Zheng Shenghui Learning and Thinking Day 2384
"Mastering Habits", subtitled "How to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones". How important are habits to a person? The author of this book, James Clear, wrote this book because he really felt the amazing power of habit. It can be said that habit has allowed him to break free from the difficulties of life. In his sophomore year of high school, Clear was hit in the face with a baseball bat, just between the eyes. The force of the impact left Clear with multiple fractures in his face and severe swelling of his brain. After the surgery, his vision was impaired and he had intermittent seizures. You know, Clear has been playing since he was 4 years old, and it has always been his dream to compete in professional baseball. But this injury made him unable to participate in training for a long time, and he was finally removed from the school team.
Later, while in college, he resumed playing baseball and was named to the Entertainment & Sports Television Network Academic All-American Team, one of only 33 athletes in the country, including Clear. When he graduated, he also received the university's President's Medal, the highest honor his university bestows on students.
How was he able to get back on his feet from such a big setback? It's a matter of habit. It is precisely because of this that he wrote this book, hoping to tell more people about his method of cultivating habits, so that they can gain strength from habits. He also founded the Habit Academy, which has more than 10,000 graduates, including company managers, teachers, etc., and many Fortune 500 companies will also send employees to his academy for training.
Knowing how important habits are, how do we change them? This is probably a question that many people are more concerned about. Speaking of which, perhaps your first instinct is to use strong willpower. But the author argues that changing habits is not as hard as we think, and that it is difficult for us to change it not because we are not strong enough, but because we are using the wrong method.
Many people want to develop a habit and often focus on the goal, for example, if they want to cultivate their own reading habit, many people will set a reading plan for themselves, how many pages to read every day, how long to read, but give up after a few days. So what's more effective? The author says that to change habits, you have to focus not on the goal, but on the identity, in short, who you want to be.
Therefore, a more effective way to develop reading habits is not to set a reading plan for yourself, but to make yourself a person who loves reading. Once you change your perception of your identity, you will act according to it, and you will read more books to strengthen your identity. Therefore, if you want to change your habits, you should start not with your goals, but from your identity.
How? The author gives us two suggestions: first, start with small habits; Second, build a four-step model for cultivating habits: prompting, craving, responding, and rewarding.
Next, I will interpret this book "Mastering Habits" in two parts. In the first part, let's talk about the author's first suggestion, why are small habits important? In the second part, we will focus on the four-step model of changing habits in the book.
Part I
Why are small habits important?
We all know that habits are important, but many times, we may only notice the big habits that are obvious, ignore the small ones, and always feel that these small habits have little impact on us. For example, most people want to develop the habit of waking up early, and they will set a big goal for themselves at the beginning, getting up at 6 in the morning, and no matter what time they went to bed last night. But few people say that their goal is to get up at 6 a.m. just five minutes earlier than yesterday.
A person who often stays up late and doesn't get up until eight or nine o'clock every day has to change to get up at 6 o'clock, which is too difficult. I was scheduled to put down my phone at 11 o'clock at night and go to bed, but many times I was not sleepy at all, even if I finally got up early by willpower, but I persevered for two or three days, and on the fourth day, when I woke up, it may be more than 8 o'clock again. But if you change your approach and wake up 5 minutes earlier every day from now on than the day before, you'll find that it's much easier to wake up early. Go to bed 5 minutes early on the first day and wake up 5 minutes earlier on the second day, and after a few weeks, it will not be difficult to wake up at 6 o'clock.
We've all heard the saying "Rome wasn't built in a day", but when it comes to actually doing things, there is always a delusion in our hearts that we can do one thing at a time. For example, if you want to lose weight, you want to stop eating that meal at night; If you want to write a book, set yourself a goal, I want to write 10,000 words a day, or a thousand words an hour, and it doesn't feel impossible. You're constantly pressuring yourself to make "visible" changes. You will feel that only in this way can you get a little closer to success. But this approach is often not sustainable.
So, the author says, we tend to focus on the big moments that change, ignoring the subtle changes behind them, which are often invisible. We underestimate the power of time.
The author also gives us such an example. In 2003, Dave Brailitford was hired by British Cycling as Director of Performance. This athletic association is the governing body for professional cycling in the UK. What is the situation of British professional cyclists at this time? I'll give you a few numbers for you to feel. From 1908 to 2003, British riders won only one gold medal at the Olympics for almost 100 years. Their performance in the Tour de France was even worse, having not won a single medal in 110 years. By the way, the Tour de France is also the world's largest international road professional cycling race, which is held every summer. But for more than 100 years, the British cycling team has not won a single medal in the annual competition.
However, when Brailitford became director of performance, things changed completely. Just five years later, at Beijing 2008, the British team won eight of the 14 gold medals in road and cycling, more than in the previous 100 years. This is no accident, because four years later at the London Olympics, they did even better, breaking nine Olympic records and seven world records. In the Tour de France, they were equally impressive, with British riders winning the six years from 2012 to 2018, with the exception of Italy in 2014.
You might wonder how they suddenly turned around and won one World Championship after another. What exactly is the magic training method used by this coach? Braitfud's training method is called the "Aggregation of Marginal Benefits" strategy. It sounds like a great thing, but to put it bluntly, it's about seeking progress in every detail. How detailed is it? The tires are wiped with alcohol to give the bike a better grip. Even the riders are dressed with care and they need to wear electric shorts to keep the rider's muscles at the optimal temperature during the ride. In order to reduce the resistance of the riders to the stroke, they also experimented with various fabrics before finally choosing a racing suit.
They even painted the inside of the team's bike-carrying truck white, which helped them spot dust. It's normal to have dust in the cabin, but if it falls on the bike, it can affect the bike's performance. It's important to know that every part of these bikes is specially tuned, and the slightest change can reduce the bike's optimal performance and ultimately affect the performance of the riders. Even these humble details are fully valued by the team. As we know, the refinement of every little detail has helped the obscure British team win time and time again.
You see, every small improvement has a much bigger impact than we think. Why is that? If you think about it, you will see that our life is not a scatter, but an exponential upward curve. Success or failure, it may seem as if it came out of nowhere at some important moment, falling at a certain point, but in fact, it began to accumulate a long time ago. It's just that one day, when the time comes, it appears in front of you.
The author also makes an analogy in the book, saying that this process is like an airplane adjusting its course. Imagine you're flying a plane from Los Angeles right now, and if you only adjust the nose of the plane 3.5 degrees to the south, after a few hours, you'll land not in New York, but in Washington. You know, there is a difference of 360 kilometers between these two places.
Even if we know how important small habits are, it can still be difficult to actually take action, develop a good habit, or break a bad habit. Because these habits are so small, many times it takes a long time before we see the results. We will think that even if I deposit 1,000 yuan in the bank every month, I will not become a millionaire, and it is better to spend it; I get up early for three days in a row, and I won't get promoted and raised immediately; I didn't play with my phone before going to bed today, and after reading a book for half an hour, I wouldn't immediately become a knowledgeable person. If we don't see timely feedback, we lose motivation to act. Moreover, even if you finally grit your teeth and persist for a period of time, but still can't see the change, the blow will be even greater, and you will unconsciously wonder if your efforts are in vain, and whether it makes sense to continue to persevere to the end.
So how can you develop small habits more effectively? The authors suggest that a better way to change habits is not to set goals, but to focus on the system. This sentence is a bit abstract to say, for example. For example, if you are an entrepreneur and your goal is to make a profit, the system is to test product ideas, hire employees, and carry out marketing, if you do all these links well, there is a high probability that you will make a profit, and the goal will be achieved.
It's just setting goals, what will the result be? You'll find that it's still hard to get used to. For example, when I was in school, in order to make myself study hard every day, I would set a final score for myself; If you want to keep yourself in the gym, you will schedule a 20-minute run on the treadmill in advance and then rest. These goals don't make you develop the habit of studying and exercising.
However, when we no longer focus on a single goal, but focus on the whole system, we will unconsciously stick to a habit. Because once you set a goal, you will expect yourself to achieve it, and you will only be happy if you achieve the goal, but it can take a long time. In other words, you can't feel happy until you set a goal and achieve it. The process of achieving your goals is like a running race, and when you reach the finish line, you will enjoy the success of that moment. However, you won't be able to keep running, because the race is over and you don't need to keep trying. And when we look at the system, it's a different story. Every time you make a little progress, you will immediately feel happy and you will have the motivation to keep going.
You've probably heard of the "Flywheel Effect", and someone has written a book called "The Flywheel Effect". The idea is that if you want to get a wheel to spin, it's a bit laborious at first, you have to push the wheel in the same direction. But, after a while, the wheel spins, and with inertia, you don't have to exert much effort, it spins fast on its own. It's the same with the habit change process, you have to put in the effort and push the wheel in circles for the first few days before you make the change. However, the longer you persevere, the easier it will become for you to do it. Moreover, after you change small habits, these inconspicuous little habits are superimposed, and you will find that your life will become completely different from before.
To sum up, big changes don't happen suddenly, but those small changes accumulate gradually. Therefore, if you want to change your habits, the most important thing is not to focus on a big goal, but to focus on every little effort.
Part II
Another suggestion is to build a four-step model for cultivating habits: prompt, craving, response, and reward. These four steps correspond to the four laws of behavior change, let's talk about them one by one.
The first step is to set up a prompt. In fact, all change stems from the gap between the status quo and expectations, and only when you are dissatisfied with the status quo do you want to change it. It's not hard to realize this, but it's much harder to put it into practice. We instinctively solve problems in familiar ways, and because they are so familiar, many times we don't even realize it. If we don't deliberately adjust, our body will turn on the automatic mode to deal with the problem according to the original mode.
For example, if you get up at 8 o'clock every day, after a long time, you will find that even if you don't use an alarm clock, you will wake up naturally at this time every day, and a biological clock has been formed. But, one day, you have to wake up early to catch a flight, and the night before you have to set a couple of alarms to force yourself to wake up early.
Prompts are like this alarm clock, when you unconsciously act automatically, it will remind you to change. How to do it exactly? There are a lot of tips in the book, and I have summarized them, which can be divided into three points.
First of all, you have to know what habits you want to change, and you can only change them if you are aware of it. The book gives a small method called creating a habit scorecard. You can make a list of all your daily habits, and then ask yourself one by one against this list, is this a good habit or a bad habit? If it's a good habit, you can draw a plus sign next to it, a minus sign for a bad habit, and an equal sign if you want to keep it up.
By the way, we all want to develop good habits and get rid of bad ones. However, the author makes a particularly interesting point that there is no such thing as good or bad habits, only whether they are effective or not. At first glance, you may think it is a little strange, of course there are good and bad habits, I go to bed early and get up early every day is a good habit, and staying up late is a bad habit. But in reality, it's not. Because people can be roughly divided into two types, larks and owls, lark-type people are particularly energetic in the morning, and owl-type people are just the opposite, they are more likely to focus at night, if they have to get up early, these people will be groggy and seem to start working hard early in the morning, but the efficiency is very low, and time is wasted. Moreover, there is no medical evidence to prove that there is a big difference between the effects of going to bed early and waking up early and waking up late on the body, and the quality of sleep is more important than the time to fall asleep and the time to wake up.
Therefore, it is not possible to generalize whether a habit is a good habit or a bad habit. In fact, there is only one criterion for judging the "good or bad" of this habit, which is to see what your goal is and whether this habit can make you better.
Now that you know which habits to change, you're ready to get started. Many times we don't lack motivation, the author says, but a lack of a clear plan. For example, if you want to develop the habit of waking up early, you can't just put a "wake-up" sticky note on the bedside, but write "when, where, and what will I do", and the more detailed the plan, the better. So what do you do to break bad habits? You can talk about this bad habit. For example, if you want to quit the bad habit of eating junk food, you can say to yourself, "I want to eat potato chips, but it makes me gain weight and it will harm my health" before eating potato chips.
You might think it's a bit silly, but know that there's a scientific basis for it. We know that the left brain is responsible for language, logic, and when you say a word, your brain has already processed this information, and it will turn your unconscious reaction into a conscious action, reminding you what you are doing right now.
The author also cautions that changing habits should be gradual. There may be a lot of habits that you want to change, but you can't think about changing all of them at once, because our body is path-dependent, and it is definitely the easiest to follow the original behavior pattern. Changing a habit is already increasing energy consumption for the body, and if you want to change several at the same time, you may not be able to change one of them in the end.
If you want to change several habits, an effective way is to stack them. Once you've developed a new habit, you can build on that to build on that. Because actions are not isolated, people will always find ways to make connections between actions. For example, after you get into the habit of waking up early, you can sit up and meditate for 5 minutes, and add the habit of meditation to the habit of waking up early. Habits that have already been formed will act like a prompter to tell you what to do next. That way, you won't forget the habits you want to change, and you won't have to expend as much willpower to stick to them.
In addition to invoking agency and taking the initiative to make changes, there is a simpler way to use the external environment to help you change, which the author calls "environmental design". To put it simply, if you want to develop a good habit, try to create a situation that is conducive to its development, and if you want to get rid of a bad habit, try to separate it from the specific situation that triggered it. For example, if you want to put down your phone before going to bed and develop the habit of reading before bed, you can put your phone in the desk in advance, or take it to another room and put a few books you want to read on the bedside table, so that you can only read books before going to bed, and after eliminating distractions, reading will become a natural thing.
The author also emphasizes that we can change habits, but we don't forget them. In other words, once a habit is formed, it will not disappear, and even if we replace the old habit with a new habit, the old habit may still appear once the condition is triggered. Let's take the example just now, even if you develop a good habit of reading before bed, one day, you don't pay attention and put your phone on the book. Then then, you're likely to start playing with your phone instead of flipping through a book and reading. Because the brain prefers easy and simple information, a book is much more complicated than the fragmented information on a mobile phone.
With the first step out of the way, set the prompt, and the next step is to take action. How to reduce the difficulty of change and make people change willingly? This requires a good grasp of the inner power of emotions. The author calls the second step "desire", and this is what drives us to change.
The deepest desire of human beings is to reduce uncertainty and obtain rewards, which is simply to "pursue advantages and avoid disadvantages". So, if you want to change your habits, you need to make the new habits more attractive. Specifically, it is to turn the good habits we want to cultivate into a reward, and the bad habits we want to break into a loss.
How do you make a habit more attractive? You can think about such a question, why do we can't help but want to start when we see French fries and milk tea? Think back, what was it like when you ate french fries? Golden on the outside, crispy in the mouth, you can't help but feel a wonderful feeling. At this time, your body automatically secretes a substance called dopamine, which makes you feel happy.
The key to the attraction of something to us is dopamine, and when we expect to be happy, when we experience the feeling of happiness, we take action. Moreover, our expectation of rewards is even stronger than the rewards themselves. A lot of times, we all have this feeling, you like something very much, in order to get it, you work hard to make money, no matter how much you pay, you don't feel tired, but when you actually get it, the happiness may only last for three or two days.
So, if you want to make a habit more attractive, you have to make it your expectation and stimulate dopamine secretion. You can tie the good habits you want to develop to your preferences. When you start looking forward to the rewards that come after, you won't feel how hard it is to act. ABC once used this method to cultivate the habit of watching TV series on time. How? It encourages viewers to make homemade popcorn, drink red wine, and relax in front of the TV on Thursday nights. In this way, Thursday night's TV shows are associated with the beauty of popcorn and red wine.
It's the same with quitting bad habits. You need to change your mindset and realize that giving up this bad habit will not reduce your happiness, but will lead you to happiness for a longer time. For example, if you want to break your habit of spending money indiscriminately, you can tell yourself that spending money indiscriminately will not really improve your quality of life, that the things you buy are often unnecessary, and will increase your financial stress. If you save up this money and see what you really need, you won't be shy about it.
Once you've taken action and built a habit, the next step is to repeat it and make the new habit hold. How do you make it easy to persevere? This brings us to the third step in changing habits: reactions. Forming new habits is not done all at once, but is a process that is repeated over and over again. The more you repeat an action, the more your brain remembers it, and this new behavior replaces your old behavior patterns and transforms them into automated responses.
Our brains naturally like to solve problems in the least effort-intensive way possible, conserving as much energy as possible. This principle is called the law of least effort, and our actions follow this law. That is, when an action consumes more energy, we will take less of that action. So, if you want to make a habit easy to stick to, you need to reduce the resistance to action as much as possible.
How? Two methods are given in the book. The first way is that you can create lazy conditions in advance for the future. You may have encountered such a situation and wanted to find a book, but you couldn't find it for a long time; I wanted to find a TV remote control, but I don't know where I put it last time, and it took me a long time to find it. If you change the way and organize things every time you run out, everything becomes much easier. We always think that tidying up our desks and tidying up our rooms is a hassle, but in fact, these things are all about reducing the cost of your next action. For example, you can organize your desk and put stationery in a specific place when you're done with your work, so you know where it is the next time you need it. Then the next time you start working, you will not only feel that everything is in order, but it will also help you be more productive.
Another way to reduce resistance is called the two-minute rule. The author says that it should not take more than two minutes to develop a new habit. You may think, no, I guess shouldn't it be better to develop a habit for as long as possible? I want to develop a reading habit, I can read a few pages in two minutes, at least half an hour, right? However, you can also think differently and read two pages in two minutes, which may be better. You think, it's much easier to read two pages than to read an entire book, but how can you turn only two pages when you turn the pages of a book? You always want to see what's written on the back, and when you look at it, you slowly look into it, and even get fascinated. This two-minute rule is designed to help you take the burden off your mind and make it easier to get started.
In fact, all habits can be reduced to a two-minute version. For example, for exercise, you can start by doing a sit-up; To tidy up the kitchen, you can start by washing a dish; Running 3 km, you can start by tying your shoes. At the end of the day, it's important to develop a habit and start taking action. When you start doing something, a lot of times you will unconsciously continue to do it.
When to stop? You should stop when you're feeling good. This sounds a bit counter-intuitive, isn't it better to develop a habit for as long as possible? Why stop when you feel good? Recall that when you are doing something well, and suddenly there is a particularly urgent matter to deal with, how do you feel at this time, do you really want to deal with this urgent matter quickly and come back to finish the previous thing? That's right, at this time, what was before will become your expectation. The great writer Ernest Hemingway also used this method to create, and he would stop in time when he was writing well. In this way, even if there is no inspiration the next day, he can continue to write according to the idea of the last time, and as he writes, he may inspire new creative inspiration.
Now, we know exactly what habits we want to change, we are willing to change, and we have started to act. So how do you make a new habit something you're willing to stick to forever? Quite simply, make it enjoyable. That's the final step in changing habits, rewards.
Speaking of which, I'll tell you a true story. In the 90s of the 20th century, Karachi, the economic center of Pakistan, had poor sanitation conditions, and more than half of its inhabitants lived in slums. The so-called houses are actually made of old wooden boards, cinder bricks, and some discarded materials, and the streets are full of garbage. This hygienic environment, coupled with the dense population, makes people susceptible to a variety of diseases. One health worker named Stephen Ruby was aware of the public health crisis and found that washing one's hands could make people healthier just by doing it.
But it's not that people don't know that handwashing is important, but everyone doesn't get into the habit. What to do? Ruby came up with a solution, and he began to provide residents with a new soap that had more foam and a better aroma. People are finding that washing their hands is no longer a hassle but a pleasant treat. More and more people are slowly getting into the habit of washing their hands.
So how do you make a habit a pleasant thing? The book also gives several methods. To sum up, there is actually a principle to make feedback timely and visible. When you've done a habit action, reward yourself in time, and it's best to make the benefits of those new habits obvious. Know that our brains prefer short-term, definite returns. For example, if you want to develop the habit of managing money, you can keep accounts, and when you write down each of your income and expenditure, you will clearly see how much you have spent and how much you have saved each month.
You can also track your habits, such as writing a journal, clocking in every day, and you can see each date to know how long you have been sticking to it, which will enhance your sense of accomplishment and make you more willing to stick to the habit. Speaking of which, the author also reminds that if it is interrupted, it doesn't matter, the key is to recover in time and continue to do it. You need to overcome the idea of perfectionism because it's not everything itself that matters, but you need to always work in the right direction.
If you want to break a bad habit, the process is the opposite, and you can make it an annoying thing. For example, you can tell your friends about the consequences of bad habits, after all, it is a shame to expose your problems in public. If you really can't wipe your face and disclose your bad habits, you can also make a habit contract with yourself, and if you repeat the bad habits, give yourself a small punishment.
epilogue
The author argues that it's not that hard to change habits, but that we're using the wrong method. If you want to change your habits, a more effective way is not to set goals, but to focus on the system and improve in every detail.
Regarding habit formation, the authors propose a four-step model, which are prompt, craving, response, and reward. These four steps correspond to the four laws of action, prompts make habits more obvious, cravings make habits more attractive, reactions make habits easier to follow, and rewards make sticking to habits a joyful thing.
Finally, the author also reminds that he said that "the biggest threat to success is not failure, but burnout", when you repeat a behavior for too long and get tired of the habit, how do you keep yourself sticking to it at this time? In fact, burnout is a sign that you are going to make it harder for yourself. There is a law in psychology called the "Yerkes-Dodson Rule", which says that when you face a challenge that is a little difficult but can be tackled with hard work, you will have the greatest motivation at this time. In other words, if it's too hard, you'll want to give up, and if it's too easy, you'll get bored. When you feel burned out, it's a reminder that you're going to make things harder for yourself.
After reading this book, I would like to share with you my own feelings, that is, changing habits is not an end in itself, but the growth of people is the goal, and habits are just tools. When you realize who you want to be, change begins. At this time, all you have to do is take action to push for change to appear, and habits just help you save effort and make your actions easier.
Written by: Chen Octopus; Brain Map: Moses Brain Map Studio; Source: Get APP Listening Book Column
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