Easy make us far more Likely to Succeed

outline

• health goals succeed when they are fast, convenient and easy.
• we more tend to exert self-control and be in charge.
• we tend to fail if we rely solely on willpower and motivation.
• how to leverage the power of friction to help you achieve your goals.

main

• Science shows that the easier we make something and the more likely we are to succeed. In one ongoing research project, students who were all trying to cut back their time on social media, and they were given two options. The easy way was an app that essentially curtailed access. Or they were given the option to just try really hard to control their social media use. Most students chode the second option and failed.

• And while many people still treat the new Year as an endurance challenge, making daunting and difficult resolutions that are destined to fail. It is said there's a value we place in our society in exerting self-control and being in charge. sometimes the easier something feels, it just feels like you're less in control and it's less appealing somehow, it's weird but makes sense. Maybe we used to the value of suffering like spend a lot of time cramming for the entrance examinations. The belief that success is best achieved through struggle dates back centuries. "Nothing succeeds without toil. No pain, No gains." this idiom as a catchphrase became widely used in recent decades

• Only if we eliminate or reduce the struggle then we are far more likely to succeed. This struggle is called "friction" by scientists instead. And it comes in three forms ——time, distance and effort.

  • The less time you are required to spend on a healthy behavior. Instead of training for a marathon, start by a 5K race. Getting things organized. A cluttered kitchen must keep you from cooking at home, just clean it up. Organize a fitness drawer to make it faster to change for a run. And then you have more time to tend to your relationship, which is an added bonus to improve your overall well-being.
  • Shorten the distance between you and your healthy habit. To stop eating from the office snack cart, put healthy snacks on your desk or put the junk food far away from you——you're more likely to grab the food that is close at hand.
  • If it's miserable to do a thing, you're less likely to keep doing it and you'll quit. This doesn't mean you shouldn't try hard things. It just means you should think about ways to make the goal more fun. You're more likely to look forward to your workout time if join a club or train with a friend.

reference

【WP】For better health this year, keep it simple (qq.com)

新英文外刊