Lord777
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It's time for some practical advice to help you build good habits.
Small steps
Your brain resists drastic changes. If you motivate yourself for a titanic attempt from the series "Starting tomorrow, I am a new person", then you will only burn out and come back. Big and sudden don't work that easily, slow and gradual works. This is where the yo-yo toy effect works. You need to get outside your comfort zone, which is the only sustainable approach.
When you move in small steps, in a year you will find another person in your place - and you will not even understand at what point it happened.
The trick here is to make a small change and let your brain accept it as a new baseline. This will make the next step easier because the start line has moved. Soaped, washed off, repeated.
Because you are rolling on the board, which means that the wave is moving forward below you. Cool.
What I'm going to say now may sound trivial, but in reality it is not: big things are made up of small ones. Small changes that you get used to and follow every day lead to amazingly huge results.
Use the stairs instead of the elevator every day. It's only five or ten calories, but it's enough for three pizzas in a year. And that's just the calories.
If you spend just two minutes each day on a little cleaning, you will be surprised how clean your home will be a month later.
Small but consistent things. Go up the stairs.
The brain resists drastic changes, but gradual changes allow this resistance to be bypassed. This brings us to the next point.
The principle of gradualness
You can implement huge changes by breaking them up into small, manageable steps. The thing is, the reluctant troll in your head won't even notice that something big is going on. Resistance grows exponentially, not proportionally, depending on the magnitude of the change. This principle works in many aspects of life:
“Recruiting new spies is not“ Hello sir, would you like to work for a foreign government to destroy your own country? ”This is a series of relatively harmless and legitimate steps - dinners, small gifts, and requests for not-so-important information, which in the end results in serious high treason.
- When shooting porn films, producers do not ask an unfamiliar girl from the street to lie down with five jocks - it all starts with a light nudity ("Honest modeling business, what are you doing"), then further and further. Well, you understand.
- There are ominous examples from politics.
- There is a thought experiment about a frog in boiling water - maybe this is a lie, but they say that if you put a frog in a pot of water and heat it slowly, the frog will not jump out, because the boiling will be gradual. I don't know why anyone would need to do such things, and in general how true it is, but the principle is exactly the same - this is how you need to overthrow the inner saboteur troll. Boil it alive. Slowly, lulling his attention.
We want to use the same mechanism for good.
Want to start exercising more? Go out for a walk. Want to go on a diet? Start by giving up one of the most damaging things - it's probably sugar. Do you want to quit smoking? Take today's "last" cigarette, break it in half and flush it down the toilet.
The next point follows from this.
Deliberate Exception Management
The best way to manage vices is to accept and manage them. You can't just make them evaporate, but you can learn to control them and redirect their momentum by consciously including them in the plan. This is the judo method.
The point is to control the timing and dosage. Diet? Plan the days you cheat (once a week, for example). Spending valuable hours of your life on Facebook? “No more Facebook” is wrong, “Facebook for 20 minutes in the evening to find out what is happening with friends, and that's it” is right.
Remember that the brain resists major changes, even doubly if they get in the way of immediate gratification. Abruptly giving up psychological habits is one hundred percent way to create a circle of frustration, failure, and self-loathing.
This can be avoided by accepting and planning exceptions - no exceptions from planned exceptions.
You can absolutely afford to say, "Today I will stay at home, eat pizza in my underpants, and play video games." But do it only occasionally, consciously and deliberately - you can't just happen to you in the absence of a more productive plan. Any plan is better than this.
Paradoxically, such carelessness is not even pleasant, it makes you feel guilty and useless. But you will enjoy it if it is a planned holiday. There must be days for pajamas, ice cream and dumb TV shows. But it is you who should let them into your life, and not they you into theirs.
Nudge and commitment
There is a very, very powerful trick: using small jolts in the right direction to bypass your own defenses against the good things for yourself. I will explain. The trick is to reduce the brain's resistance by taking a symbolic step in the desired direction without waking up the troll.
This principle was taught to me by the author of the satirical comic Dilbert Scott Adams - if you are not in the mood to go to workout, but would like to, just put on your sportswear. It's easy, right? This is enough for the brain to switch, and you suddenly find yourself doing push-ups from the floor.
Take small, symbolic steps towards the intended change.
In terms of nudges and reminders, I would recommend the work of psychology professor Dan Ariely.
If you want to buy, for example, sweat shorts and greens (as I did a couple of days ago), do it in that order. Thus, you will be obliged to make healthy choices.
This works for two reasons - nudging and fixing the setup (very important) and the need to be consistent. You want to trick your brain into thinking, “I just bought sports equipment - I'm a health conscious person. Therefore, I must avoid the junk food section. "
Consistency works because inconsistency literally threatens the integrity of the ego. Our past decisions make up our personality, and we want to keep it. So you make healthy decisions about the psychological component of self-preservation. Ego protection does the hard work for you. This is a life hack.
Let's say it again: consistency is a must for self-awareness. You can use this to do just about anything - you do simple, small, smart things to reinforce your behavior. It is a nuclear weapon to control your own life. Use wisely.
Recharge
Another super important thing if you want to take control of your own life: don't get tired and put yourself under stress. Easier said than done, I know, but I'll show you how to do it.
When you're mentally exhausted, the things you do (or don't do) are far from conscious decisions and common sense. If you want to develop good habits, learn to "recharge your battery."
If you have a vague feeling that this is a chicken-and-egg problem, and that it is not clear what you need to do first: learn to manage your life to avoid stress and fatigue, or learn to rest in order to better manage life, you are completely right. But you can instill an effective relaxation system into your stressful lifestyle, thus breaking the vicious circle at its weakest point.
In fact, if you have a stressful life, you especially need to do this. It's simple and only takes 10 minutes.
And the popularity of this method is growing - the Internet is gradually flooded with such advice, but rarely in a similar context - especially to roll back ego exhaustion and "executive fatigue." Which is surprising, given that this is the second most popular use (the first is mental health in a general sense).
And this (fanfare) is meditation. In the simplest (and, I think, the best) form - you sit down, clear your mind, breathe evenly and observe your "empty" brain in its natural state - that's all. Everything else is optional.
I promise that this will give you more strength to follow your consistent decisions and plans, or at least significantly increase your chances. This is a "mana potion" of self-control, a pit stop for the brain, a well of desires.
These are internal things. Dealing with your surroundings is equally important. Remove everything that distracts and tempts, simplify and put in order - so that your mind is not busy with a hundred little things, but is able to fully focus on one thing that you are doing at that moment. There is no effective multitasking. If you share attention, you lose.
Environment Management Basics:
- Cleanliness and order help a lot. If a dirty apartment is part of your vicious loop, then persuade your friends to help you ("I am trying to figure out my apartment and life, help me - I will buy beer and pizza, and I will also help you if you want to do the same") or Hire a cleaning lady - everything to remove the annoying factors from the outside, to give yourself more strength to deal with everything else in life.
- Remove from sight sources of temptation. If you're on a diet, open cans of Nutella and pizza coupons in plain sight are fatal. Smokers, throw out the lighters. Out of sight, out of mind.
- Put constructive reminders and nudges in plain sight instead. For example, you can hang your own photo in your underwear on the refrigerator.
If you want to reduce your stress levels, you can go on an informational diet. This does not mean cutting yourself off from the world - instead of consciously ignoring it, I suggest following quality over quantity. Find and switch to high quality news sources. Completely exclude and ignore tabloids and yellow media. If articles make you angry, then it probably isn't good journalism, and it certainly isn't good for your moral health.
The inner logic of discipline building is to establish more constructive relationships and improve the balance of power between your higher executive functions: your rational adult mind and your inner three-year-old who makes overwhelming numbers of decisions.
Don't console yourself, that little asshole is still there. The human personality is like a tree: it grows outward, adding layers, but the insides never go away (well, technically, old trees often turn out to be hollow inside, and old people often shed the outer layer and turn into children again, but actually all metaphors have borders).
The toddler is still there, with his impulsiveness and scattered attention, with his short-sighted desire for immediate gratification. In general, you want to be in control of your higher functions. It is more difficult to do this if you are tired or under stress, hence the importance of concentration and meditation, as well as control of the external environment.
Small steps
Your brain resists drastic changes. If you motivate yourself for a titanic attempt from the series "Starting tomorrow, I am a new person", then you will only burn out and come back. Big and sudden don't work that easily, slow and gradual works. This is where the yo-yo toy effect works. You need to get outside your comfort zone, which is the only sustainable approach.
When you move in small steps, in a year you will find another person in your place - and you will not even understand at what point it happened.
The trick here is to make a small change and let your brain accept it as a new baseline. This will make the next step easier because the start line has moved. Soaped, washed off, repeated.
Because you are rolling on the board, which means that the wave is moving forward below you. Cool.
What I'm going to say now may sound trivial, but in reality it is not: big things are made up of small ones. Small changes that you get used to and follow every day lead to amazingly huge results.
Use the stairs instead of the elevator every day. It's only five or ten calories, but it's enough for three pizzas in a year. And that's just the calories.
If you spend just two minutes each day on a little cleaning, you will be surprised how clean your home will be a month later.
Small but consistent things. Go up the stairs.
The brain resists drastic changes, but gradual changes allow this resistance to be bypassed. This brings us to the next point.
The principle of gradualness
You can implement huge changes by breaking them up into small, manageable steps. The thing is, the reluctant troll in your head won't even notice that something big is going on. Resistance grows exponentially, not proportionally, depending on the magnitude of the change. This principle works in many aspects of life:
“Recruiting new spies is not“ Hello sir, would you like to work for a foreign government to destroy your own country? ”This is a series of relatively harmless and legitimate steps - dinners, small gifts, and requests for not-so-important information, which in the end results in serious high treason.
- When shooting porn films, producers do not ask an unfamiliar girl from the street to lie down with five jocks - it all starts with a light nudity ("Honest modeling business, what are you doing"), then further and further. Well, you understand.
- There are ominous examples from politics.
- There is a thought experiment about a frog in boiling water - maybe this is a lie, but they say that if you put a frog in a pot of water and heat it slowly, the frog will not jump out, because the boiling will be gradual. I don't know why anyone would need to do such things, and in general how true it is, but the principle is exactly the same - this is how you need to overthrow the inner saboteur troll. Boil it alive. Slowly, lulling his attention.
We want to use the same mechanism for good.
Want to start exercising more? Go out for a walk. Want to go on a diet? Start by giving up one of the most damaging things - it's probably sugar. Do you want to quit smoking? Take today's "last" cigarette, break it in half and flush it down the toilet.
The next point follows from this.
Deliberate Exception Management
The best way to manage vices is to accept and manage them. You can't just make them evaporate, but you can learn to control them and redirect their momentum by consciously including them in the plan. This is the judo method.
The point is to control the timing and dosage. Diet? Plan the days you cheat (once a week, for example). Spending valuable hours of your life on Facebook? “No more Facebook” is wrong, “Facebook for 20 minutes in the evening to find out what is happening with friends, and that's it” is right.
Remember that the brain resists major changes, even doubly if they get in the way of immediate gratification. Abruptly giving up psychological habits is one hundred percent way to create a circle of frustration, failure, and self-loathing.
This can be avoided by accepting and planning exceptions - no exceptions from planned exceptions.
You can absolutely afford to say, "Today I will stay at home, eat pizza in my underpants, and play video games." But do it only occasionally, consciously and deliberately - you can't just happen to you in the absence of a more productive plan. Any plan is better than this.
Paradoxically, such carelessness is not even pleasant, it makes you feel guilty and useless. But you will enjoy it if it is a planned holiday. There must be days for pajamas, ice cream and dumb TV shows. But it is you who should let them into your life, and not they you into theirs.
Nudge and commitment
There is a very, very powerful trick: using small jolts in the right direction to bypass your own defenses against the good things for yourself. I will explain. The trick is to reduce the brain's resistance by taking a symbolic step in the desired direction without waking up the troll.
This principle was taught to me by the author of the satirical comic Dilbert Scott Adams - if you are not in the mood to go to workout, but would like to, just put on your sportswear. It's easy, right? This is enough for the brain to switch, and you suddenly find yourself doing push-ups from the floor.
Take small, symbolic steps towards the intended change.
In terms of nudges and reminders, I would recommend the work of psychology professor Dan Ariely.
If you want to buy, for example, sweat shorts and greens (as I did a couple of days ago), do it in that order. Thus, you will be obliged to make healthy choices.
This works for two reasons - nudging and fixing the setup (very important) and the need to be consistent. You want to trick your brain into thinking, “I just bought sports equipment - I'm a health conscious person. Therefore, I must avoid the junk food section. "
Consistency works because inconsistency literally threatens the integrity of the ego. Our past decisions make up our personality, and we want to keep it. So you make healthy decisions about the psychological component of self-preservation. Ego protection does the hard work for you. This is a life hack.
Let's say it again: consistency is a must for self-awareness. You can use this to do just about anything - you do simple, small, smart things to reinforce your behavior. It is a nuclear weapon to control your own life. Use wisely.
Recharge
Another super important thing if you want to take control of your own life: don't get tired and put yourself under stress. Easier said than done, I know, but I'll show you how to do it.
When you're mentally exhausted, the things you do (or don't do) are far from conscious decisions and common sense. If you want to develop good habits, learn to "recharge your battery."
If you have a vague feeling that this is a chicken-and-egg problem, and that it is not clear what you need to do first: learn to manage your life to avoid stress and fatigue, or learn to rest in order to better manage life, you are completely right. But you can instill an effective relaxation system into your stressful lifestyle, thus breaking the vicious circle at its weakest point.
In fact, if you have a stressful life, you especially need to do this. It's simple and only takes 10 minutes.
And the popularity of this method is growing - the Internet is gradually flooded with such advice, but rarely in a similar context - especially to roll back ego exhaustion and "executive fatigue." Which is surprising, given that this is the second most popular use (the first is mental health in a general sense).
And this (fanfare) is meditation. In the simplest (and, I think, the best) form - you sit down, clear your mind, breathe evenly and observe your "empty" brain in its natural state - that's all. Everything else is optional.
I promise that this will give you more strength to follow your consistent decisions and plans, or at least significantly increase your chances. This is a "mana potion" of self-control, a pit stop for the brain, a well of desires.
These are internal things. Dealing with your surroundings is equally important. Remove everything that distracts and tempts, simplify and put in order - so that your mind is not busy with a hundred little things, but is able to fully focus on one thing that you are doing at that moment. There is no effective multitasking. If you share attention, you lose.
Environment Management Basics:
- Cleanliness and order help a lot. If a dirty apartment is part of your vicious loop, then persuade your friends to help you ("I am trying to figure out my apartment and life, help me - I will buy beer and pizza, and I will also help you if you want to do the same") or Hire a cleaning lady - everything to remove the annoying factors from the outside, to give yourself more strength to deal with everything else in life.
- Remove from sight sources of temptation. If you're on a diet, open cans of Nutella and pizza coupons in plain sight are fatal. Smokers, throw out the lighters. Out of sight, out of mind.
- Put constructive reminders and nudges in plain sight instead. For example, you can hang your own photo in your underwear on the refrigerator.
If you want to reduce your stress levels, you can go on an informational diet. This does not mean cutting yourself off from the world - instead of consciously ignoring it, I suggest following quality over quantity. Find and switch to high quality news sources. Completely exclude and ignore tabloids and yellow media. If articles make you angry, then it probably isn't good journalism, and it certainly isn't good for your moral health.
The inner logic of discipline building is to establish more constructive relationships and improve the balance of power between your higher executive functions: your rational adult mind and your inner three-year-old who makes overwhelming numbers of decisions.
Don't console yourself, that little asshole is still there. The human personality is like a tree: it grows outward, adding layers, but the insides never go away (well, technically, old trees often turn out to be hollow inside, and old people often shed the outer layer and turn into children again, but actually all metaphors have borders).
The toddler is still there, with his impulsiveness and scattered attention, with his short-sighted desire for immediate gratification. In general, you want to be in control of your higher functions. It is more difficult to do this if you are tired or under stress, hence the importance of concentration and meditation, as well as control of the external environment.
