When it comes to building habits, there are two different strategies:
The first is the micro-habit strategy.
The specific way to do this is to set a micro-target, and then freely exceed the micro-target on the basis of the micro-target.
The second, the traditional habitual strategy, completes the task in sufficient amount + quantitatively every day.
Take writing as an example, the strategy of the micro-habit strategy is to write 50 words a day, but whether you want to write 2,000 words or 10,000 words, you can play freely, there is no upper limit; And the strategy of quantifying enough every day is to write 2,000 words a day, and 2,000 words is a goal that you can usually achieve with a small jump.
The advantages of the micro-habit strategy compared with the traditional ordinary habit strategy of sufficient daily amount + quantitative completion are in the **? Why is it that the ordinary habit formation strategy will make people self-discipline for a period of time and then be beaten back to the original shape, while the micro-habit strategy will not?
Because there are five particularly big advantages to the micro-habit strategy.
Advantage 1: The brain does not resist
To develop a new habit is to compete with old habits that are already very strong.
The so-called habit habit is the inertia of behavior, the old habit has formed inertia, and the new habit has not, so the brain likes the old habit and resists the new habit.
For example, you want to develop a new habit of reading a book for 2 hours before going to bed every day, but your old habit before bed is to lie in bed and play with your phone. With so much time every day, new habits need to compete with old habits, and the new habit of reading a book for 2 hours is hardly the opponent of the old habit of playing with mobile phones.
When you're trying to develop a new habit, it's like taking part in a weightlifting competition without any training, and your opponents are experienced, tried-and-tested, and stronger.
Most habit-building strategies make you blindly believe that you can go head-to-head with old habits that are stronger and stronger. But the result is always a slap in the face.
As for micro-habits, its goal is just to read a page of a book, which is simple and easy enough to fool the brain. If the brain doesn't resist, it can compete with existing habits.
Advantage 2: It can digest accidents
Persistence and self-discipline are hard, and sometimes it's not that we deliberately interrupt and give up, but that the plan can't keep up with the change.
You plan to write 2,000 words a day, but what if you don't feel well one day? What if an old friend you haven't seen in a long time comes to play with you? What if you have an urgent overtime task on a particular day? What if you're going on vacation with your family on a few days?
Your plan is to write 2,000 words a day, and in these situations, you have to break the plan. And as soon as there are exceptions, the plan of "writing 2,000 words a day" in our minds is declared a failure. Perfectionism, on the contrary, makes us have the psychology of breaking the jar and breaking it. The frustration and self-doubt that followed, made it even more difficult for us to have the courage to restart the plan.
But if you're using a micro-habit strategy and you only need to write 50 words, you only need to spare a small amount of time to finish 50 words and then take a break or do something else. If there is a special situation today, then only the micro goal will be completed today, and it will not be exceeded, and there will be no problem at all.
Microhabit strategies are very resilient plans that can digest unexpected and unexpected situations and help overcome perfectionism.
Advantage 3: Improve self-efficacy
What is self-efficacy? Self-efficacy is simply a person's judgment of whether they are capable of completing a certain task, and it represents the degree of confidence we have in our own abilities.
People with high self-efficacy have high expectations of themselves, are willing to take on challenges, are able to control self-defeating thoughts, and can use their knowledge and skills in the face of difficulties.
People with low self-efficacy have low expectations of themselves, are afraid to move forward, easily deal with problems emotionally, are prone to self-abandonment in the face of pressure, and cannot exert due ability and wisdom when needed.
It's easy for self-efficacy to break down when it's time to build a habit.
Take writing as an example, asking yourself to write 2,000 words a day, not writing is a failure, writing 1,000 words is a failure, writing 1,500 words is also a failure, as long as you don't write enough 2,000 words are a failure, but it is inevitable that there will be an unexpected situation such as bad state, low efficiency, or time scheduling, and not achieving the goal will make us very guilty, very frustrated, and very frustrated.
Fail a few times in a row, and our self-efficacy will be shattered. When we don't believe that we can do something, we are very afraid and resistant to it, and our motivation to do it becomes weaker and weaker.
A micro-habit strategy is a clever form of expectation management that sets a lower limit beyond which it is considered successful. It allows us to succeed every day, and these small successes may be insignificant, but maintaining success can increase our self-efficacy and sense of control over our lives, and make us start to believe in ourselves again.
Advantage 4: No pressure
The reason why it is easy to self-discipline for a period of time and then go back to the original form is because it is often accompanied by a lot of stress.
Experimental studies have found that:Stress can promote greater dependence on habitual behavior
Psychologists have also found that ".When under pressure, people can't make decisions easily, their willpower wanes, or they feel overwhelmed. When you don't have the energy to make a decision, you tend to repeat what you usually do
In other words, when the new habit is not consolidated, stress triggers the old habit, which manifests itself as a relapse.
You want to develop the habit of 3 kilometers a day, but the pressure and burden brought by the goal of 3 kilometers will make you repeat your usual practice and lie on the sofa.
When we feel like we're facing a difficult task, we feel stressed, and when we're stressed, the common habit formation breaks down because stress makes us fearful, doubtful, timid, and hesitant, and we act in the opposite direction to escape this pressure.
Micro-habits, on the other hand, do not trigger fear, hesitation, and resistance because they are stress-free.
A lot of times, we just take the first step and things get simple. However, the most difficult thing is to take the first step, and at this time, it is often not the real difficulty that defeats us, but the imaginary difficulty.
Micro-habit strategies allow us to take the first step without stress.
Advantage 5: Give us autonomy
The survey found that "nearly 90 percent of men and nearly 85 percent of women who have a higher job decision power are more satisfied, while only 56 percent of those who have a low job decision power report high price satisfaction." ”
This is a very common psychological phenomenon: aversion to the loss of freedom. That is, once a person feels controlled, he will feel bored and then start to be passive and slack off.
When I was a child, I felt that if my parents told me to do housework, I hated doing it, and if it was a book that the teacher assigned me to read as homework, I didn't want to read it, but if it was a housework that I wanted to do, a book that I wanted to read, I would be very interested, and I would be more interested in doing it.
The common habit-forming strategy is to set strict goals for ourselves in days or weeks, such as writing 2,000 words a day, and we will subconsciously feel controlled by the plan, and this feeling of being controlled and not being free will be boring and uninteresting, and it will suffocate us. Our inner drive will be weakened as a result.
A micro-habit strategy that prescribes a goal that is only incredibly small and then allows us to freely exceed on that basis. After completing the micro-goals, we are free to choose what we want to do, so we enjoy a very high degree of autonomy while being self-disciplined. This makes us not only more motivated, but also happier.
There are two strategies for habit formation, one is the ordinary strategy, which is to complete the goal in sufficient amount + quantitatively; One is the micro-habit strategy, which uses micro-goals + free exceedances to achieve goals.
Compared with ordinary strategies, the micro-habit strategy has five major advantages:
It's so simple that the brain doesn't resist and can compete with existing habits;
It can digest the unexpected, so that we are no longer forced to interrupt or abandon our plans because they can't keep up with the changes;
It keeps us successful and boosts our self-efficacy.
It does not bring stress and keeps us away from fear, doubt, timidity, and hesitation before action;
It gives us autonomy and makes us freer, happier, and more motivated to make positive changes.