How can an unintelligent person succeed?

1. Identify habits.

Be as specific as possible. Like, do you want to lose weight? Learn as much as possible about the weight you want to lose and how long it will take to achieve your goal (for example, lose 30 pounds in 6 months). Do a little research. For example, if you want to go on a diet, you can first calculate a reasonable expected weight loss. Theoretically, you can safely lose 1 to 2 pounds per week, so losing 30 pounds in six months is a reasonable goal and easy to achieve. Why is it easy? Because as long as you follow the steps, success is guaranteed. No skills, no gimmicks, success depends entirely on your choice. Do you want this?

2. The desire to form or get rid of habits.

You need to sincerely yearn for it, which is a desire to push you to achieve your goals. To this end, you have to give up your present lifestyle. This is the only way to achieve real change. If you are very satisfied with your present life, you can't change it successfully. Do you only try to change when others tell you what to do? This external force is not enough to be your driving source. Instead, you should ask them why. Are you rejecting the influence of habits (or the lack of certain habits) on your life? Listen to the opinions of the people you love, bring them close to you, and stimulate your desire to make changes. You can list the following contents: if you don't form new habits, what will you lose; Or, what will you get if you don't abandon your old habits? To succeed, you must understand why you need to change. Do you really want to achieve your goal? If it is, you will realize it; If not, you can't achieve it. If the plan is successful, you will succeed. "If you can't plan successfully, you are preparing for failure."

3. Know why you did it (or why you didn't do it).

What do you get from your present situation? What needs does this situation fill (so that you can fill it in another way)? Is your habit just a way to cope with errands? Can it only help you relieve stress or temporarily escape from the pain of life? In fact, you can deal with stress in a healthy way and find true happiness through healthy transformation. Are your habits just a reflex to a specific event? Just to seek immediate satisfaction when depression and frustration come? You can change your behavior pattern, learn to improvise instead of conditioned reflex, and then create a healthy habit instead. Have you been avoiding the pain caused by past experiences? Do you just want to make a detour? If so, the idea of breaking old habits may scare you. But believe me, you can do it. For example, if you want to start a training program, you should look for wasted time in your daily life and use it to build new habits. Take time out to exercise instead of watching TV. Why didn't you establish a new habit before (and stick to it)? Do you really think you are lazy?

If you need to see the future, you might as well talk to a friend. No matter what kind of pain you are driven by, you need to try to cross it and reorient it. If you are troubled by some serious trauma or unresolved pain, you need to talk to others. Only in this way can you transcend the pain. This is not to let yourself "do nothing". It takes time to recover from the pain, but you must change your reaction to the pain in order to get better gradually. If you find any liquid spilled on your body when you are burned by fire, the fire will only burn more and more! You have to find water (or even a fire extinguisher)! This is the way of life. You must change your habits to recover. What message does the current lifestyle convey to you? How does it strengthen the negative impact?

4. Replace negative information with positive information.

Once you give up old habits or start new ones, you change. Remember to remind yourself to send yourself "I'm losing weight, I'm quitting smoking, I'm becoming more decisive …" or any message that meets your goal. As long as you really believe that you have changed, this information will free your mind. Don't look back, you need a new slogan of life, that is "I can do it"! If you don't believe you can do it, you can't. Do you believe you have a definite destination? Will your train go to a special place? Replace the old message with the new one. Cherish yourself, but hate your habits. Forgive yourself, just as God forgives you. You are a valuable person. Of course, this process is difficult for many people. Ask your friends for help, or let inspiring biblical verses inspire you and remind you of your unique and amazing goals in life. If you can, stick the oath where you can see it. You must remember that a firm belief in success is a necessary factor for success.

5. Make it as clear as possible: plan for success.

To succeed, you need details. To start an exercise plan, you should set an accurate number of days and times of exercise. Do you need to buy fitness equipment or join the gymnastics team? Do you need someone to look after the children? Plan a whole week in advance to ensure that your exercise plan is not harmful to your health (consult your family doctor if necessary). Make a detailed plan to quit smoking. Investigate the over-the-counter drugs you may need, or consult relevant information. If you want to lose weight, don't choose an unhealthy weight loss plan. Some food fashions will cost you a lot of money, but they will disturb your metabolism. If you get a promise to lose a lot of weight in a short time, if something sounds too good to be true, it is likely to be deceptive. That kind of plan will consume your money and make you lose weight quickly, but after losing a few pounds quickly, you will gain weight faster than before. Instead, choose a healthy and balanced diet plan and list the meals and groceries you need every week. Now think about it, what specific details need to be considered in the first week of a new life?

6. Take responsibility. If you think you should stick to it, you will.

You can be who you want to be, but it's entirely up to you. The ten steps described in this article can guarantee your success, but only you can guarantee that you will follow them. No matter why you want to maintain or avoid a habit, the control is always in your own hands. In order to succeed, you may need to stick a post-it note on the refrigerator to remind yourself to be optimistic and positive; You may also need the help of friends to call you every morning to remind you to follow the details of the plan; You even need to be hospitalized or take medicine to ensure treatment, but the choice is always in your hands, because this is your own life. Make a contract with yourself and you can live a different life today.

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, a Russian scientist in 1990s, won the Nobel Prize for his famous experiment "Pavlov's Dog". This example is often seen in conversation and is used to refer to those who only react impulsively and refuse to use critical thinking. In the experiment, Pavlov found that the puppy drooled when he saw food, so he modified this reaction through various experimental means, including whistling, knocking on a tuning fork and some specific visual stimuli (interestingly, although the experiment was made with the legendary bell, there was no actual evidence to support it, and no one even found the bell in his laboratory). When the puppy is repeatedly stimulated by sound while seeing food, the puppy will only drool under the stimulation of sound. This training process also stops a reaction mode, and your limbs work in the same way to a great extent. Change the reaction conditions and your habits will change. Stop your existing reflex action and you can build your own reaction mechanism. What you have to do is gradually realize your behavior and reaction, and learn to improvise instead of just doing conditioned reflex. As long as you choose the consequences and rewards that accompany an event, you can change your behavior pattern.

7. Strengthen your behavior.

How do you reward yourself when using or restraining a habit? What consequences will you set for your actions? This process is the conditional reconstruction part of Pavlov's dog response experiment. Change your reward system. Adjust yourself in the direction of success, and you will succeed! Do you get up every morning to be busy with your life? What makes you get up busy? You don't want the electricity at home to be cut off. You want to live in a fixed place, and there is always gasoline in the car. In order to form or overcome a habit, you need to establish the same reward/consequence system. If you want to lose weight or quit smoking, you can put the money you used to spend on junk food and cigarettes in a jar every day and reward yourself once a week. You can also open a savings account and watch the money increase in value; You can also use the money to buy a new dress, watch a movie or do other interesting (non-destructive) things.

Apart from breaking your promise-which may be a serious matter if you take you seriously-what practical consequences can you cause? Don't be too rude or mean to yourself. Be confident, but firm. For example, will there be an interesting activity that you really want to participate in? Let this activity be the trigger of your habit (habit formation or overcoming). Make sure that this activity is not playing with children (it may hurt their feelings), but something you really look forward to, such as a concert, a date without children, or an evening with friends. Once you can see the signs that the return is coming, it will help you to concentrate more. Remember what you may lose.

8. Accountability and support system.

Establish your habits, that's all. No excuses. Find a friend, a sponsor, or a support group (there are support groups that deal with sadness, addiction and other problems). Stop those things that conspire to sabotage your plan and inspire yourself with stories of successful people. Whether face to face, on the phone or online, we should dare to take responsibility. In the quiet moment when God is with you, pray silently. When praying, make a commitment to your decision and gain strength. Finally, there must be an action plan to prevent failure.

9. As long as there is an emergency plan before resigning, you will never resign.

This is the most critical part. You need to make a commitment in the agreement with yourself and start to follow the emergency plan before trying to quit smoking. List Bible verses and give yourself strength through reading. Go to some private places to watch. Write down some positive and optimistic conclusions and read them to yourself slowly until the panic and impulse of failure are alleviated. If the pressure to try to quit smoking persists, write down your friends' phone list and call them if necessary to tell them what you are thinking. Never rationalize your failure. If necessary, come back and read this article again and remind yourself at any time: I can do it!

Take the initiative to send yourself a new message to replace the old one. For example, you are trying to lose weight but feel that you are dying. Is this really the case? Are you sure you are really following the doctor's plan? If you follow article 5 of this article, you can answer "Yes". Explain your hunger again. Even if your body feels hungry, you can still hold out until the next meal. But think about whether you are just emotionally hungry: do you feel angry, lonely or tired? We should find ways to alleviate these feelings, instead of solving problems with food.

Draw a clear line early to maximize the chances of success. If you are an alcoholic who has just given up drinking, don't allow yourself to enter the bar. When you find yourself in a bar under the greatest pressure, this is a warning signal. It means that you have crossed the safety line and entered the dangerous area, but the alcohol addiction has not recurred. You can keep a dangerous area for yourself, but you should realize it early and try to avoid entering it. Think of this area as your last refuge, but make sure it doesn't hurt yourself or others. Will your temper get out of control? You have no reason to take it out on others (or yourself). Learn to control dangerous areas. When you feel your anger rising, your danger zone is still in its early stage. No matter what happens, the warning to you is always: leave this situation. Do it at once, and calm down according to the emergency plan. Try not to enter the dangerous area, but you can leave one.

When you are tempted by the idea of failure, count to ten, take a deep breath, and then follow the emergency plan. Stick to it as long as possible and leave at least ten minutes for activities. If you are still on the verge of returning to your old habits after ten minutes, start your emergency plan again. Repeat this action until your seduction period is over. Too many people claim that "relapse is part of the recovery process". This is just an excuse for them to start over, so they will never be really free. However, you don't have to deeply condemn yourself for your past failures, just because you didn't have the corresponding tools and solutions at that time. But now you can do it. Just follow the ten steps described in this article this time, and it will be completely different. Never think that you have any congenital defects or the ability to be thoroughly remoulded. You are as capable as anyone, and only you can change your life. Do it now and stick to it for a long time. What kind of danger zone and action plan do you need? Arrange them now.

10. Make room for your sadness.

No matter how happy you are about the change of habits, whether the sense of loss only appears for a few minutes or for a long time, you always find yourself in need of sadness. 20-30 days before new habits are formed (or old habits are stopped) is the key to success. One of the reasons is that you will feel sorry for your change. Very sad. For what serious addictions, you may still feel sad after a year of abstinence. You will feel sad about many things: how much this habit cost you, how much you hurt yourself and others because of this habit, and what you lost because of this habit (this is the fastest way to numb yourself and enter a state of self-pity). These situations may sound strange to outsiders, but when you really make considerable changes in your life, there will definitely be a period of nostalgia for old habits.

Sometimes it happens. When you fail, you always want to blame the failure on your habits, not a problematic idea in your mind. Is your habit (or lack of habit) just an excuse for "I believe I am a loser and have never tried to succeed"? Are you just using habits to make yourself feel safe? Or isolate yourself from criticism? For example, in business, some people are used to blaming others for everything, giving up mobilizing their talents and abilities, and refusing to assume leadership responsibilities, so that they can never face the accusations of others. But this completely rejects the chance of success, because only by going forward bravely and taking the risk of failure is the only way to create success.