First of all, 75% of true stories
The hero of the story is Tal, 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, and then go home to do his homework and sleep. Day after day, without interruption.
So everyone thinks that Tal children's shoes are top students with high self-discipline. Tal children's shoes also look at themselves in this way until the winter vacation comes.
As a top student, winter vacation will certainly not be satisfied with Christmas. Look at China's hit drama Nirvana in Fire. Tal plans to take two classes next semester to complete a research project, and maintain an average of more than 1 hour of exercise every day.
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 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! Top students are so self-disciplined, 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 a professor at Harvard University. This picture comes from the first 1 1 set of his widely circulated Positive Psychology. (Taking advantage of Amway, as the most popular elective course in Harvard in that year, this course was included in the 20 10 Netease open class and was rated as a very chicken soup Harvard Happy Course. 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. )
Second, the troubles of top students.
Tal proved by personal experience that top students and ordinary people actually have the same troubles in winter vacation planning. Of course, some people will say that this is wrong. I know a top student whose winter vacation plan is very substantial and has been fully implemented!
Yes, that's right. Let's call such people "mature top students" and those whose previous plans have been ruined "young top students". Among the top students you have met, quite a few are still in infancy, and they will still have self-control and procrastination like ordinary people.
Then the question is, how did the "top young students" grow into "top mature students"?
The pattern of ordinary people is this: the plan fails-> Depressed-> Scold yourself-> Make a new plan->; Continue to fail
The top students are 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, the top students will repeat the above process. With the passage of time, there are fewer failures and more successes in the new plan, and the top students have also realized the evolution from infancy to maturity.
So why did this plan fail? Obviously, top students usually have strong self-control. Will self-control fail in winter vacation?
This is about the illusion of self-control.
Third, 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. After going to college, you have plenty of time, but you have become lazy. Too lazy to get out of control on holidays, staying up late to watch plays, staying up late and getting up late, and overeating.
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:
It is habit, not self-control, that ensures our efficient operation.
Think about the tense study atmosphere before the college entrance examination. We passively develop many habits-regular classes, daily self-study, eating and sleeping, and clear goals-to review the content every month, week, and even every day. We take these things for granted, just as it is natural for you to brush your teeth automatically every morning.
Think about the process of brushing your teeth after getting up: get dressed, pick up a cup and toothbrush, go to the toilet, get water and squeeze toothpaste. Even though you may still be sleepy, you can still carry out this process accurately and effortlessly, basically without too 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 extremely 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. You can see it by searching online, so I won't go into details here.
The same is true of self-control. In our daily life, we have to face all kinds of temptations: a lot of snacks bought yesterday, a dazzling array of goods on Taobao's homepage, and the new drama of the male god Hugh has begun again. ...
We must resist these temptations repeatedly in order to focus on those important goals, such as studying and losing weight.
Every time you refuse a temptation, your self-control will consume one point. If faced with too many temptations, there will always be a moment when we will be too tired to resist and let overeating and staying up late to watch the play 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 strengths and different self-control. Self-control is excellent or weak, which accounts for a small proportion in the crowd, and most people are in the middle.
So we come to the conclusion that top students are a group of people who are born 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?
That's true, but muscle strength has its limits, and so does self-control.
On the other hand, just like the first point mentioned above, whether they are "mature top students" 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 talk about most. It was not until he realized this problem that Tal began his comeback journey and successfully evolved into a mature top student.
But building a habit system is not an easy task for two reasons:
1, many people don't realize that there is an invisible enemy blocking our action.
2. Many people don't know the principle behind habits.
Fourth, the invisible enemy.
Many people want to lose weight and exercise, but the situation of most people is that after deciding to lose weight, they made a detailed plan and got 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 that "the poor boy started his business successfully from scratch, and the fat girl lost 80 pounds in half a year to win 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 hair and blood, resources were scarce, and the brain needed to constantly secrete chemicals, prompting people to find and eat food and store as much fat as possible; 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 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.
Seeing this, 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.
V. 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. 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); 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 you turn on the computer; 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. This step is the most energy-consuming process, and it may be repeated with the old habits, because the establishment of good inertia behavior not only needs self-control to overcome the old behavior, but also needs 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 can all get instant satisfaction. Memorizing words, exercising and practicing calligraphy often take a long time to see the effect. Some people can naturally get spiritual encouragement from the process, but many people can't. Then you need to give yourself artificial rewards, such as recording your growth and progress, sending an Weibo to encourage yourself from time to time, and having a good celebration when you achieve some small goals.
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, so I won't go into details here.
I want to provide an idea: just look at how those who enjoy learning and fitness do these things, and focus on the positive side, instead of suspecting that they are incompetent and feel 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 want to keep fit and lose weight, maybe you want to win the hearts of male gods.
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 as for how to build habits, I want to talk about some important experiences I have gained with blood and tears after stepping on countless pits.
Six, three mentality
1, accept yourself as an ordinary person.
It is not shameful to admit that you are an ordinary person with limited ability. The advice in positive psychology is that it is good for ordinary people to form one or two habits a month.
At least 12 habits a year can explode most people. 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 don't want to degenerate, but also encourage myself like a friend or even a child after every failure: "I planned to exercise three times this week, but I only exercised once? Nothing, it's better than not exercising. Try twice next week! "
Really, in the process of struggling with desires and weaknesses, we have no teammates most of the time. You have to cheer yourself up.
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% people read this article, they will forget it in two days. But I don't think it matters. Don't embarrass yourself. At least you've almost finished writing this long article, right?
Finally, send you a sentence I like very much:
Gradual change is better than ambitious failure.
Progressive improvement is better than ambitious failure.