Living a healthier lifestyle isn’t always down to sheer willpower – it can be as simple as forming new habits. But how do we do that?
以健康的方式生活如同新习惯的养成一样简单,并且绝不总是取决于纯粹的意志力。那么我们该怎么做呢?
Last year, my New Year resolution was to go for a run first thing every morning. It started well: 1 January was a great success. On 2 January, though, I hit snooze and went back to sleep. I tried to get it going again, I really did – I even wore my gym clothes to bed – but nothing worked.
我去年的新年决心是每天早上去跑步。开局很好,1月1日取得了巨大的成功。1月2日,我打了个盹,又睡着了。我试着重新开始,我真的这样做了——我穿着运动服又躺下了——不过,这是没有效果的。
This year, I’ve resolved to wean myself off scrolling mindlessly through social media on my phone, but when it comes to making resolutions – or, rather, breaking them – it feels as though there are forces at work far stronger than my willpower. I know I’m not alone in that; if I were, there wouldn’t be nearly 6,000 books on Amazon under the category “self help – habits”, nor so many psychologists researching the subject. So, could they help me keep my resolution this year?
我今年的新年决心是戒掉在手机上的漫无目的地浏览社交媒体。但是,当我作出这个决定的时候,或者说,试图打破这一习惯的时候——就觉得好像有股力量横亘其间,这力量比我的意志力更强大。我知道,这不是我一个人的问题,还有很多人都在苦苦与之争斗。要不然,亚马逊“习惯自助”目录里就不会有6000多本书,也不会有那么多心理学家研究这个课题。那么,他们能帮我维持今年的决心吗?
Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit, certainly thinks so. He tells me there is “a ton of research” to show that New Year resolutions are an effective way to make changes: they create a sense of expectation and ceremony, while the link to a particular day helps to fit our experiences into a narrative of before and after, which makes change more likely. “There are people who will decide on 1 January to lose two stone and who will keep it off for the rest of their lives, others who have been smoking two packs a day for over a decade who will decide to quit and who will still not smoke this time next year,” he says. “Anyone can change any habit; it doesn’t matter how old you are or how deeply ingrained that behaviour is. But that doesn’t mean – as everyone knows – that New Year resolutions are consistently successful.
《习惯的力量》作者查尔斯·杜希格肯定认为这是可以做到的。他告诉我:“大量的研究”表明,新年决心是一种有效的变革方式:新年决心创造了一种期待和仪式感,而与特定日子的联系有助于让我们的经历融入前后叙述之中,进而让变化成为可能。““有些人决定在1月1日扔掉两块石头,并且终身不再背负这些;十年来每天抽两包烟的人决定明年就戒烟。”他说,任何人都可以改变任何的习惯,不管你年龄多大或行为多么根深蒂固。但是,众所周知,这并不意味着每个人的新年决心总会成功。
When our New Year resolutions fail, we berate ourselves for our weak self-discipline; we tell ourselves our willpower wasn’t strong enough, as though we are a marathon runner who couldn’t make it to the finish line. The image of a self-control muscle that gets tired over time, first proposed by the social psychologist Roy Baumeister in the late 90s, has shaped our collective consciousness.
当我们的新年决心失败之后,我们痛斥自己孱弱的自律;认为自己的意志力不够坚强,仿佛我们是一个不能到达终点的马拉松运动员。社会心理学家罗伊·鲍迈斯特于90年代后期提出的自我损耗理论的概念认为,自我控的力量会随着时间的推移而疲劳。这个概念塑造了我们的集体意识。
But a new generation of psychologists, unable to replicate the studies that proved his theory of “ego depletion”, are questioning this model. They are exploring other factors that might determine whether individuals can stick to their goals, including their motivation and environment, explains Katharina Bernecker, a postdoctoral researcher at Leibniz-Institut in Tübingen, south-west Germany. “The idea of a limited resource is about a capacity or an ability – you can or you can’t – whereas motivation is something that fluctuates. We’re searching for a new theory that tells us more about this process,” she says.
南加州大学的心理学和商学教授Wendy Wood认为,把新年决心的鸡蛋都放在意志力这唯一的篮子里,才是我们错误的根源。尽管研究表明,自制力持久的人往往更善于实现自己的目标——如果他们有动机做好工作,他们就会有所表现。她解释说,如果自制力持久的人想过一种健康的生活方式,他们就会更多的锻炼——这并非因为他们用意志力来控制自己的行为,事实上,这是因为他们找到了解决问题的方法。Wood说:“这些人获得高分,在于他们控制自己行为的能力、以及抵制诱惑的能力”。但是,“有趣的是,事情并不是因为这些而起作用”。
Putting all our New Year resolution eggs in a willpower basket is exactly where we are going wrong, suggests Wendy Wood, provost professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California. Although studies show that people who have a lot of self-control tend to be good at meeting their goals – if they are motivated to do well at work, they get promoted; if they want to live a healthy lifestyle, they exercise more – it isn’t because they use their willpower to control their behaviour, she explains. In fact, it is because they find a way around it. These individuals score highly on scales that measure their ability to control their actions and resist temptation, but “the interesting thing is that it doesn’t work that way”, Wood says. “What we’ve learned is that people with high self-control are not going through these white-knuckle struggles to eat better, exercise more or work harder. Instead, what they do is form habits. They automate their behaviours that get them to their goals, so they perform them without even thinking about it. That’s what makes them so successful.” It isn’t about willpower; it is about habits.
南加州大学的心理学和商学教授Wendy Wood认为,把新年决心的鸡蛋都放在意志力这唯一的篮子里,才是我们错误的根源。尽管研究表明,自制力持久的人往往更善于实现自己的目标——如果他们有动机做好工作,他们就会有所表现。她解释说,如果自制力持久的人想过一种健康的生活方式,他们就会更多的锻炼——这并非因为他们用意志力来控制自己的行为,事实上,这是因为他们找到了解决问题的方法。Wood说:“这些人获得高分,在于他们控制自己行为的能力、以及抵制诱惑的能力”。但是,“有趣的是,事情并不是因为这些而起作用”。我们学到的是,自我控制能力很强的人并没有修通这些令人极度紧张的争斗,并因此吃得香,锻炼得更多,工作更努力。相反,他们所做的就是养成习惯。他们自动化的行为使得他们达到了自己的目标,所以,他们甚至在未加以思考这些之前,就执行这些自动化的行为了。这就是他们成功的原因:“这不是意志力,而是习惯。”
This epiphany is what turned Gretchen Rubin, the author of the bestselling blockbuster Better Than Before, into the US’s happiness queen. “Habits are freeing and energising and really powerful. If there’s something you want to do consistently in your life – like New Year resolutions – habits can make the wear and tear on following through so much easier. They get us out of the tiresome business of making decisions and using our self-control.”
这一顿悟让畅销书《比从前更好》的作者Gretchen Rubin成为了美国的“快乐女王”。 “习惯是自由和活力,并且真得很强大。如果你想在生活中做一些事情——比如新年决心——习惯会让随之而来的损耗变得容易得多。他们使我们摆脱了做决定和使用自制力时的烦恼。”