Change Your Bad Habits to Good

改掉壞毛病養成好習慣

To get yourself started in a new direction, try the Three M’s.

At the University of California, my students and I surveyed more than 2,000 years of self-change techniques--perhaps most of the major self-change methods that have ever been proposed by religious leaders, philosophers, psychologists and psychiatrists. We also reviewed the scientific research literature on self-change, a topic that behavioral scientists began to explore in earnest in the 1960s.

Here is what we found: Of the hundreds of self-change techniques that have been suggested over the centuries, perhaps only a dozen are distinctly different. Many have now been subjected to scientific study, meaning that researchers have tried to see which ones work best.

Three deserve special mention: they’re powerful, simple and easy to learn. What’s more , individuals who have made successful changes in their lives--changes in eating habits, exercise regimens, career paths, coping strategies, and so on--often relied on one or more of these methods.

To get yourself started in a new direction, try the Three M’s:

Modify Your Environment

People who have never tried this are astounded by the enormous effect it often has. One of my students got herself bicycling every day simply by putting her bicycle in her doorway before she left for school. When she returned home, that was the first thing she saw, and that’s all she needed to start pedaling away. I’ve known several people who have overcome nail-biting simply by buying 50 nail files and distributing them everywhere: in their pockets, their desks and their bedrooms. With a nail file always within reach, they tended to groom rather than bite.

My children have used this simple technique many times. Justin, my 17-year-old, often places small fluorescent reminder notes at eye level on the inside of the frame of his bedroom door. A recent one read "Remember to shampoo the dog on Saturday or Dad will kill you". (Here he was using exaggeration to good effect.)

The power of rearranging one’s space has been well demonstrated in studies since it was first reported in the 1960s. Psychologist Israel Goldiamond of the University of Chicago taught this technique to patients with a variety of personal problems. For example, a young woman who had difficulty studying made dramatic strides when she got a better desk lamp and moved her desk away from her bed.

Psychologist Richard Stuart, who ultimately became a director at Weight Watchers International, showed in the 1960s that overweight women could lose pounds by modifying both their eating behavior and "stimulus environment"--for example, eating from smaller plates and confining all food to the kitchen. To change yourself, change your world.

要想開辟人生新道路，試試過三個“M”。

在加利福尼亞大學，我和我的學生調查了兩千多年來人們用來改變自我的技巧——也許主要方法中的大部分都是由宗教領袖、哲學家、心理學家和精神病專家提出的。我們還回顧了有關改變自我的科學研究文獻。早在20世紀60年代，改變自我就是行為科學家開始認真探索的課題。

我們的發現結果如下：在幾個世紀以來人們提出的幾百種改變自我的方法中，也許僅有十來種與其他方法截然不同。許多方法至今一直是科學研究的對象，這意味著研究人員一直試圖探明其中最有效的方法。

有三種方法值得特別提及：它們效力強大而又簡單易學。此外，那些已成功改變了其人生道路的人們，也常常是依靠這些方法中的一種或多種來改變其飲食習慣、養生之道、事業方向和處世策略，等等。

要想開辟人生道路，試試這三個“M”：

改善周邊環境

從未嘗試改善環境的人通常會對所產生的顯著效果感到驚奇不已。我的一個學生為了促使自己每天騎車鍛煉，采取了離家上學前將自行車放在門道里的簡單方法。這樣一回家，她首先看見的就是那輛車，而所需做的就是騎上自行車鍛煉去。我認識幾個人，他們為了改掉咬指甲的壞習慣而買了50把指甲挫并把它們分放到各處：口袋里，書桌上，臥室內。由于指甲挫總能伸手可及，他們就會去修指甲，而不啃指甲了。

我的孩子們多次運用過這樣的簡單技巧。我17歲的兒子賈斯廷經常把小小的熒光紙記事便條放在他臥室門框內側齊眼高的位置。前不久的一張上寫道：“記著星期六給狗洗澡，否則爸爸會殺了你的。”(為了達到良好效果，他這里用的是夸張手法。)

重新布置自己的空間具有很大的影響力，該觀點首次提出于20世紀6O年代，在諸多研究中已得到充分證明。當時，芝加哥大學的心理學家伊斯雷爾·戈戴蒙德將這一技巧傳授給那些為形形色色的私人問題所困擾的病人。就拿一位年輕女士來說吧，她在學習上困難重重，自從換了一個好點兒的臺燈并把書桌搬離開床邊后，她在學習上就取得了長足進步。

[8]心理學家理查德·斯圖爾特最終當上了國際體重觀察員組織的總監，他在20世紀60年代曾指出：體重過重的婦女可以通過糾正飲食習慣和改變“刺激食欲的環境”的方法來減肥——例如，用小一點的盤子吃飯和把食物全都集中放在廚房里。要改變自我就必須改變你周圍的世界。