Now and then, there comes a time in our lives when we feel like making a new change in our life. Sometimes it is to start exercising and get into shape, other times it is to read more books or start a meditation practice.
Every time, the initial days of the practice go very well, we feel motivated and excited about it. Slowly, the motivation fades away, and before we make your new habit an actual habit, we start procrastinating it. And that’s the time when we say “Ah, not today, I will do it tomorrow,” and then tomorrow never comes.
First of all, the fundamentals.
The most important part is to get started.
You can’t improve a habit that has no existence.
The 2-min rule
When the expectation is to read the whole book, meditate for 1 hour or run 10 miles, your habit can be quite hard to start.
The idea of the 2-minute rule is to trick your brain to think that the task you’re about to do isn’t hard. So what you want to do is break that big task down into a small 2-minute version of it. Your goals obviously can’t be achieved in just 2 minutes, but every habit can be started in that time-duration.
And doing something that is already started is much easier than to start.
If you want to make reading books a new habit, start by reading for at least 2 minutes every day. Obviously, the end goal is to read the entire book, and reading just one or two pages in those 2 minutes seems pointless, but a new habit must not feel like a chore.
Therefore, the expectation, in the beginning, should be just to start reading, no matter how little, gradually you will build up the ability to read for longer durations. The point of any habit is to make it a habit in the first place.
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现在或者将来，在生活中总会出现我们想要培养一个新习惯的时刻。有时是开始锻炼塑形，有时候是读更多书，或者开始一个冥想练习。
每次刚开始练习的前几天我们感觉很好，充满着动力和兴奋。慢慢的，动力开始小腿，在我们让新习惯变成真正习惯之前，我们开始拖延。往往我们会对自己说“嗨，今天休息下，我会明天做”，然后明天一直没有到来。
最一开始要做好基本的。
最重要的部分是开始。
你无法改善一个不存在的习惯。
两分钟规则
当你期望读完一整本书，或者冥想1个小时，又或者跑10英里，你的习惯将相当难开始。
两分钟规则是一个思想小诡计，欺骗你的大脑认为这个任务并不困难。因此你要做到将大任务缩小到2分钟的小版本任务。当然你的而目标不会仅仅用2分钟就完成，但是每个习惯都可以从2分钟的积累过程开始。
去做已经开始做的事情相比开始一件事要简单很多。
如果你想创建一个读书的新习惯，那就从每天读2分钟书开始。显然，最后的目标是读完一整本书，在2分钟读1~2页数当然意义比较小，但新习惯的培养一定不能让你感觉是一个复杂的杂事。
因此，预料之中，在一开始，应该就是开始阅读，不管读了多少，逐渐地你会建立读更长时间的阅读能力。任何习惯的重点是首先让它成为习惯。
原文链接：How to Make a New Habit an Actual Habit of Yours