Willpower: The Psychology of Self-Control, Focus, and Efficiency

Original link: http://www.nosuchfield.com/2022/05/25/yizhili/

This article is reproduced from Little People and should be reading notes from the book Willpower: The Psychology of Self-Control, Focus, and Efficiency .

Know your limits

First, your supply of willpower is limited; second, you draw willpower from the same account for various tasks.

The use of willpower is divided into four categories: control of thoughts, control of emotions, control of impulses, and control of performance/performance/achievement.
All seemingly inconsequential chores draw willpower from the same account of the body.
Therefore, after forcing to get up early, suppressing negative emotions due to traffic jams at work, choosing takeout for lunch, resisting the temptation to fish, focusing on the current job and other behaviors that consume willpower, it is difficult to think again when encountering thorny problems at work. solve.

And if you finally succumb to temptation and impulse, the willpower that was lost will not be returned.
So do one thing at a time and don’t give up for the precious willpower that has been expended.
If you want to make several changes at the same time, you may end up not changing a single change.

Set clear goals

If you want to be satisfied, you must pay attention to the road you have traveled; if you want to inspire self-motivation, you must pay attention to the road ahead.

  • Don’t set too many goals at once
  • Breaking down big goals into small goals
  • A balance is required between long-term and short-term, precise and vague goals

Revelation 1: Make a to-do list

The Chua Effect: People are more likely to remember unfinished or interrupted work than completed work.

Your mind will keep chanting and reminding you to do that unfinished task, that unachieved goal, unconsciously, and it can be too distracting to focus on even the simplest task at hand.
To silence the sound, make a list of these trivial things and set reminders so your brain knows you’re going to be reminded to do something at a certain time and place.
The to-do list must be specific to the next action . for example supermarket shopping Go to the supermarket at 5 to buy eggs, milk and broccoli.

Revelation 2: Beware of the Planning Fallacy

The Planning Fallacy: People tend to overestimate the time, money, and effort they will take to reach a goal.

Make plans optimistically and implement them pessimistically. Don’t get frustrated if you can’t achieve one of your goals, you don’t have to achieve each goal every time – the important thing is that your life is improving month by month.
Goals are prioritized, prioritized, and strictly enforced. Only after completing all the goals for this month can we continue to conquer other goals.

Revelation 3: Reward often

Along with setting goals, also set rewards.

And don’t limit yourself to too much. If you reject something with willpower alone, it becomes a cruel and nasty defensive tool. But when you use willpower to get things, you can have fun in even the most boring tasks.
The game uses the reward mechanism well to make people addicted to it. Everyone needs to find little rewards that work for them.

monitor self

What are the benefits of self-awareness for survival and reproduction? The best answer comes from psychologists Charles Carver and Michael Scheier, who argue that self-awareness evolved because it aids in self-regulation .

Self-awareness compares “what I am” to “what I should be.”
Our ancestors lived in groups, and their groups rewarded members who lived by common values, rules, and paradigms. Therefore, people who can adjust their behavior according to the standards are better off than people who are unaware that they are making mistakes in social situations.
Adjusting behavior according to standards requires willpower, but willpower without self-awareness, like a cannon commanded by a blind man, is useless. It is for this reason that our ancient savanna ancestors evolved self-awareness, and it is for this reason that in the more sinister modern social environment, the inherent quality of self-awareness has been developing.

Revelation 1: Daily Record

Daily weighing and keeping a food diary can help you lose weight, just as bookkeeping can help you spend less.
The more careful monitoring the better. Weigh once a week, good; weigh once a day, better; weigh once a day and record the results, best.

Revelation 2: The Influence of Others

Numerous studies have shown that living alone in the world can be stressful. Compared with people with rich social networks, people who live alone and lonely have a higher incidence of almost every mental and physical disease.

Religion helps to enhance one element of self-control—behavioral monitoring. Generally speaking, religious people feel that God or other gods are watching them, paying attention to what they do, what they think, and even know the most hidden reasons behind their actions. If you do the seemingly right thing for the wrong reasons, you can’t easily fool God or other gods.

People without faith can synchronize their goals to like-minded people, or invite people close to them to supervise.
But someone on the team gets slack and gives up very easily. So find a reliable partner.

change into a daily habit

Willpower, like a muscle, can be strengthened with exercise.

Psychologists divide the mind into automatic and controlled. Behaviors that are coded as automatic are often associated with habits; behaviors that are coded into control are often behaviors that occur infrequently or even only once. It turns out that self-control is most effective when used to break bad habits and form good ones.
The formation of healthy behavior patterns requires willpower—so willpower people are better at it. And once good habits are formed, life will automatically develop in a benign direction.

Revelation 1: Details that cannot be ignored

Eat well:

Foods with a low glycemic index, such as most vegetables, nuts (peanuts and cashews), raw fruits (apples, blueberries, and pears), cheese, fish, meat, olive oil, or other good fats, are good for maintaining steady self-control.

Sleep well:

Rest reduces the body’s need for glucose and enhances the body’s overall ability to use blood sugar. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation impairs the processing of glucose, which can lead to an immediate loss of self-control.

Keep it neat:
Clean and uncluttered environmental cues can subtly affect your brain and your behavior, and a sense of order is essential for willpower.
And, with a little willpower to focus on changing one aspect of self-control, many others will benefit.

Avoid temptation:
It takes willpower to refuse temptation. It is better to spend willpower where it is really needed and refuse to accept challenges from the source.
And most people overestimate their ability to resist temptation.

Revelation 2: There is no choice

If you want to use willpower to develop a good habit, you can set a separate time every day to strictly implement it.
For example, Chandler set aside 4 hours of independent writing time every day: “He doesn’t have to write. If he doesn’t want to write, he shouldn’t bite the bullet. He can look out the window, or practice his handstand, or roll on the ground, but he Don’t do anything else, don’t read, don’t write letters, don’t read magazines, don’t write checks.”
Either write or do nothing until inspiration strikes.

Follow it one more time, and it becomes a little more routine, until it eventually happens automatically and you get a long-lasting way to preserve willpower: habit.

end

People should always have some faith. Years ago, when I turned to this beginning in a book, an old man said this to me in a noisy square.
I can attribute “can’t hold on” to a lack of faith, or I can use religious belief in the form of willpower.
People with strong willpower not only improve themselves, enjoy life, share joy, but are more willing to help others. The benevolent heart of helping others is an indispensable virtue for the evolution and development of the human race. This virtue enables the evolution of willpower.

Today, while we are enjoying the benefits of technology, we are also suffering more and more temptations and shocks. Business advertisements consume our willpower every day, making us spend our precious time, money and energy in the dark.
People with strong willpower are better at using willpower to cultivate effective daily habits in study and work, arrange life reasonably to avoid getting into trouble, and are less troubled by external temptations and inner conflicts.

FIN.

This article is reprinted from: http://www.nosuchfield.com/2022/05/25/yizhili/
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.

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