Su Bingtian wins progress in every 0.01: find the inner motivation and make persistence a habit

Willpower Dividend: The Underlying Logic that Makes You Say What You Do

On August 1, 2021, in the men's 100m semifinals of the Tokyo Olympic Games, Su Bingtian ran 9.83 seconds, successfully reaching the final and setting an Asian record, becoming the first athlete in China to reach the Olympic men's 100m final.

Su Bingtian said that the opponent on the track is only himself, and only pragmatic, diligent and self-discipline can he succeed. In every training, he will strictly demand himself, and every action must be the most standard, as small as every joint, and he will not give up until he reaches the best. Even if he is injured, he does not give up, and the hard training has won him today's glory.

This so-called "determination is not sharp, success is not fast for a long time."

Opportunity always favors those who are prepared, Su Bingtian with tenacious willpower, insatiable efforts, won every 0.01 seconds of progress in the field.

Life is like a race field, in our lives, there will be a variety of challenges, but also to carry out the "game". How can we keep trying to capture even an inch, even 0.01 seconds of progress? This requires willpower to help us achieve our goals.

As stated in the book "Willpower Dividend: The Underlying Logic that Makes You Say And Do": True willpower masters will find the core place, and then exert their strength at the core, cultivate core habits through willpower, and then live a pleasant, efficient and happy life, a simple and light willpower life that is even full of surprises.

Gao Taiye, the author of the book "Willpower Dividend: The Underlying Logic of Making You Say And Do It", as a psychological counselor who focuses on willpower research, has more than half a million fans in Zhihu, which can be said to be a well-deserved Zhihu Big V.

Gao Taiye's research on willpower not only has a deep achievement in theory, but also has gone all the way in practice from facing difficulties and facing difficulties, and then restarting a wonderful life from difficulties. The author himself benefits from the willpower dividend.

1. Tap into intrinsic motivation and set goals.

Motivation is the reason we do anything, and only by finding an intrinsic motivation will we have a real motivation to do things.

Motivation allows us to penetrate the surface and go deep inside, such as passion, belief, dream, or bigger purpose, which are the real inner core, the real attraction, the real source of motivation.

The clearer you see, the more firm and powerful your actions become.

Yuan Longping, the father of China's hybrid rice, once said in response to a reporter's question: "The rice bowl of Chinese must be firmly grasped by our own hands, and we must take it!" "Allowing everyone to have food to eat is Yuan Lao's belief in committing to hybrid rice breeding."

The annual rice production now gives us not only enough to feed ourselves, but also the ability to help some of the poorer countries to feed themselves.

Elder Yuan also had a dream: "The dream of cooling under the grass" Elder Yuan dreamed that the rice planted grew as tall as sorghum, the ears were as long as brooms, and the particles were as large as peanuts and rice, and Yuan Longping and his assistants sat under the rice ears to cool off... This dream supports Elder Yuan and his team in their unremitting struggle in the fields.

There is such a topic on Zhihu: "What is it like to insist on doing one thing for a long time"? Su Bingtian replied, to be honest, it is very boring, too tired, and I have to practice for so many years, how to insist on it...

But Su Bingtian will constantly adjust himself, telling himself that the ultimate goal of persistence is to pursue his dreams. It is this motivation that has always supported him to fight the track.

When we can find the core motivation, grasp the essence of the problem, understand the most real needs deep inside, and connect with these things that are really alive, energetic, and passionate, we will naturally be motivated to do anything.

When we use words such as "I want" and "I expect" to think about problems and do things, it is a process of internal exploration, a process of active from the inside to the outside to the passive.

2. Resist all kinds of temptations and stick to your heart.

First, we must accept the reality that being tempted is normal, even inevitable. The second thing we have to do is accept the fact that we will be tempted, and what we have to solve is to learn to deal with temptations positively and avoid repeating the same mistakes.

How to resist temptation? The authors give two approaches: one is immediate response, and the other is long-term cure.

Let's first look at the strategy of immediate response: cooling the thermal cognitive system, that is, controlling emotions without being impulsive.

When faced with temptation, we give ourselves a promise, and if we can't suppress the desire after 10 minutes, then we can accept the temptation. 10 minutes allows our impulses to cool down and make rational choices.

Psychologists have also found through experiments that simply increasing the spatial distance of temptations can reduce temptations. For example, put chocolate in the refrigerator, put the phone in the place where it is not reachable, because it is not visible, it is not reached, and the temptation will be eliminated.

In the classic marshmallow experiment, the experimenter asked the children to imagine adding a picture frame to the marshmallow and imagining the marshmallow as a picture. This simple abstraction process greatly increases the waiting time of children, and psychologically increases the distance from temptation, so that temptation loses its strong stimulating effect.

3. Have positive feedback and achieve goals.

Why do some people do things self-disciplined and efficient, while some people can drag and delay, loose and inefficient? Why do some people wait for work in seconds, and some people not only take the initiative to work overtime, as if they are also "in love" with their work?

This is because everyone gets different positive feedback, which means that everyone feels differently about everything.

For example, the reason why those learners are full of motivation to learn is because they find that the more they learn, the more they gain, and they have both personal gains, such as the joy of solving problems, the joy of growth, and the improvement of self-confidence;

There are also external gains, such as the envy of classmates, the praise of teachers, the praise of parents, the praise of relatives and friends, etc., these positive feedback bring great motivation and eliminate the hard work of a person's persistence.

The school bullies don't think learning is a hard job, because they get positive feedback that makes them fall in love with learning and can't stop when they want to.

The same is true of the workplace elite, all kinds of positive feedback makes them addicted, and the joy and satisfaction brought to them by work make them enjoy and enjoy it.

Being pushed by positive feedback is a learning and working mode that does more with less.

There are two factors that affect our ability to get positive feedback: one is attention focus, and psychologists have found that we are more likely to focus our attention on the negative outcomes of things, making us depressed and unmotivated.

Another factor is the sense of progress in dealing with things, if one thing progresses more slowly or at all, we will become discouraged, and the drier we become, the more meaningless we feel. If we make progress and gain every time, like the progress bar of the game, and keep scrolling forward, we will be proactive.

Therefore, feedback is a kind of ability, and we need to deliberately master and deliberately improve the ability to get positive feedback.

The authors have designed two small tools that do a good job of helping us dig out positive feedback, namely a weekly note and a gratitude journal.

Every week, by combing through and summarizing the gains of the week, we can see and feel our progress, so that we can be more confident in achieving our goals.

There is a question on Zhihu: "What is the secret weapon of your personal growth?" After thinking about it, the author replied, "One a week." ”

The author says that the reason why it can become a secret weapon of personal growth is because it is a core habit, it is like a lever of the fulcrum, long-term persistence, naturally can pry all aspects of life and work.

There is also a gadget is the gratitude diary, gratitude is not to thank others, but to thank yourself. A gratitude diary requires recording three positive things and one negative thing every day. Doing so allows us to gather positive resources in our lives, practice deliberately over a long period of time, and we will gradually reduce the negative effects and absorb the positive energy.

Positive feedback is a reconstruction of our lives and thoughts. This kind of reconstruction will make us begin to truly appreciate ourselves, love life, and begin to love ourselves, know ourselves, and thank ourselves from the inside out.

Finally, "Willpower Dividend" gives us a detailed understanding of willpower from many aspects through theoretical basis.

But it is easier said than done, theory and practice are two different things, so the author designed 20 simple and easy gadgets to help us build a bridge between theory and practice.

As long as we insist on using these gadgets, we can cultivate strong willpower, make willpower a habit, and allow us to enjoy the dividends that willpower brings us.

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