I used to be a scum, scum kind: I went to the library with my notebook on my back, but I spent a long time surfing the web and watching movies. I scolded myself at night and decided to study hard tomorrow, but the next day I relapsed; I used to skip classes and play games all day, staying up until 7: 00 in the morning, sleeping until noon 1, getting up and eating bowls of instant noodles, and continuing to play in the afternoon. This cycle lasted for more than a semester. It's not that I haven't thought about change, but every time I make up my mind, my blood is less than three days, and I will soon fall into a plan failure-> Self-blame-> Reschedule-> A vicious circle of failed plans.

For a long time, I thought self-control was the biggest obstacle to my progress. I hate my lack of perseverance and feel that I have no future in my life. It was not until later that I met many people and read many books that I realized that many previous understandings of self-control, habits and efficiency were wrong. Later, he gradually got rid of the problems of self-control failure and procrastination, and became a "schoolmaster" in the eyes of others; I found something I like to do, and every day is very busy and meaningful.

In order to reach today's state, I took too many detours, and I also saw people in Otawa who fell into the same pit and tried to climb out, but they were in vain because their strength was used in the wrong place. Even a seemingly small thing like the failure of the winter vacation plan hides too much knowledge behind it. They are scattered in different books and courses, and it is difficult for people without enough experience to get a glimpse of the whole picture. As a result, I fell into the pit again and again, exhausted my strength in the process of climbing, and finally gave up.

I often think that if someone had told me the right truth and method, would my life be much smoother?

So I write so much, even if it is only useful to one reader, it will not waste me more than 20 hours thinking about modifying this thing.

Finally, I'll send you two more paragraphs:

"In the process of life, there will be many opportunities for you to face your own defects and weaknesses. Facts will remind you again and again that you are an imperfect person and need to change. Lovely nature, lazy and fragile. Most people choose to paralyze themselves and turn to short-term instant stimulation (online shopping and playing games, gluttony and social one-night stands). A few people choose to change themselves, so there will be pain, repetition, success and giving up. "

"No one is perfect, and everyone who is close to excellent personality is the result of many self-transformations. Those who have not tried to change continue to repeat their daily lives and look at the scenery they have seen, and for those who are changing, every day is new. "

These two paragraphs are from Zhi You @ Chen Nuo, and I changed them slightly, basically without misinterpreting the original intention. I recommend you to read her answers, many of which are of great help to me. ?

There is no shortcut on the road to change, only unremitting persistence and scientific methods. I wish you every day is different from before, every day is new and everyone is encouraged.