Be nice to yourself

Original on Live Space:Wed May 17 04:16:11 CST 2006

"Many people started blog but quit after three weeks. Someone decided to recite all the words in an English directory, but quit when they encounter "B". More people make up minds to start running, but stop after five morning exercise."

 

Wang Jianshuo think people quit when they found the goal is meaningless. But I think it's because they were so strict to themselves.

 

I saw people quit morning exercise, but they always know exercise is good to health.
And I saw people keep doing meaningless staff for years.

 

People try to keep their words, but once they broke it, it's easy to find an excuse and broke it a second time. Actually I decided to recite all words for CET4 (College English Test level 4) years ago, and I quited when I encounter "Apple". (Still a long way to "B"!) I got a high score in CET4, but I felt really bad to fail my goal even I never announced it. So I decided to figure out my own way to keep my goal.

 

Basically I decided to be nice to myself, when I make a plan, I setup 2 goals, I mark one goal as "must achieved" and another as "better have". The "must achieved" goal is so easy that I can't fail. And the "better have" one is difficult for an ordinary man (like me!).

I seldom failed my goal since then although I didn't achieve "better have" goals every time.

For instance, when I started my baby diary half an years ago, my goal was to cover 70% of the days. And now, I never missed one single day no matter how busy my job was. Some nights I was very tired, but when I wrote "diary for yesterday", I didn't feel guilty because I didn't break my words!

 

Positive hints is very important for people.

It reminds me one interesting question from a MS manager "how many projects are finished in time in MS?"
The answer is "All, because MS keep adjusting its schedule."
Some people feel it is nonsense. But it's very important to avoid negative hints such as "My projects in MS always delay".

 

BTW, here is an interesting example that people keep doing meaningless staffs:
In my college life, I want to gain weight and began to eat big breakfast that usually for 2 men. I found it useless after several months, but still kept it for more than one year until one day I heard a whisper from my classmate. "Guess what, I ate a big breakfast that almost as much as Simon does!"

In this case, I quit when I find it's meaningful (to quit!).

 

Tag: lifehack