培养习惯的两大误区The Biggest Misconceptions About Building Habits（中英佳文）

培养习惯的两大误区The Biggest Misconceptions About Building Habits

我们将揭穿人们对养成习惯的两个最大误解，第一个是关于真正养成或打破习惯需要多长时间。

你可能会在某个时候听到，“哦，这需要21天”，但这根本不是真的。

这种误解实际上源于一个叫Maxwell Maltz的人。

马尔茨在60年代是一名整形外科医生，他注意到，当他与新鼻子或进行某种面部重建的人一起工作时，这些人在照镜子时会感到不舒服。

马尔茨发现，他们花了大约21天的时间来适应眼前的景象，然后才对自己的新面孔感到更舒服。

有趣的是，他在几乎没有科学依据的情况下进行了这个简单的观察。

他在《精神控制论》一书中表示，养成或改掉一个习惯需要21天，这本自助书后来成为畅销书，最终售出数百万册。

随着时间的推移，人们只是认为这21天养成习惯是真的。

那么，养成或打破一个习惯真正需要多长时间呢？

菲利普·拉利教授最近在伦敦学院进行的一项研究发现，这真的取决于情况。

他们观察了一组人，并跟踪他们花了多长时间才能达到各种不同习惯的最大自动化程度。

现在，对于那些不知道什么是自动性的人来说，这基本上是你在一项任务中需要投入的思想有多少。

例如，如果我告诉你系鞋带，你就不用想太多了。

很有可能你已经把鞋子绑了足够多次，以至于它已经达到了最大的自动性。

当日常生活达到自动化的最高点时，它被认为是一种完全嵌入的习惯。

这是一张研究的图表，描绘了这一点。

研究发现，每一个程序都有所谓的“自动线”，如果你重复了足够多次，它就会变得尽可能自动。

在这一点上，你的日常生活现在已经成为一种习惯，这项研究发现，达到这一水平可能需要两周到九个月的时间，平均需要66天。

这一切都取决于日常生活有多复杂和艰难。

例如，早上服用补充剂的习惯可能只需要三周时间就可以达到自动的程度，然后成为一种你甚至不必考虑的完全根深蒂固的习惯。

另一方面，去健身房锻炼的常规可能需要六个月的时间才能达到这个水平。

所以，对于所有认为，“哦，我只需要坚持21天这个常规”，或者“哦，我们只需要完成90天的挑战”的人来说，你大错特错了。

你必须明白，这将是一段漫长的旅程，根据你试图养成的习惯，这段旅程可能需要近一年的时间才能完成。

这对你们很多人来说可能很可怕。

我该如何坚持这些习惯，一整年都不错过一天？

这给我们带来了第二个常见的误解，即如果你复发了，你就屈服了，抽了一支烟，喝了一杯，或者错过了一天的冥想，那一切都结束了。

我们很多人都有我喜欢称之为要么全有要么全无的心态。

我们认为“哦，一旦连胜被打破，我所有的努力都消失了，因为它消失了，我应该一次又一次地复发，对吧？我还不如享受自己”，但这与事实相去甚远。

在同一项研究中，相当多的人在养成指定的新习惯时错过了一两天。

也许他们太累了，也许他们只是忘记了。

研究人员借此机会研究了它对自动性线的影响，令他们惊讶的是，他们发现错过一天对你的进步没有明显影响。

失去的进展几乎是不存在的。

然而，他们发现，如果你继续复发，你会继续错过去健身房或进行日常调解的日子，那么你就会开始失去很多进展，而且进展的损失是指数级的。

因此，错过两天比只错过一天要严重得多，错过一周比错过两天要糟糕得多。

那么，这对我们意味着什么？

这意味着我们需要转变心态。

我们不应该把注意力集中在数字上。

我们不应该计算自上次复发以来的天数。

我们本应该的心态是，我们会尽最大努力坚持这个习惯几个月，直到它达到这条自动线，因为在某个时刻。

事实上，研究表明，90%试图克服毒瘾或养成新习惯的人在旅途中至少会复发一次。

重要的是，你要强迫自己在第二天重新养成好习惯。

你必须抵制狂饮的冲动，因为那是你真正开始失去进步的时候。

只要你能做到这一点，你最终会达到自动线。

你可能已经推迟了一两天，但只要你重新站起来再试一次，就不用担心会出现连胜。

你最终会到达那条线，一旦你到达那条线上，它就会自动发生。

既然你知道了习惯是如何运作的，也知道了养成一个习惯真正需要多长时间，现在是我们一起选择一个习惯的时候了。

有几十个好习惯都是有益的，所以我们将涵盖其中的一系列，然后我们将选择一个，并在剩下的课程中专注于这个。

因为记住，我们的策略是养成良好的新习惯，这样它们最终就能取代你目前的毒瘾。

We are going to debunk two of the biggest misconceptions people have about building habits and the first is in regards to how long it takes to actually form or break a habit.

You’re probably heard at one point or another, “OH, it takes 21 days,” and it’s simply just not true.

This misconception actually stems from a guy named Maxwell Maltz.

Maltz was a plastic surgeon back in the 60s and he noticed that when he worked with people who got a new nose or had some sort of facial reconstruction, these people would feel uncomfortable when looking in the mirror.

And Maltz found that it took them about 21 days to get used to what they were seeing before they were more comfortable with their new faces.

And what’s funny is that he took this simple observation with little to no science backing it up.

And he stated that it takes 21 days to form or break a habit in his book Psycho-Cybernetics which was a self-help book that went on to becoming a best seller and eventually sold millions of copies.

And over time people just assumed that these 21 days to build a habit thing was true.

So how long does it really take to form or break a habit?

Well, a recent study conducted at the College of London by Professor Phillippa Lally found that it really depends.

They looked at a group of people and tracked how long it took for them to reach a point of maximum automaticity for a variety of different habits.

Now for those of you that don’t know what automaticity is, it’s basically how little thought you need to put into a task.

For example, if I told you to tie your shoe, you wouldn’t have to think about it very hard.

Chances are you’ve tied your shoes enough times that it’s already reached a point of maximum automaticity.

A routine is considered to be a fully embedded habit when it reaches the highest point of automaticity.

And here’s a graph from the study that depicts this.

The study found that every single routine out there has what’s called “the automaticity line”, a point where if you’ve repeated the routine enough times, it becomes as automatic as it’s going to get.

At this point, your routine is now a habit, and this study found that it can take anywhere from two weeks to nine months with an average of 66 days to reach this line.

And it all depends on how complicated and hard the routine is.

For example, the routine of taking your supplements in the morning might only take three weeks before it reaches the line of automaticity before it becomes a fully embedded habit that you don’t even have to think about.

On the other hand, a routine of going to the gym and working out might take six months before it hits this line.

So, for all of you out there who think, “OH, I only need to stick to this routine for 21 days,” or, “OH, I just need to complete the ninety-day challenge, “you’re gravely mistaken.

You have to understand that it’s going to be a long, long journey, a journey that can potentially take almost a year to complete depending on what sort of habits you’re trying to build.

Now this might seem scary for a lot of you.

How am I going to stick to these habits without missing a day for an entire year?

And this brings us to common misconception number two which is that if you relapse you give in and smoke a cigarette or have a drink or you miss a day of meditation, that it’s all over.

A lot of us have what I like to call the all-or – nothing mindset.

We think “OH, once the streak is broken all of my hard work is gone and because it’s gone I should just relapse over and over again, right? I might as well enjoy myself”, and this is far from the truth.

A significant number of people in the same study missed a day or two when building their assigned new habits.

Maybe they were too tired or maybe they just forgot.

The researchers took this opportunity to look at its effects on the automaticity line and to their surprise they found that missing a single day does not have a clear effect on your progress.

The amount of progress lost was almost nonexistent.

However, they found that if you continue to relapse you continue to miss days of going to the gym or doing your daily mediation then you start losing a lot of progress and the amount of progress loss was exponential.

So, missing two days was significantly worse than missing just one day, and missing a week was way worse than missing two days.

So, what does this mean for us?

This means that we need to shift our mindset.

We shouldn’t focus on a numerical streak.

We should not count the number of days it’s been since our last relapse.

The mindset that we should have been that we’re going to try our best to stick to this habit for as many months as it takes until it reaches this line of automaticity because at one point or another.

In fact, studies have shown that 90% of all people trying to overcome their addictions or build new habits relapse at least once throughout their journey.

What’s important is that you force yourself to go back to building your good habits the following day.

You must resist the urge to binge because that’s when you actually start losing progress.

As long as you can do this, you will eventually reach the automaticity line.

You may have postponed it by a day or two, but as long as you get back up and try again, don’t worry about the streak.

You will eventually reach that line and once you hit that line, it becomes automatic.

So now that you know how habits work, and you also know how long it really takes to form a habit, now it’s time for us to select a habit together.

There are dozens of good habits out there that are all beneficial, so we’re going to cover a bunch of them and then we’re going to pick one and focus on that one for the rest of the course.

Because remember our strategy is to adopt good new habits so that they can eventually replace your current addiction.

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