Change Your Bad Habits to Good

改掉坏毛病养成好习惯

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.

要想开辟人生新道路，试试过三个“M”。

在加利福尼亚大学，我和我的学生调查了两千多年来人们用来改变自我的技巧——也许主要方法中的大部分都是由宗教领袖、哲学家、心理学家和精神病专家提出的。我们还回顾了有关改变自我的科学研究文献。早在20世纪60年代，改变自我就是行为科学家开始认真探索的课题。

我们的发现结果如下：在几个世纪以来人们提出的几百种改变自我的方法中，也许仅有十来种与其他方法截然不同。许多方法至今一直是科学研究的对象，这意味着研究人员一直试图探明其中最有效的方法。

有三种方法值得特别提及：它们效力强大而又简单易学。此外，那些已成功改变了其人生道路的人们，也常常是依靠这些方法中的一种或多种来改变其饮食习惯、养生之道、事业方向和处世策略，等等。

要想开辟人生道路，试试这三个“M”：

改善周边环境

从未尝试改善环境的人通常会对所产生的显著效果感到惊奇不已。我的一个学生为了促使自己每天骑车锻炼，采取了离家上学前将自行车放在门道里的简单方法。这样一回家，她首先看见的就是那辆车，而所需做的就是骑上自行车锻炼去。我认识几个人，他们为了改掉咬指甲的坏习惯而买了50把指甲挫并把它们分放到各处：口袋里，书桌上，卧室内。由于指甲挫总能伸手可及，他们就会去修指甲，而不啃指甲了。

我的孩子们多次运用过这样的简单技巧。我17岁的儿子贾斯廷经常把小小的荧光纸记事便条放在他卧室门框内侧齐眼高的位置。前不久的一张上写道：“记着星期六给狗洗澡，否则爸爸会杀了你的。”(为了达到良好效果，他这里用的是夸张手法。)

重新布置自己的空间具有很大的影响力，该观点首次提出于20世纪6O年代，在诸多研究中已得到充分证明。当时，芝加哥大学的心理学家伊斯雷尔·戈戴蒙德将这一技巧传授给那些为形形色色的私人问题所困扰的病人。就拿一位年轻女士来说吧，她在学习上困难重重，自从换了一个好点儿的台灯并把书桌搬离开床边后，她在学习上就取得了长足进步。

[8]心理学家理查德·斯图尔特最终当上了国际体重观察员组织的总监，他在20世纪60年代曾指出：体重过重的妇女可以通过纠正饮食习惯和改变“刺激食欲的环境”的方法来减肥——例如，用小一点的盘子吃饭和把食物全都集中放在厨房里。要改变自我就必须改变你周围的世界。