Self-control: How to take control of your time and life?

Chapter 4 Removing Obstacles to Self-Control (2)
From the perspective of drug use, stimulating psychology refers to the psychological state in which drug addicts attempt to seek mental stimulation by taking drugs.

People who have this kind of mentality are often people who are depressed after being hit by setbacks, people who feel bored in life, people who dream of a successful career but are often unsatisfactory, and drugs such as opium, morphine, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. It makes people have a strong sense of impact in an instant, and temporarily makes up for their sense of emptiness.

Some people have lost hope and pursuit of life, so they will take drugs with the mentality of enjoying themselves in time.People with this kind of mentality have low cultural quality. They may think that they have seen through the world, or their goals in life are too high, and the gap between ideals and reality is too large, so they become at a loss. The idea of ​​"counting the day" uses drugs to anesthetize oneself, avoid reality, and obtain short-term relief and satisfaction.

Our survey results in 100 cities across the United States show that those who have psychological barriers, have suffered major setbacks or mental shocks are the most likely to choose drugs as a tool for their emotional catharsis and spiritual needs.

Most drug addicts have a deep and almost irreparable despair. This is the physical and mental damage brought to them by temporary "enjoyment", which makes them extremely disappointed in themselves.Sometimes subjectively, they also want to end these bad behaviors as soon as possible (the sense of guilt is very serious) and stay away from drugs, but because of their deep addiction, it is difficult to take practical actions. Wander in place.

Therefore, they completely lose confidence in life and future, and even usually end their lives by suicide.

Phenomenon [-]: Typical shopaholic

They buy all kinds of necessities, such as clothing and trinkets, without thinking about them.These are more common in women, but can also occur in men.To be sure, men and women are just as equal in shopping for pleasure, and they'll jump right into the shopping frenzy when major shopping malls hit a discount frenzy.

Most of the items that women with the characteristics of "shopaholics" are keen to buy are related to their own appearance and decoration, such as cosmetics and gold and silver jewelry. They pay more attention to the shopping process than the shopping results. The underlying reason is mostly lack of self-esteem Self-confidence, inner emptiness, and finally had to be filled by shopping.For men, they are mentally lonely, physically and mentally damaged, or self-deprecating, trying to rely on crazy purchases to fill the emptiness in their hearts and cover up their inner inferiority complex.For such people, material pleasures are just an excuse to escape reality.

There are also two types of shopaholics. One is to vent your emotions by buying things desperately when you are in a bad mood-knowing that it is wrong, but it is difficult to control and you cannot persuade yourself not to do it; the other is the state of storage : They will buy a lot of things, but they will throw them in a certain place after they buy them, and they will only look at them from then on.

Phenomenon [-]: Severe sex indulgers

Most indulgers know a famous saying: "If you want to have fun in the future, you will be exhausted at the age of 30." But they seldom pay attention to it and abide by it.

On the one hand, those who are heavily indulgent have endless pursuit of desires. Smoking, alcohol and sex can all be used as tools to indulge themselves, and they will never be satisfied; on the other hand, they often regret their behavior and want to change their behavior. The status quo, but the plans that were made often came to nothing.

Sexual indulgence is a typical manifestation of poor self-control, but life will call on him one day. If a person is greedy for pleasure when he is 20 years old, then when he is in his 30s, he will be exhausted for life!

emotional raid

Many people experience sudden bad moods, such as sleepiness, tiredness, or anger.These bad emotions will burst out when you don't expect it, and carry out a surprise attack on you.At this time, it is very easy for people to lose control and find it difficult to control themselves.This is also the biggest obstacle we will encounter on the road of activating body self-control.

There is a famous effect in psychology called "kicking the cat effect", which talks about the problem of human emotional contagion.When a person has dissatisfaction in his heart, if it erupts unscrupulously, it is easy to bring this emotion into life, "spread" and affect other people. Wider and wider.

Emotional Assault:
Usually, as long as you are dissatisfied with a little thing around you, you will start to complain about everything around you.

After we vent this kind of resentment on others, others will vent it on other people, and finally the "circular retribution" caused by anger will come back to us.

Any emotion can become a flash point for oneself: sadness, joy, worry, anger, when the stimulus comes, people will immediately show it exaggeratedly, and there is no warning.

People's emotional, intellectual, and physical states will fluctuate in a sinusoidal curve over time, and the cycle is basically one month.Just like the fullness and hunger of the stomach, our emotions are also in a state of fullness and hunger. It cannot be supplemented, digested, or excreted.However, the way each person digests, absorbs or excretes emotions is different, so we will see that some people are very calm and others are very exaggerated under the influence of the same event.

For people, emotions are like a naughty child. If you can't guide and use them intelligently, it will act recklessly on you and in your life. You will be manipulated by it and never grow up.In the last five years, my courses have received more than 4 emotional consultations from students, and they all have a common problem:

"I can easily fall into the trough of emotions. What should I do when I am in a bad mood and when I am faced with anger and excitement?" Popularly explained, emotions refer to a kind of emotion that our individuals produce after being stimulated. A state of physical and mental "excitement".Everyone has a rich experience in this state, but the physiological changes and behaviors caused by it are difficult to control.Some emotional triggers or trigger points can be perceived by oneself, and the original reason for the emotional fluctuations is understood in the heart.Some emotional triggers still exist at the subconscious level, and it seems that the emotions suddenly change inexplicably. Among them, there are emotional changes caused by external and internal thinking, which are hard to guard against.

Emotional trigger points exist anytime and anywhere, but some people are not very sensitive, have strong immunity, and have little impact, while some people have excellent self-control, and even if they feel it, they can successfully resolve it.But there are also more people who are naturally sensitive to sudden changes in emotions and have greater reactions.

The key is not whether you want to control it, not whether you want to seek change, but whether you can show the courage to resist the wanton flow of emotions.If you have any tendency to enjoy this state, then I will tell you: "This is really a dangerous thing."

In real life, people often become transmitters of bad emotions because they don't know how to restrain themselves.Everyone will encounter ups and downs, big and small, and there will always be things that don't go well.However, the resulting bad emotions have not attracted enough attention and are mostly ignored by us.This kind of bad emotional pollution will not only affect people's mental health, but also cause serious adverse consequences.

self compensation
"Well, I can pamper myself, it's okay, I should, it's no big deal!"

George, in New Mexico, told me that this is an excuse he uses frequently, as a way of comforting himself and compensating.He used to be determined to learn Chinese and Japanese well and read an article every day, but once he sat on the sofa and was about to start, he would think in his heart: "I have been working all day and I am very tired! I should take a break and watch a football game, or Going to a gathering with friends, as for these books, read them tomorrow or when you have time!" He would repeat this process every day, and a month passed, and the pile of Chinese and Japanese books he bought had not turned two pages. On the bookshelf, covered with a thick layer of dust.

In another year, if you visit his house, you will find that these books are gone—given to friends or sold to bookstores at a discount, and he has changed to a new plan.In the process of carrying out the new plan, he still kept looking for excuses to compensate himself, and it turned out that nothing could be done.

George's case is a poster child for self-compensation.All the reasons why we procrastinate and indulge ourselves are all excuses. A ridiculous reason can change the plan you made for three days and three nights, and turn you into a lazy person who doesn't want to do anything. Don't you have something similar? experience?

Self Compensation:

"I haven't had that experience, so I'm going to give it a try, whether I should or not."

"It's very satisfying to do, and I feel like it can make me feel comfortable! Whether it's achievable or not, that's not something I'm going to seriously consider!"

"In the final analysis, everything I do is because life is so unfair to me! Why aren't I allowed to indulge once? I can just be worthy of myself, and I don't need to be responsible to anyone!"

These are the three typical psychological manifestations of "self-compensation".In addition, self-compensation is usually based on reverse psychology, which also tends to have a negative nature.It does not obtain compensation from the frustrated person's own success, but tries to obtain some kind of "victory" and "war results" from the process of rebellion, obtain "satisfaction" from the opponent's failure, and then realize self-relief.In this regard, we can also call it negative compensation.This negativity is aimed at its consequences, and its compensatory behavior may itself be "positive".

Phenomenon [-]: Derailment

From a psychological point of view, cheating is a kind of bad self-compensation made by men all over the world-compensating for the sacrifices they had to make in love when they were young and struggling for career.The more career-oriented a man (if he is selfish at the same time), the more he tends to find a wife who loves him more than he loves, and then find a woman he loves outside to compensate him for his youth. sacrifice.

Such a man always lacks resistance and yearns for beautiful women. He yearns for romance.When he was still an unknown pauper, he didn't have such an opportunity. Now that he has become famous, he has such strength, so he has to prove it to himself and others, and at the same time he has to make up for himself.

Phenomenon [-]: breaking the rules
When a red light is on at an intersection, cyclists are required to stop behind the pedestrian crossing line.Now I invite you to observe a lot in normal times to see if this regulation has been well complied with.I bet you look at it [-] times and every time you see this rule being violated.

Even when the police are on the scene, there are no exceptions, and people keep breaking this rule even though they know it.A cyclist will always try his best to get his bike over the stop line, even if he can't get the front wheel over halfway, even if it's a small distance.

On the one hand, he wastes a lot of time in his own life, and on the other hand, he does not hesitate to disrupt order in order to take advantage of a second.What kind of mentality is at work here?It is people's deep-seated impulse not to follow the rules and want to break the rules at work.This impulse is suppressed under the restraint of reason, and once there is a chance of satisfaction, and without paying too high a price, reason will relax the restraint on this impulse and let it manifest in public.

This shows that the greater the sense of deficiency and inferiority complex in real life, the more sensitive people are, and the more urgent their psychology of seeking compensation is.Therefore, weak people tend to be more competitive than able-bodied people.Everyone overcomes inferiority complex and seeks superiority to obtain compensation in different ways, thus forming completely different life styles and personalities.When a person faces low self-esteem and actively seeks compensation and pursuit of superiority, the feeling of inferiority is a kind of driving force for improvement. At this time, people will develop and experience a positive life.If faced with humbleness, incompetence, weakness, self-help and depression, a deep sense of inferiority will engulf people, make people give up the idea of ​​self-improvement, and fall into a negative life.

At the other extreme, many people focus solely on personal superiority, disregarding the needs of others and the demands of society in order to free themselves from lowliness. People hate.

The fear of weak willpower

In self-control courses, we always have to take the trouble to clarify a misunderstanding about "willpower" to students (usually, most students don't really know what willpower is):

"The will that people usually emphasize is actually wrong. It is just a kind of physical contraction that people use frequently. It makes our bodies stiff, and people use it as a springboard for action. So when When people think that they have willpower, they actually just harden a certain part of their body, and then use this hardened 'thing' to motivate themselves to act, and they feel that their actions are supported, so that they will not fall ...but if you look closely at that stiff thing and that springboard to action, you'll see that it's just a certain contraction of the body. The truth is, willpower is buried deep in the way we think, it's a way of facing life. Quality is the intangible and invisible part of the soul, not the feeling you are experiencing today."

It is because people quickly learn to tighten a certain part of the body in the wrong common sense, especially the part close to the heart, making it hard and relying on it to generate travel power, so when they find that they cannot find this " When you feel "hardness", you will become very empty and unable to do anything.When he needs to let go of his false willpower, he may feel fear (87% of the students expressed this feeling in the course) and feel that he is about to fall into a big empty hole: "It's like coming from a very high I stumbled and fell on the cliff, very desperate."

When real willpower is present, no one should have any fear.When we have real willpower—the firmness and strength of our minds—the tendency to constrict the body disappears, and we only have a sense of openness rather than panic.Facing life, we will have warm joy and challenge courage in our hearts, instead of cold fear and shrinking feeling!

Inaction and Weakness of Will:
"I don't have a sense of constriction, my heart is closed, I can't get nervous." As a result, he can't do anything.

"I'm afraid of action, and I can't find love, joy, and fulfillment in this world." Because of the misuse of willpower, he and his own heart are at odds.

"It's too difficult to control myself. This kind of request is too much. I can't do it at all, and I'm afraid to do it!" He is used to the need for a springboard for action. The physical and spiritual pains brought about by "willpower", so I dare not try.

They will be very eager to succeed, but only eager, and he can't believe that he will have the day when he will succeed.In contrast, some people not only desire to succeed, but also make a plan and stick to it, convinced that they will achieve it.They are not afraid of action, but eager to act, experience pleasure in action, and gain a sense of accomplishment.

These two kinds of people are on the road to success, and if they fall down once, they may both get up and continue to work hard.After falling down twice, maybe they will get up together and continue to work hard, but after three, four or five times, their ideas may be different, and there will be a huge gap.

You now understand that willpower is closely linked to fear.Once you lose the basic self-confidence, the real willpower will be blocked outside the body, and then a fear will be produced in the heart, which will make your brain and body present a false impression that if you don't use the false willpower, you will lose it. Strong support.

At this time, people will feel that they are weak and defenseless, and the foundation under their feet seems to be gone.They think that if you give up false willpower, life will fall apart and the world will become very dangerous: "Because I don't feel safe." This will happen from time to time until you can get through the right way Until you discover and activate your true willpower.

(End of this chapter)