How many adults, pretending to be self-disciplined

What should I do to keep running and reading?

In fact, similar questions have been asked for the past two years.

So, today, I will start a special session to share my personal experience with you.

It would be great if I could give you a helping hand or two.

01 Why can't you keep going?

People are inert.

It is common to fish for three days and then sunbathe for two days.

I am no exception to this.

However, compared to others, I may be less inert and persist longer.

People, the reason why they can do something relatively to last is nothing more than an internal drive.

To put it bluntly, there is a strong internal motivation to do something.

Why do some people have the motivation to last and others do not?

The reason is simple.

Because you don't know the motivation behind it, and you give up before you can taste the sweetness of persistence.

So, you don't stick with it.

I run because I deeply understand the importance of being healthy.

Years ago, I had a week in hospital, and I was wearing a hospital gown, looking through the window at the traffic on the street, and suddenly I realised, if I don't have my health, what do I have?

So, I'm going to keep my health.

That's what motivated me.

I took out an annual gym membership and became the most well attended member.

I swim, yoga, cycling, strength training, running, I do everything.

I don't run on a whim, I don't run on a whim, I run on my own initiative.

Many people don't have this drive.

There is another category of people who are motivated but do not endure the hardest climbing period, or the tipping point.

For example, for people who have just started running, in fact for some people who are not athletic themselves and have no exercise habits, three kilometres is the tipping point.

If you can't hold on, you'll never break through the three kilometres, and you'll give up after one kilometre and go home.

If you can endure no matter how breathless or tired you are, you will be able to run more and more easily and experience the dopamine and dividends of running (better physical fitness and better emotional state of mind), so you will spontaneously stick to it and enjoy it more and more.

It's the same thing with reading; you have to give yourself a motivation.

Running cultivates the body, reading cultivates the mind.

Everyone has a limited level of knowledge, the benefit of reading is to improve awareness and enrich knowledge.

You won't feel much gain by reading one book a year, but you will feel very different when you read one a week and finish 52 books a year.

This is the simplest of truths: quantity brings quality.

The more books you read, the more things you can talk to people about, at the very least.

We can talk about astronomy and geography.

We can talk about Lao and Zhuang, Confucius and Mencius.

More or less, you can also have a few words.

Furthermore, if there is a question that no one can answer for you in real life, you can certainly find the answer and enlightenment in a book or a passage.

Opening a book is good for you, it's really golden advice, no kidding.

To sum up, if you can't keep running or reading, you just don't understand why you are doing these two things and what your needs are. Or maybe you understand the importance of these things, but unfortunately you've given up halfway before they pay dividends.

It's the same as when you deposit a year's worth of fixed-term money in a bank and you withdraw it early before you've even waited to receive the money at the end of the term.

The same goes for running and reading, which are both long-termist.

02 The underlying logic of self-discipline

I have read some books on willpower and cognitive enhancement, and I have found that there is an underlying logic to self-discipline.

I'll share it with you here too.

Running and reading are the more "hard" things to do in this age of entertainment. If you want to persevere with the hard work, self-discipline is a must, but self-discipline is not that simple.

The first logical point is that self-discipline cannot be completely anti-human.

Human nature is to avoid harm.

When you decide to discipline yourself to run or read a book, you will feel uncomfortable in the process because these things are not as easy as playing with your phone or lying flat.

When you don't want to run or read a book, accept this negative emotion first, it's a normal thing to do.

Don't decide that you are undisciplined, don't be anti-human and blindly insist on things like getting dressed up and going out for a run, only to run for five minutes and take pictures for an hour.

Turning the book over and then picking up your phone and swiping away, without a single word entering your eyes.

This is the worst kind of behaviour. It's just a way of fooling yourself and pretending.

Typical "pseudo-self-discipline".

You don't have to.

You have to understand that even a super runner can have a few days a month when he doesn't want to run.

When we really don't want to do something (especially if we are in the beginning stages of developing running and reading habits), you can do something else that you want to do in a different way that will have the same effect.

If you don't run, then you do gymnastics or jump rope.

If you don't read, you can draw or write.

The ultimate goal is to exercise and meditate, put down your phone and don't indulge in excessive entertainment.

There is also a humane way to reward yourself.

I don't feel like running today, but I stick to it, I can reward myself with a long craved treat.

If I keep going for a week, I can reward myself with an outfit of my choice. If I keep going for a month, I can reward myself with a pair of cool running shoes.

Give something sweet to inspire yourself to suffer.

The second logical point is that self-discipline should be personalised.

Long-term self-discipline requires three things to be clear: goals, paths and adjustments.

What is your goal for running? To lose fat and lose weight or to strengthen your body?

Different goals, different paths, different adjustments.

If you want to strengthen your body, 20 to 30 minutes of leisurely running every day is enough, 7 to 8 minutes is not slow.

If it is fat loss, you have to pay attention to the intensity and length of time, it is best to run enough to 40 minutes to an hour, the speed should reach the level of slightly out of breath, to ensure that four times a week, when you do not want to run, adjust the way can be jumping rope, or swimming, cycling, with almost the same length of exercise to make up for the consumption of running.

So there is no need to force the Buddhist runner to be as self-disciplined as the fat-loss and lean person in general.

He has his own plan and being able to do it is self-discipline.

The same goes for reading.

There is a difference between reading to pass the time and reading with a clear goal of improvement and output requirements.

In the former case, you can read whatever you want, whatever genre you want, and however many pages or words you want to read.

The latter is to read a book every day, read more pages when free, read less when time is tight, and write reading notes and summarise and review after reading a book.

There is a clear amount of reading to be done, covering as wide a range as possible, according to your preferences and needs.

So you see, before talking about self-discipline, ask yourself what your goals are, find the right track for you and stick to it.

Self-discipline is not about following the example of others, like a Buddhist runner who has to adopt the training plan of a stand-up runner, which can easily lead to the frustration of "not being able to compete" and the self-doubt and remorse of "not being disciplined enough".

This, in turn, triggers the human instinct to avoid harm and you will reject running and be unable to stay on your own track.

03 In conclusion.

When you decide to do something, ask yourself two questions: Why do you want to do it? How long can you do it for?

Once you've figured it out, then make a plan to implement it according to your reality. If it works for you, makes you progressively better and makes a difference, the thing is done.

You are a self-disciplined person.

In my opinion, self-discipline means that the original intention remains the same, the execution is firm and the results are quantified.

I hope that today's long speech will be of some use to those who are lost.

Not in vain I code half a day, and thank you for reading this, thank you for your attention and time.