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To help you open the new year

Editor’s note: This article is from the public micro-channel number, “said Mr. L” (ID: lxianshengmiao), Author: Lachel.

In 2021, one of the key words I set for myself is “balance”.

When it comes to balance, many people may think of work-life balance, the so-called Work-Life Balance. But I don’t like this statement, because it means that we put work and life on opposite ends.

Is there a natural opposition between work and life? Actually not. Work should be part of life. What we exclude is not the work itself, but the “forced” work.

So, we might as well raise the angle of view and focus on life itself.

If we understand everything we experience every day, whether it is now or in the future, whether it is work, or studying, thinking, resting, or entertaining, as part of life, then what can we do to “live” This overall picture is richer and more perfect?

The following points are my thoughts and plans for the new year. I share them with you here and hope to inspire you.

1. Balance between “low value” and “high value”

Is your day like this:

• In the morning, I was woken up by the alarm clock, washed up, and spent 1 hour commuting to work.

• At the company, meeting, docking, internal communication, cross-departmental communication, repeated confirmation of needs, reply emails, reply messages, and report.

• Get home after get off work, eat, take a bath, and organize unfinished business. It’s 9:00 or 10:00.

• I wanted to do something else, but I was really tired, so I told myself “Forget it, I’ll talk about it tomorrow”, chasing two episodes, watching a variety show, sleeping, and repeating this life again…< /p>

Let’s think about your day, make a rough list of what you’ve done, and then ask yourself:

These things I do, what is their value to me?

I said in a previous article: Every day, we need to do a lot of “have to do” things to ensure our survival and stability. For example, commuting, cooking, doing housework, bringing children, endless meetings in the company, tedious affairs and processes, multi-faceted communication… and so on.

These things are often unavoidable, but in essence, they are “low-value”: they are mostly mechanical repetitive and supportive things. Do notDoing it will be troublesome; but doing it will not do any good.

You are just fulfilling a certain social role assigned to you by the outside world, such as “employees”, “supervisors”, “parents” and “consumers”, nothing more.

So, what is “high value”? It must be something that grows for you;

Things that can help you shorten the distance from “the present self” to the “ideal self”;

It is what you want to do from the bottom of your heart, which can give you more freedom in the future;

It is something that can become your achievement, and become the cornerstone of your future vision, cognition, and thought.

So, every day, we have to do todo list, but we also have to do done list.

Only in this way can you think:

• In this day, how much time do I spend on “low value” things?

• How much time is left to invest in “high value” things?

The ideal situation, of course, is that 100% of the time can be devoted to “high-value” things, but this is impossible. In fact, according to my personal experience, it is very difficult to reduce the “low value” time to 50% every day.

So, in the new year, I want to do this with you:

1) Shorten the time for “low-value” things as much as possible, and free up time and energy to do “high-value” things.

For example: Can you minimize unnecessary repeated communication? Can you concentrate the scattered things into one time period? Can you postpone or delay unimportant things? Can the process be simplified or shortened further? Can you reject some unnecessary requests? And so on.

Your time should be spent on things that “make every day of you different from every day in the past.”

2) If you cannot shorten it, try to give them value.

For example: Many people think that I never entertain, but I am not. I also read novels and movies. Entertainment is a basic human need, there is no need to obliterate it. What we have to do is to exercise restraint (refer to the previous point) and to add our own thinking.

For example: What is good about this movie, what is bad, how can it be better, can you try to tell it in your own words?

For example: What is the attraction of this novel, how did the author realize it, what kind of techniques did you useWhat can be summarized and refined?

The experience of walking through horses and flowers is worthless, what is valuable? It’s your stop, review, processing and screening. Your thinking process allows these experiences to be internalized and absorbed by you, become part of your knowledge system and life experience, and become part of your understanding of new things and thinking about new problems.

This is valuable.

2. Balance between short-term and long-term

People always need feedback.

One thing, if we do, we can get immediate feedback, we will continue to do it; on the contrary, if the feedback is not strong enough, or the feedback delay is too long, we will tend not to do it. This is the nature of the brain.

But in this way, it is easy for us to be shaped into a “short-sighted” habit: only value immediate short-term gains and ignore long-term returns.

One of the simplest examples is learning. Why do many people feel that learning requires “persistence”? It is because learning often has no short-term feedback. It may bring you a lot of rewards in the future, but in the present, you will not see these.

How to solve this problem? Should we rely on willpower to “discipline”? no. I have never advocated the so-called “self-discipline” because it has no meaning-can a person rely on “self-discipline” to persist in doing something for a long time? no. It is because he persisted that we said he was “self-disciplined.”

What is the more essential reason? It is the “power-resistance” model. If your motivation to do something surpasses its inherent resistance, then you will do it. Otherwise, you will not do it. It’s that simple.

What is the nature of short-term feedback? It’s nothing more than adding to the “power”.

So, how do you strengthen your motivation and reduce resistance? You can start from the following two points:

1) Enhance motivation: imagine yourself in the future

Brain imaging experiments found that people are born with short-sightedness. When people discuss and think about the “future selves”, the brain regions they activate are the same as when discussing “others”, but not consistent with self-reflection and examination.

In other words: We will default to “the future self” as a “stranger” who has nothing to do with us, thus reducing the motivation to work hard and struggle for the “future self”.

So, an effective exercise is: take 10-15 minutes a day, think about it:

• What will I be like in 1 year? What about after 3 years? 5 years later? 10 years later?

• What kind of life do I expect to live and what kind of person to be?

• What kind of life do I not want to live, what kind of person do I not want to be?

This can effectively help you build a bridge between your “present self” and your “future self”, thereby helping you to associate and bind your future self with your self, and strengthen your motivation.

2) Reduce resistance: embed long-term habits into daily behavioral routines

How to stick to a habit for a long time? The most effective way is not to force yourself to stick to it, but to disassemble it into the simplest steps and arrange it behind an old habit.

(That is the “one…just…” method I said)

Wait until the first step is completely internalized and used to it, then go to the second step. And so on.

For example: If you want to read more and think more every day, you can do this: Put a few books next to the sofa and tell yourself: I will read 15 minutes of books after the shower.

After this step, you are completely used to it. You will feel uncomfortable if you don’t read a book one day. Then increase the intensity: once I finish reading, I will use my mobile phone to write 200 words of reading experience…

The reason why a habit can become a habit is precisely because it does not need to spend “willpower” to act and maintain, but rely on the reminder of the scene, and the brain will “maintain the inertia of behavior”.

Try to find a balance between short-term behavior and long-term behavior every day. For example: set aside about 15% of your time every day to practice some habits that lack short-term feedback but are valuable in the long-term, and make a “saving” for your future.

This can give you more confidence in the face of future uncertainties.

3. Balance between reason and emotion

Many people may have a misunderstanding about emotions:

Emotions are a bad thing. I have to think rationally. It is best not to have emotions.

This is actually wrong.

Why? Because, what is the nature of emotions? It is a stress response of the brain. In other words: The reason why you have a certain emotion is essentially because:

1) The brain found: You are now facing a certain threat;

2) The brain uses its own “database” to make judgments: Your emotions will help you deal with this threat.

For example: What does anger mean? It means that there are some important things that are beyond your control, and you don’t want it to be beyond your control; at the same time, you may have a stronger sense of “self-privilege”.Everything works as you want it to, and a situation that is not as good as you want it to be regarded as a threat. and many more.

So, is emotion a bad thing? Not really. Because its existence is equivalent to telling you: You have certain weaknesses and defects, and what is happening now just hits your weakness, you need to face it squarely.

The only thing you need to be alert and overcome is to “act blindly in accordance with emotional instructions.”

The same sentence: emotions are responsible for providing warnings and suggestions, but the decision-making power must be in your own hands.

So, what is a better way to do when you have emotions?

1) Respond to emotions: I see, thank you for telling me.

2) Let reason participate in the discussion: Now we are facing such a situation, what do you think we should do?

3) Make a calm decision: take the emotional proposal as option 1, and the rational proposal as option 2, combine the two and make your own judgment.

4) Adjust the pattern of the brain: The brain will record everything and every action you experience, so your behavior is to tell your emotions, “Next time you encounter this situation, you can control your Output power”.

Many friends may have a problem: “I am prone to negative emotions”, so “I am a very irrational person”, and even feel frustrated and disappointed with myself, feel that I am a failure-I think Tell you: No.

It is easy to produce emotions and easily react to external stimuli. What does it mean? It means that your early warning system and emergency system are very strong, which is a good thing, not a bad thing.

It’s not scary to be prone to emotions. The key is not to let emotions unilaterally dominate your behavior.

The only thing you need to do is to involve reason and control your decisions and actions by keeping reason and emotion in balance.

This is certainly not an easy task, but it is also a goal I set for myself. Let’s cheer together.

4. Balance between self and others

People live in society forever, and no one can cut off all contact with the outside world.

What does this mean? This means that in your life and work, there must be some moments that are “inserted” by information and events from the outside world. It may be the request of a friend, the intervention of the family, the instruction of the leader, the request of the customer, or even some unexpected accidents, etc.

Most of the time, these events will disrupt your original plans, forcing you to “have to” spend time and energy to deal with them.

As a result, we will reduce our autonomy and control over our lives, and feel that the outside world is robbing us of lifeThe right to control continuously pulls the “control point” out.

When the control point is excessively pulled to the outside world, we will have a sense of frustration, powerlessness, and feel that our efforts are in vain, and our life will become a mess.

Think about it: How many times have you been able to act in accordance with your arrangements and plans? How often do you have to deal with, appease, and adjust your schedule and plans always being disrupted by unexpected events?

Whenever encounters such a moment, how do most people react? Restless. right?

You will think: Why should I worry about such annoying things? Why can’t everything develop according to my expectations and arrangements?

Therefore, an effective way to deal with it is to change your thinking:

You live in society, and everything you enjoy is inseparable from outside support. Therefore, in your life, you should have allocated part of your time and energy to respond to external information. This is your obligation.

I expect to give it a 15% quota. May wish to call this 15% of time and energy “external time.”

So, in this part of “external time”, you may encounter a lot of new scenarios, new problems, and you may face a lot of uncertainty, but it doesn’t matter-this 15% of external time is originally ” It doesn’t belong to me”, I was meant to deal with these problems.

On the contrary, if I can gain something from it, it will be an additional benefit.

Further:

• If this 15% of external time happens to be occupied, it is reasonable, as it should be;

• If there is a surplus in the 15% of external time, it is “I earned it”, so you might as well make good use of it;

• If, in the long run, the 15% of external time is not enough, you may need to consider: Do I spend too little time and resources on “self”? Is it necessary to reject some purely “other people’s things” and leave more time for yourself?

You might think that this is a thinking game, and it doesn’t change the essence. But in fact, what do our troubles come from? Comes from our hearts. There is no outside world who wants to “make you uncomfortable” forcibly. You are often just asking for trouble.

Therefore, I often say: Many times, when you change your perspective, your feelings and experiences will be completely different.

What is the most critical and effective way to face troubles? Often it is not changing the outside world, but changing our inner cognition and understanding of the outside world.

To myselfOnly by loosening its “mental world” can it gain true freedom.

5. Balance of input and output

How can people improve themselves? After all, there are three sentences: learn more, think more, and act more.

These three links are indispensable.

• Lack of learning (input), you will become blind, repeating your old patterns and practices, without any new changes.

• Lack of thinking (processing), you will become a “parrot”, copying and applying other people’s strategies, without “own things”.

• Without action (output), everything is empty talk, let alone any actual results…

What is the nature of man? It’s just such a system: absorb high-entropy information from the outside world, reorganize and integrate them into a low-entropy body through processing, and then intervene in the outside world, get feedback, provide power, and maintain operation…

This process of entropy reduction has formed our values, knowledge system and life experience.

And every moment of the operation of this system, connected, is our life.

So, every year, I will think about two issues as my overall plan and strategy for this year:

• What should I learn? This year, how will my cognition, understanding and intervention of the world change?

• What do I want to produce? After this year, what results can I produce as my achievements this year?

These two questions are also shared with you, don’t rush to answer them, you can think about them again.