爱思英语编者按：改变行为不可能一蹴而就，但并非无法实现。在开始改变一种习惯之前，你需要经历“懵懂期”、“沉思期”和“准备期”这三个阶段。

It’s summer. By now, you’ve either broken your New Year’s resolutions or successfully integrated them into your routines.

If you’re in the former group, you’re in luck. This is actually a terrific time to create new habits or to shed old ones. That’s because the important elements of habit change aren’t tied to a season. Moreover, the experience of failing to change can actually give you crucial information that will ensure victory the next time around.

For one, it’s important to begin the change process with what social scientists call “pre-contemplation,” or really thinking through the pros and cons of your current situation, what is keeping you in the bad habit, and what would be the benefit of changing. Such thinking helps make you aware of factors that might hold you back.

“People tend to fail because they start directly in the contemplating phase—they rethink their personal beliefs, capabilities, they start thinking, ‘I can do this, I can change jobs, I can update my resume.’ But what they haven’t done is become fully aware of the current situation and the consequences of continuing with what you’re doing,” says Sebastian Bailey, New York-area author of Mind-Gym: Achieve More by Thinking Differently.

Indeed, if you resolve to change your behavior at a time of year when you have time to plan—as opposed to when the Jan. 1 deadline encourages you to impulsively make resolutions—you’ll be better prepared to handle bumps in the road. When you know what made you falter in your resolve to stay off Facebook at work, for instance, you can craft a plan to sidestep that problem in the future. This is part of the third stage of habit change, which is preparation, according to Bailey.

In The Power of Habit, journalist Charles Duhigg explains habits as a combination of a trigger or cue that prompts us to act in a certain way, followed by a routine that culminates in a reward we receive from engaging in that habit. For example, if we have a habit of eating an afternoon snack, the cue may be seeing a colleague headed for the cafeteria, followed by the routine of joining him for biscotti and coffee, which give us the reward of a caffeine and sugar rush.

Once a habit has been established, the neural pathways in our brain associated with that habit cannot be eliminated; we can only form new ones by replacing the habit with a new routine. It’s important to examine your habits to understand what your motivation is; for instance, do you actually like that sugar and caffeine jolt? Or are you seeking social connection during the afternoon lull? That insight will give you the tools to change your habits.

If you have a habit of checking Twitter when you’re bored at work, try instead to do a quick set of pushups, go for a walk, chat with a neighbor, read a stack of piled-up journal articles, or do a crossword puzzle. Whichever of these activities helps distract you from Twitter is most closely addressing the need you’re trying to meet with a social media fix. The winning activity is the best candidate for a new routine that can be sandwiched between the cue and the reward, according to Duhigg.

Before you leap into habit change, Bailey recommends taking your time in the pre-contemplation, contemplation, and preparation stages. Think through what you need to do differently. You may discover that a smaller change is best. Bailey says he remembers a woman who was dying to find a job t another company, but when she started to explore her motivations, she realized she was simply bored with her role. If she took a similar job with a different employer, she would likely be just as dissatisfied. Instead, that woman made a lateral move and found greater job satisfaction without losing tenure or making a disruptive change of employer.

You need to arouse your emotions and connect to the strongest motivation you have to change. Perhaps a visual reminder on your office wall will help you stick to your goal. Find a way to believe that you can change.

“For personal change, it’s about understanding the problem and understanding the emotions around it. If people feel the problem strongly enough, they’ll do anything to solve it,” Bailey says.

夏天来了。到目前为止，你可能已经放弃了自己的新年计划，或者是成功地将其融入到日常工作和生活之中。

如果是前者，那么你就非常幸运。现在正是培养新习惯，改掉旧习惯的绝佳时机。原因在于，改变习惯的重要因素与季节无关。此外，未能成功改变习惯的过往经历，也可以让你获得关键信息，确保下一次尝试取得成功。

开始改变之前，首先要经历社会科学家们所称的“懵懂期”，即认真思考当前状况的利弊，你为什么坚持当前的坏习惯，改变能够带来哪些好处。这种思考可以帮助你发现可能阻碍你改变的因素。

著有《心灵健身房：求异思维为你带来更多》（Mind-Gym: Achieve More by Thinking Differently）一书的纽约作家塞巴斯蒂安•贝利表示：“人们之所以失败，往往是由于他们直接进入‘深思阶段’——反思自己的个人信念和能力，开始想：‘我可以做这个，我可以换工作，我可以更新简历。’但他们并没有充分认识现状，以及继续当前行为的后果。”

如果你在下定决心做出改变时，有足够的时间进行规划，而不是在每年一月一日这个最终期限的驱使下，冲动地做出决定，你便可以为将来可能遇到的障碍做出更充分的准备。假如你决定在工作时远离Facebook，只要你知道有哪些问题会妨碍你实现这个目标，你就可以精心制定一个计划，在未来避开这些问题。这便是改变习惯的第三个阶段，即贝利所说的“准备阶段”。

在《习惯的力量》（The Power of Habit）一书中，记者查尔斯•杜希格将习惯解释为一组提示我们按某种方式行事的触发点或信号，以及一种让我们通过坚持这种习惯最终获得回报的惯例。如果我们有吃下午点心的习惯，信号可能是看到同事去自助餐厅，随后便形成了与他一起吃意式脆饼和咖啡的惯例，我们得到的回报是咖啡因和甜味刺激。

一旦形成了某种习惯，我们便无法清除与这种习惯相关的大脑神经通路；我们只能通过培养新的习惯取而代之。重要的是仔细审查你的习惯，了解这种习惯背后的动机；例如，你真的喜欢糖果和咖啡因带来的刺激吗？或者，你只是希望在下午短暂的休息时间拓展人脉？这种思考可以为你的改变提供有力的工具。

如果你在上班无聊的时候习惯查看微博，可以尝试做几个俯卧撑、散步、与同事聊天、阅读一些期刊文章，或玩填字游戏，来代替这种习惯。只要这种活动能够分散你对微博的注意力，它便可以最有效的解决对社交媒体上瘾的问题。杜希格表示，有效的活动是可以夹在信号与回报之间的最佳新惯例。

在开始改变一种习惯之前，贝利建议拿出时间，完成“懵懂期”、“沉思期”和“准备期”这三个阶段。认真想想自己需要做出什么样的改变。你可能会发现，更小幅度的变化或许才是最佳选择。贝利回忆称，有一位女士迫切想在另外一家公司找到一份工作，但当她开始挖掘这种想法背后的动机时，她意识到自己只是对目前的职位感到厌烦。如果她在一家不同公司找一份类似的工作，她还是不会高兴。因此，这位女士进行了一次横向调动，获得了更高的工作满意度，既没有遭受职业空白期，也没有给雇主造成破坏性变化。

你需要激发自身的情绪，找出迫使你做出改变的最强烈的动机。在办公室墙上的视觉提醒，可以帮助你坚持自己的目标。要想方设法让自己相信，你可以改变。

贝利说道：“要改变个人行为，你必须了解问题和与之相关的情绪。如果人们对问题的感受足够强烈，他们就会想办法去解决它。”

Set goals that require you to stretch yourself, but ones that you can believably reach. Stanford University Professor B.J. Fogg says one of the biggest challenges to lasting behavior change is overreaching on goals, rather than making small, sustainable changes in our daily routines and building on our success.

“Setting and tracking small, achievable weekly goals is the best way to change a long-term habit,” says Missy Jaeger, vice president of client success at the employee health and wellness firm Keas, noting that brain activity flares when you start moving your body.

Belief is a key part of successful habit change, Duhigg notes. “To modify a habit, you must decide to change it. You must know you have control and be self-conscious enough to use it,” he writes.

Research shows that if we anticipate obstacles and plan for them, we’re more likely to succeed. For instance, if you aim to have one networking meeting a week and someone cancels on you, consider having a back-up plan to use that time to reach out to other contacts. Or if you decide ahead of time that if you slip from your diet, you’ll jump right back into healthy eating, you could avoid the weeklong binge on doughnuts and burgers that you would’ve previously justified as “not counting” since you already broke your diet.

Habits are much easier to create or change if you have social support. Enlist colleagues and friends to change habits together, or in helping you stick to your goals. If your first Facebook post of the day is a resolution to stay off social media except for your lunch break, the fear of public shaming may keep you honest. Similarly, users of the Keas wellness gaming platform who joined a team during an employer-sponsored health challenge reported a 14% increase in exercise over the course of the three-month challenge.

“The evidence is clear: If you want to change a habit, you must find an alternative routine, and your odds of success go up dramatically when you commit to changing as part of a group,” Duhigg writes.

设定要求自我拓展的目标，但你必须确信这些目标是可以实现的。斯坦福大学教授B•J•福格表示，持续改变行为最大的挑战之一是目标设定过高，而不是在日常事务当中做出小的、可以持续的变化，并建立自信。

员工健康与福利公司Keas的客户成功副总裁米西•耶格表示：“设定和跟踪小的、可实现的周目标，是改变长期习惯的最佳方式。”他发现，当你行动起来时，大脑活动会变得更活跃。

杜希格表示，信心是成功改变旧习惯的关键所在。他写道：“要改变一种习惯，你必须要有改变它的决心。你必须知道你有自控能力，并具备利用这种能力的自我意识。”

研究显示，如果我们能预测障碍，并为之做出规划，我们便更有可能取得成功。例如，如果你打算每周参加一次联谊会，但有人取消了你的资格，这时，你可以考虑备份计划，利用这个时间去接触其他人。或者，如果你提前决定，一旦在节食过程中“破戒”，便立刻重新坚持健康饮食，你便不会因为一次“破戒”而认为之前的坚持都“不算数”，于是一整周都在狂吃甜甜圈和汉堡。

如果能获得社会支持，培养或改变一种习惯会变得更容易。邀请同事和朋友们一起改变习惯，或者帮助你坚持自己的目标。如果你某天的第一条Facebook信息是决心除了午餐休息时间外，远离社交媒体，由于担心被公开羞辱，你或许能坚持自己的决定。Keas健康游戏平台的用户在一项由雇主发起的健康挑战活动期间，加入了一个团队。结果显示，在为期三个月的挑战过程中，用户的运动量增加了14%。

杜希格写道：“证据很明显：如果你想改变习惯，你必须找到它的替代品，如果你加入一个有相同目标的团队，你的成功几率将大大提升。”