Why is it So Hard to Create Permanent Habits?

Motivation works well in the short-term. If you set a new goal, you can probably summon up the motivation to pursue it earnestly for a week or two. If the goal is tremendously important, that motivation may even carry you uninterrupted for a month.动力在短期内效果显著。如果你设定一个新目标，或许能激发动力，认真为之奋斗一两周。如果目标至关重要，这份动力甚至能让你持续坚持一个月。

But motivation wanes. If your goal takes more than a month or two, you’re going to need more than just motivation. You’re going to need habits.但动力会逐渐消退。如果你的目标需要超过一两个月才能实现，那么你需要的就不只是动力。你需要的是习惯。

Habit-building methods are great because they translate that short-term motivation into something more durable. If you invest in consistent routines, with triggers, rewards and punishments, you can stabilize that motivation into systematic output.养成习惯的方法十分有效，因为它们能将短期动力转化为更持久的力量。如果你投入精力打造包含触发条件、奖励和惩罚机制的固定日常流程，就能将这种动力固化为持续稳定的产出。

The Gospel of Changing Habits 改变习惯的真谛

Listen to this article 收听这篇文章

This transition from motivated bursts to stable habits is often so powerful that people who’ve never tried it before become proselytizing converts.这种从一时兴起的热情到稳定习惯的转变往往极具影响力，以至于从未尝试过的人也会变成积极的拥护者。

My friend recently got into setting habits. He went from struggling to go to the gym regularly to managing dozens of habits with intricately engineered systems.我的朋友最近开始养成习惯。他从难以坚持定期去健身房，到通过精心设计的体系管理数十种习惯。

I know many bloggers that built their initial audiences on habit forming. Part of that is because habits are a popular topic. But I suspect the real reason is that the methods are so powerful that people feel compelled to start a blog about them.我认识很多博主，他们最初的受众都是靠养成习惯积累起来的。部分原因是习惯是个热门话题。但我怀疑真正的原因是这些方法太有效了，让人忍不住开个博客来分享。

I know this because I was one of them. I went from struggling to follow through on simple plans to coordinating habits with eating, exercising, reading, sleeping, productivity and more. Outsiders must have thought I was crazy, but the truth was it was simply the first time in my life I had the ability to do it.我之所以知道这一点，是因为我也曾是其中一员。我从连简单计划都难以坚持，到将习惯与饮食、运动、阅读、睡眠、效率提升等方面相协调。外人肯定觉得我疯了，但事实是，这是我人生中第一次拥有去做这些事的能力。

Habits Work Well in the Medium-Term习惯在中期效果显著

I’ve been using habit-changing tools for well over a decade now. If you follow the basic assumption of habits, that it takes a few months of running a habit to make it permanent, I should have had time to permanently stabilize dozens, perhaps hundreds, of habits.我使用习惯养成工具已经十多年了。如果遵循习惯养成的基本假设——即坚持执行一项习惯需要几个月才能使其成为永久习惯——那我本应有时间将数十种甚至数百种习惯永久固定下来。

But that hasn’t happened. 但事实并非如此。

Instead, if I review the last ten years of my time spent working with habits, I’m far more often restarting habits than creating new ones.相反，如果回顾我过去十年在习惯养成方面投入的时间，我更多时候是在重新开始培养习惯，而非创建新的习惯。

In all, I can only think of two that have been more or less permanent: vegetarianism (currently pescetarianism) and weekly/daily goals. Some have had long lifespans: my gym-going habit lasted for several years unchanging before I had to restart it. Many others, like morning rituals, I end up needing to restart every few months.总的来说，我能想到的只有两种习惯或多或少是长期坚持的：素食主义（目前是鱼素食主义）以及每周/每日目标。有些习惯坚持了很长时间：我去健身房的习惯在不得不重新开始之前，好几年都没有变过。还有很多习惯，比如晨间惯例，我最后每隔几个月就得重新开始一次。

What gives? After all, the promise of habits is that an initial investment in effort could create a permanently stable system. Why do some habits require perpetual maintenance to sustain?这是怎么回事呢？毕竟，习惯的承诺在于，初期投入的努力能够打造出一个长期稳定的系统。可为什么有些习惯需要持续维护才能维持下去呢？

Action Requires Two Kinds of Effort行动需要两种努力

My explanation is that any action requires two kinds of effort in order to get done. An intrinsic effort that depends on the action and an effort to decide whether or not to execute the action. Habits can modify the first, but the main reason they work is that they eliminate the second type of effort.我的解释是，任何行动要完成都需要付出两种努力：一种是取决于行动本身的内在努力，另一种是决定是否执行该行动的努力。习惯可以改变第一种努力，但它们发挥作用的主要原因是消除了第二种努力。

To understand this, let’s say that you have the goal of reading a book per week, so you decide to make it a habit. In this case, you decide you need to read at least fifty pages a day in order to meet your goal.要理解这一点，我们不妨假设你的目标是每周读一本书，所以你决定将其培养成一个习惯。在这种情况下，你认定自己每天至少要读五十页才能达成这个目标。

Every time you read the book, you’re investing these two kinds of effort. First there’s the effort of reading. Depending on the difficulty of the book, this might require a lot of effort or zero effort. Imagine the difference between a quantum physics textbook and a Harry Potter book and you’ll see why.每次阅读这本书，你都需要投入这两种精力。首先是阅读本身的精力。根据书籍的难度不同，这种精力可能需要付出很多，也可能完全不需要付出。想象一下量子物理教科书和《哈利·波特》之间的区别，你就明白其中的原因了。

However, if the book you plan to read will require effort, it also requires a secondary cost of effort. This is the effort required to overcome the urge to procrastinate and start reading the book. If you’ve ever felt tired after a day of doing nothing, you probably understand this effort cost.然而，如果你计划阅读的这本书需要付出精力，那么它还会附带一笔额外的精力成本。这就是克服拖延的冲动、开始阅读这本书所需付出的精力。如果你曾在无所事事的一天后感到疲惫，那你或许就能理解这种精力成本。

Habits, from my experience, appear to reduce these two costs in different ways:根据我的经验，习惯似乎以不同的方式降低了这两种成本：

Habits can reduce the intrinsic cost by making you better at the task. As you read more difficult books, you get better at reading, so it doesn’t require as much energy.**习惯能通过让你更擅长完成任务来降低内在成本。**当你阅读更难的书籍时，你的阅读能力会提升，因此阅读所需的精力也会减少。
Habits reduce the decision cost by eliminating the ambiguity of when and how to perform the behavior. If you read your fifty pages at lunch, every day, for three months, the next lunch break you’ll automatically start reading without having to decide whether to do it.**习惯通过消除行为执行时间和方式的不确定性来降低决策成本。**如果你连续三个月每天午餐时都读五十页书，那么下一次午休你会自动开始阅读，而无需再决定要不要这么做。

For a lot of tasks, the second cost reduction is far greater than the first. Flossing, for instance, hasn’t gotten any easier the hundredth time I’ve done it, but I have stopped thinking about whether I should do it.对于很多事情来说，第二次降低成本的效果远比第一次大得多。比如用牙线清洁牙齿，我做第一百次时，这件事并没有变得轻松多少，但我已经不再纠结要不要去做了。

Habits are Metastable 习惯具有亚稳态

This idea that there are two types of effort invested in behaviors explains a lot of my own experience with habits. Namely:关于为行为投入的努力分为两种的这个观点，很能解释我自己在养成习惯方面的诸多经历。具体来说：

Not all habits are equally easy to build. This makes sense because some have higher intrinsic effort required, which results in not only higher intrinsic cost but also higher decision costs.并非所有习惯的养成都同样容易。这是有道理的，因为有些习惯需要更高的内在努力，这不仅会带来更高的内在成本，还会增加决策成本。
You can’t establish an unlimited number of habits. This makes sense because even if you eliminate the decision effort, you still have to pay the intrinsic effort. That means you could set up many intrinsically easy habits (like flossing), but probably not a large amount of intrinsically difficult habits (like reading boring books).你无法养成无限数量的习惯。这是有道理的，因为即便你省去了做决定的精力，仍需付出内在精力。这意味着你可以养成许多内在上容易的习惯（比如用牙线清洁牙齿），但大概率无法养成大量内在上困难的习惯（比如读枯燥的书）。
Most habits are only metastable. Metastability is a concept in physics where a certain state of affairs is stable, but small perturbations can break that stability. A pendulum, for instance, has two stable points: one where the weight is at the bottom and one where the weight is perfectly balanced at the top. Except the one at the bottom will return to the bottom if it is pushed slightly, whereas the one perfectly balanced at the top will never go back after a slight push.大多数习惯都只是亚稳态。亚稳态是物理学中的一个概念，指某种状态看似稳定，但微小的扰动就能打破这种稳定性。例如，单摆有两个稳定点：一个是摆锤处于最低点，另一个是摆锤在顶端完全平衡。只不过，若轻轻推动处于最低点的摆锤，它最终会回到最低点；而轻轻推动处于顶端完全平衡的摆锤，它则再也无法回到该位置。

This idea of metastability conforms to my experience as the reason why I’ve found few habits have had permanent lifespans. Inevitably, the habit breaks down because of a temporary lifestyle change: a vacation, an illness, needing to move or work overtime. These create shocks which are often enough to break the behavior, increase the decision cost, making it no longer automatic when you return to the habit.这种亚稳态的想法符合我的个人体验，也是我发现很少有习惯能长期坚持的原因。习惯不可避免地会因一次临时的生活方式改变而中断：一次度假、一场疾病、需要搬家或是加班。这些情况会形成冲击，往往足以打破该行为，增加决策成本，让你在重拾习惯时，它不再是自然而然的行为。

How to Deal With Medium-Term Habits如何应对中期习惯

This metastability suggests that the most important positions to look at when setting a habit are during possible disruptions. If you temporarily have to break a habit, then re-establishing it as soon as the interruption is gone should be your top priority.这种亚稳态状态表明，养成习惯时需要重点关注的关键节点是可能出现干扰的时刻。如果你不得不暂时中断习惯，那么在干扰消失后尽快重新建立起这一习惯，就应当成为你的首要任务。

Even better if you can avoid breaking the habit at all, creating a placeholder habit in its absence. That might mean reading five pages instead of fifty when you’re busy, or doing a home workout when you’re traveling instead of going to the gym.如果你能完全避免打破这个习惯，在没有习惯时建立一个替代习惯，那就更好了。这可能意味着忙碌时读五页而不是五十页，或者旅行时在家锻炼而不是去健身房。

Which habits do you have to frequently restart? What causes you to break the habit? Which habits have you maintained without interruption for years? What prevents them from degrading? Share your thoughts in the comments.你有哪些需要频繁重新开始的习惯？是什么导致你打破了这些习惯？哪些习惯你已经连续坚持了多年？是什么让它们没有逐渐荒废？在评论区分享你的想法。