How to change life for the better without radical changes
Motivation A Life / / December 19, 2019
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Many people, including myself, want to make the best of several areas of your life. For example, I want my articles to read as many people as possible, I want to lift more weight in the gym, I want my actions were rational and conscious. These are just some of the goals I wanted to achieve. I think, too, you have typed a long list of things that you would like to change.
The problem is that even if we persevere to those goals, at some point will have a desire to return to old habits. amend your lifestyle It is actually very difficult.
Recently, I got acquainted with a number of scientific research, of which it becomes clear how to change the way of life better. You will see that the desire to change everything at once, and contrary to common sense.
Too many good intentions
If you want to get just a few healthy habits (Not for a couple of days, and all), it is necessary to understand how not to throw everything in the middle.
Studies confirm that your chances to fix new habits increase by 2-3 times, if you draw up a specific plan when, where and how you stick to the new behavior.
For example, in one study, participants were asked to write the following sentence: "During the week I'm going to do the exercises at least 20 minutes [start date, time, place]." It turned out that people who just wrote a similar offer, began to do the exercises twice or even three times more likely than members of the control group, who did not make plans. Psychologists call such specific plans for implementation intentions.
The fact that the plan actually helps confirmed hundreds of different psychological research. Thus, the implementation of the intentions increases the likelihood that people will start to engage in sports, will give the garbage for recycling, will devote more time to their studies and even quit smoking.
However, in the course of further research, it was found that the implementation of intent only works when you are focused on one goal at a time. It turns out that people who are going to achieve several goals at once, have less chance of success.
Conclusions from the above are as follows: to develop a concrete plan when, where and how you stick to a new habit - it will dramatically increase your chances of success. Provided that you will be going to one goal at a time.
What happens when you focus on a single target
When you are just starting to acquire a new habit, you need to put a lot of conscious effort to always remember how to do the right thing. After some time, the new behavior is given to you easier. In the end, the new habit is firmly in your life, and you start to perform this action unconsciously.
In psychology, there is a special term - automatism. Automatism - is the ability to run business without thinking about each step or phase, so the pattern of behavior becomes habitual.
But here it is important to understand that the automatism does not appear by itself. It is the result of a large number of repetitions and practice. The more times you repeat an action, the sooner you will bring it to automatism.
The chart below illustrates how much time usually required for people to get used to walking 10 minutes every day after breakfast. At the beginning of the degree of automaticity low. After 30 days the habit is becoming commonplace. After 60 days, the habit is performed on the machine.
The most important thing in this case - to overcome the tipping point at which the execution of the habit at least to a small extent it becomes automatic. The time required for the acquisition of new habits, all different and depends on many factors: how difficult it is given a new behavior, the environment, genetics and more.
However, the researchers concluded that, on average required 66 days to a habit reached automatism. It was carried out large-scale study, from which you can make the main conclusion: take a few months to become a new habit for you commonplace.
Change your life without changing your lifestyle
Let's take another look at all is said and done this three important conclusions.
- You get used to the new behavior with a probability of two or three times higher if concrete plans, which specify how, when and where you are going to implement it. In psychology this is called implementation intentions.
- You need to focus all your attention on one habit. It is proved that the realization of intentions does not work if you try to get just a few habits.
- Any habit can be performed on the machine, if a lot of practice. It will take a couple of months to bring the habit to automatism.
Even though it is contrary to logic and common sense, the best way to change your life - do not change it. At the very least, radically. Instead, you need to focus on one particular habit, work on their behavior and bring it to automatism. Then you just need to repeat the same procedure for the next habit.
If you want to achieve a variety of purposes in the long run, just focus on one goal right now.