The key to habit formation is…

I set a goal for myself to read 10 pages a day, but I gave up after only a few days. I set a goal for myself to learn English every day. I was very motivated at first, but I stopped after a few days. I set a goal for myself to get up early and exercise for 30 minutes, but I persisted for more than 20 days and was interrupted by rain, and finally gave up. Why is it so easy to interrupt a behavior? Why is it so difficult to form a habit? Let me give an example about education to illustrate. 1 – From beginning to giving up 1. Spending more time with your children is actually just an idea, or even just an idea. Maybe you saw an article somewhere that said parents should spend more time with their children, such as chatting with them for 15 minutes before going to bed at night. Then you feel that what the author said makes sense, and you agree with the author\’s ideas very much. You feel that you really need to do this, and you have to do it yourself, so you came up with this idea. But this idea (thought) is likely to be forgotten in a few days. Because there are too many thoughts in our minds every day. In 2005, the National Science Foundation of the United States found through a survey that the average person has 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts running through their minds every day, 80% of which are negative, and 95% of which are exactly the same as the previous day. There are tens of thousands of thoughts in our minds every day, and the idea of ​​spending more time with our children is just one of them, and we easily forget it. 2. Start chatting with your children for 15 minutes every day. If you say \”spend more time with your children\”, it is just a vague idea (thought). So \”talk with your children for 15 minutes every day\” has obviously become clearer and more specific. The more specific the idea, the greater the possibility of implementation. Then you actually take action. Before going to bed at night, put down your mobile phone and work, look into your child\’s eyes, start chatting with your child seriously and without comment, and listen to your child share interesting things they encountered at school. 3. Giving up due to interruptions You have indeed started chatting with your children before going to bed at night, and you continue to do so. But it didn’t last for a few days before I started to interrupt. Sometimes my boss assigned me tasks at night, and sometimes I felt I was too tired… Anyway, I didn’t stick to it, so I started to interrupt for 1 or 2 days, and then the number of interruptions increased. , the number of days between interruptions is getting longer and longer. In the end it didn\’t last and the plan failed again. 2 — Why is it so difficult to form a habit? What’s the problem? Why is it so difficult to form a habit? I think the main reason is that the frequency of reminders is too low. Children\’s Puzzle and EQ Training Special Search Team Dudangman Cartoon for Big Players, all 31 episodes, the formation of a habit requires constant repetition, and it is basically impossible to do it in just a few days. The market statement that \”it takes 21 days to develop a good habit\” is not reliable. A big data survey from a team of scientists at the University of London found that it takes an average of 66 days to develop a habit or quit a habit. Moreover, the time required for different behaviors to form habits varies greatly., ranging from 18 to 254 days, demonstrating the wide variation in the time it takes for people to automate their habits. Therefore, for many people, the main reason why they go from an idea to implementation, and then finally give up, is that the number of repetitions is too few. Sometimes it’s not because you don’t want to do it, but because you are doing it and sometimes you really forget about it, and then you start to interrupt. If there are too many interruptions, I will break the jar and throw it around, or simply give up. Therefore, a behavior must become a habit and must be repeated continuously. In order to prevent forgetting, it is necessary to constantly remind yourself. For example, you can set a reminder on your phone, or of course, you can print it out and stick it on the wall. I saw some powerful people who posted many printed reminders on the wall beside their bed. 3 – The key to developing a habit. What is the key point to develop a habit? 1. The behavior must be clear. First of all, the behavior must be clear and cannot be a general idea. For example: I want to spend more time with my children. I want to learn English. I want to learn programming. I think writing reflections can make progress quickly, so I want to write reflections. The above are basically general ideas. Having such thoughts only shows that there is a willingness to change, but there is still a distance from taking action. If you want to take action, you need to refine it to an executable level. For example: Before going to bed every day, start chatting with your children for 15 minutes at 8:30. Every morning from 7 to 7:30, study English for 30 minutes. Every evening after work, start taking a 30-minute programming class at 8:00. Spend 20 minutes writing about yesterday at 9:00 every morning. Compared with the above ideas, reflection has specific time points and frequency of actions, which is obviously easier to implement. 2. Constantly remind you that the formation of a new habit requires a lot of repeated actions. In order to be able to repeat it, you need to be reminded. For example, post a reminder on the wall, or set a reminder on your phone. Set a reminder for when to do it, and do it when the time comes. Everyone\’s life is fast-paced and there are many things to do every day. With the help of reminders, you can greatly increase the probability of successful behavior development. 3. Don’t set the goal too high at the beginning. When you start to develop a new habit, you can rely on the power of mini habits. For example, don’t set the goal too high. If the goal is set too high, it is likely to be resisted by the subconscious mind, and it is difficult to sustain it purely by willpower. If the goal is set lower, there will be less subconscious resistance, making it easier to continue. Once you start and remind yourself to do it every day, it will be easier to form a habit. Hope the above has inspired you.