内容来源：https://lifehacker.com/think-of-new-habits-as-skills?utm_medium=RSS

内容总结：

破除“习惯养成”迷思：真正改变行为需要持续投入与心智成长

在日常生活中，许多人将规律健身、健康饮食、坚持阅读等行为归为“好习惯”。然而，心理学研究指出，这些被泛称为“习惯”的行为，实际上远非简单的自动化反应，而是一种需要长期投入和心智转变的“行为改变”。

习惯≠自动化反应，而是复杂技能
根据美国心理学会的定义，习惯是在特定情境下无意识产生的行为，例如不自觉绕头发。但大众常说的“培养习惯”——如定期运动、均衡饮食、准时睡觉等——往往需要主动规划与坚持，并非对环境的本能反应。心理学家强调，这类持续性行为更准确的表述应为“行为改变”，其形成过程通常经历五个阶段：前思考、思考、准备、行动和维持。每个阶段的推进都需要时间、努力和心态调整，且进程并非线性，可能因外界因素出现反复。

行为改变是系统性学习过程
即使是“多吃水果”“每天晨跑”这类看似简单的目标，也涉及一系列细分技能的学习与适应。以跑步为例，成为长期跑者不仅需要掌握配速、装备选择、伤痛预防等实用知识，还需调整饮食结构、设定合理目标、建立心理激励机制。这些技能无法一蹴而就，需通过持续实践与个性化调整才能内化。

享受过程比“自我欺骗”更有效
流行的“习惯叠加”等技巧虽有助于建立低难度、低风险行为的提醒机制（如刷牙后使用牙线），但难以支撑长期、深度的行为改变。若仅依赖外部技巧“欺骗”自己执行厌恶之事，容易因一次失败而全盘放弃。真正可持续的改变，往往源于对行为本身价值的认同或从中获得的乐趣。例如，将健康饮食视为烹饪探索，或将运动发展为爱好，更能让人主动坚持。

启示：拥抱改变的复杂性
真正的行为改变不是寻找“设定即忘记”的捷径，而是接受其作为一项需要耐心经营的技能。在培养新行为时，应优先关注整体目标与内在动机，再将大目标拆解为可管理的小步骤。允许自己享受过程，接纳阶段性波动，才能跨越“行动”阶段，进入长期“维持”的稳定状态。

中文翻译：

我日常坚持的许多事，常被人归为"好习惯"：每天清晨散步、几乎每日健身、周末备好健康午餐。但这些行为并非仅靠"习惯叠加"或某种技巧养成。事实上，大多数"习惯"本质是需要投入时间精力培养的技能，绝非一劳永逸的简单窍门。

多数"习惯"并不简单

心理学将"习惯"定义为特定情境下的自动行为，如美国心理学会所述："扯头发动作最终可能在个体无意识状态下发生"。但当我们谈论培养习惯时，通常指规律性行为——或许最终能自动化，但绝非对环境的本能反应。例如人们常说的"习惯"目标：

• 去健身房
• 多吃蔬菜
• 坚持阅读
• 使用牙线
• 按时就寝

这些都不是简单、本能或无意识的行为。有些相对简单（如用习惯叠加确保刷牙后用牙线），但多数习惯的培养需要更多努力。

我们真正需要的是行为转变

心理学家对健康饮食、规律作息、用阅读替代刷手机等行为另有定义——"行为转变"。大量研究揭示，采取新行为（即我们所谓的"习惯"）需要时间精力投入，且需经历多重心态演变：

1. 前思阶段：尚未产生兴趣（比如去健身房）
2. 思索阶段：开始考虑定期行动，可能查阅初入健身房的指南
3. 准备阶段：采取具体步骤（参观附近健身房、购买跑鞋），可能尝试一两次但未坚持
4. 行动阶段：开始实践（注意这既非起点也非终点），此时仍存疑虑，新作息可能带来不适，遇挫易放弃
5. 维持阶段：习惯初步形成后，需像保养汽车或维系关系般持续维护。假期、伤病或进展受挫都可能打乱节奏，此阶段需学会预见并应对潜在问题

每个阶段的进阶都需要付出努力、时间并调整心态，且过程未必线性。比如搬家导致训练中断数周后，寻找新健身房的过程可能让你退回前序阶段，但不必全盘放弃。

每个"习惯"都有专属学习路径

即便看似简单的行为也包含诸多环节。以"多吃水果"为例：摆果盘只是中间环节，你需要了解口味偏好、掌握采购频率、学会挑选技巧（避开即将霉变的浆果、识别青涩香蕉），还需知晓储存方法（冷藏延长浆果保鲜期）与搭配采购（同时购买青黄香蕉确保整周有熟果可食）。

再以"晨跑"为例：成为轻松晨跑者需要系统学习。我读过的最佳跑步指南《非跑者马拉松训练手册》中，300页内容仅半页涉及训练计划。全书重点在于传授跑步者的核心技能：速干衣选择、乳头摩擦预防、配速控制、疲劳心理调节、常见损伤识别、周里程记录、碳水化合物补充方案、目标设定、赛事装备整理、赛前减量期心理调适等。

这些关键技能无法自动获得，必须经过学习、实践、个性化调整（寻找适合的心理激励法、挑选合脚的跑鞋等）。我2003年初读此书时做的铅笔注释至今犹在，但完全掌握基础技能仍花费数年，而精进之路永无止境。

为习惯付出（并享受）完全合理

传统习惯技巧常假设习惯枯燥需自我欺骗执行，但真正想坚持的事往往源于热爱或认同其益处。享受有益之事无可厚非——若视健康饮食为永恒苦役，它永远会是负担；但若学会制作美味营养餐（甚至爱上烹饪），自会乐在其中。

行为转变研究学者唐纳德·埃德蒙森指出：长期改变需要脱离自动驾驶模式。热爱让人坚持，厌恶催生逃避。

习惯技巧仍有价值

习惯叠加等技巧本身无过，只是不足以单独支撑长期深刻转变。需警惕其反作用：若将追剧与跑步捆绑，某天可能干脆只看剧不运动；若为保持冥想日历连续记录，在第364天中断后可能彻底放弃。当习惯仅靠自我欺骗维持，永远无法进入关键的维持阶段。小技巧难以驱动大改变。

但这些技巧适用于简单低风险事项，或大目标中的细分环节。宜将其视作提醒而非动力源：习惯叠加有助于建立睡前/晨间/健身前流程，但这只是"按时就寝"大目标中的环节。培养习惯时，需先构建宏观框架再完善微观细节。

英文来源：

I do a lot of things on a regular basis that people might classify as “good habits.” I go for a walk every morning. I hit the gym nearly every day. I prep my meals on the weekends so I always have something healthy to eat for lunch. But I didn’t arrive at these behaviors solely through habit stacking or some other clever hack. Because the truth is, most “habits” are really skills that take work and time to develop—not simple set-it-and-forget-it hacks.
Most “habits” aren’t that simple
Psychologists define “habits” as things we do automatically in a specific situation. “For example, the act of hair twirling may eventually occur without the individual’s conscious awareness,” reads the definition from the American Psychological Association.
But when we talk about building a habit, we usually mean something that we do on a regular basis. Maybe it happens automatically—that may be the goal—but it isn’t a reflexive reaction to our environment. For example, people commonly say they want to build “habits” like:
Going to the gym
Eating more vegetables
Reading books
Flossing teeth
Getting to bed on time
None of these are simple, reflexive, or unconscious behaviors. A few are relatively simple—you could probably use classic habit hacks like stacking to make sure you floss after you brush. But most habits take a lot more work to develop.
What we really want is behavior change
Psychologists have a different term for things like eating healthy, getting more sleep, and reading a book instead of doomscrolling social media. They call it "behavior change," and there are countless studies and theoretical models exploring how people actually end up changing their behaviors.
What they’ve found is that adopting a new behavior (what we’ve been calling a “habit”) requires us to invest time and effort, and we go through several mindset shifts as we evolve from a person who doesn’t do the thing, to a person who does the thing all the time. See if you can spot yourself in one of these:
Precontemplation: You are not yet interested in doing the thing (let’s say: going to the gym).
Contemplation: You’re thinking about starting to do the thing on a regular basis. You might have started reading articles about what it would be like to visit a gym for the first time.
Preparation: You’re taking steps toward doing the thing. This is where you visit your neighborhood gym for a tour, or buy a pair of running shoes. Maybe you try a workout or two, but you’re not committed yet.
Action: You’re doing the thing. Note that this is not the first stage, nor the last. At this point, you still have a lot of questions, you may feel uncomfortable in your new routine, and if something goes wrong, you may give up.
Maintenance: This is you once you’ve finally built the “habit.” Like maintaining a car or a relationship, keeping up a habit takes work. Things will turn up that disrupt the habit; you might take a vacation, or get injured, or get discouraged in your progress. While you’re in this stage, you need to learn to anticipate and deal with those potential problems in order for the behavior change to stick.
It takes work, time, and mindset changes to move from each stage to the next. And the process isn’t always linear: Maybe you move to a new city and miss a few weeks’ worth of workouts, and then you have to find a new gym. That knocks you back a few steps on the chart, but it doesn’t have to push you off of it altogether.
Every “habit” has its own learning process
A lot goes into even the behaviors that seem straightforward. For example, if you want to eat more fruit, you could set out a fruit bowl. But that’s not the beginning or the end of it. You need to know what fruits you like. You need to buy them regularly. You need to know how to shop for them, avoiding the berries that are about to turn moldy and the bananas that are so underripe they’ll still be green for days. (It would also help to know that the berries will last longer if you store them in the fridge, and that you can buy green and yellow bananas in the same shopping trip so you have a week’s worth of perfectly ripe fruits.)
Or to take another example: You might think of “go for a run every morning” as a simple habit. But there are a lot of things that go into becoming the sort of person who actually finds it simple to go for a run every morning.
Here's what I mean. The best book I’ve ever read on becoming a runner is not one that centers around hacks like stacking your running habit with walking your dog. It’s The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer, which at first sounds like it will offer a training program. But of the book’s 300 pages, the training plan only takes up half a page (the bottom half of page two, to be exact).
The Daily Newsletter
The rest of the book is what teaches you to be a runner. Before the introductory chapter is over, you’ve heard anecdotes from people who hated running and found it satisfying to train for a marathon, because it’s important to know that that dichotomy of thought is perfectly normal and does not need to stop you.
Other chapters explain why you want to buy sweat-wicking clothes, how to prevent bloody nipples, how fast to run, what to tell yourself when you get tired and want to quit, how to recognize common injuries, how to track your weekly mileage, why you should increase your carbohydrate intake and what foods will help you do that, how to set appropriate goals, what to pack in your bag on race day, and how to get through the pre-race taper without losing your mind.
These are all essential skills for any runner, and none of them come automatically, nor can they be done automatically at first. You have to learn them. You have to practice them. You have to figure out how they apply to you, personally—which mental tricks keep you motivated, which shoes are right for your feet, and so on. Even though I read this book toward the beginning of my time as a runner (I see penciled notes dating from 2003), it took me years to fully master the basics as they apply to me personally. And I’m still learning things about how to be a better runner.
It’s okay to work for (and enjoy) your habits
The classic habit hacks tend to assume that habits are boring and we have to trick ourselves into doing them. Maybe that’s true for flossing our teeth, but anything we truly want to do, we do because we enjoy it, or at least appreciate the benefits that come with it.
It’s okay to enjoy things! Even, and especially, things that are good for us. If you treat “eating healthy” as something that you hate and will always hate, it will always be a chore. On the other hand, if you learn how to make delicious recipes (and maybe even get into cooking as a hobby in itself) you’ll keep doing it and you’ll like it.
When we love a thing, we stick with it. When we feel something is drudgery, we look for excuses to get out of it. In fact, Donald Edmonson, a scientist who researches behavior change, has pointed out that we make long-term changes by taking ourselves off of autopilot.
Habit hacks still have their place
It’s not that habit stacking and other tricks like it are bad. They’re just too weak to power a long-term, meaningful change in your life all by themselves.
Each of them can backfire if and when they fail, so think that through. If you temptation-bundle your favorite TV show with your treadmill time, one day you might just sit down on the couch and watch it anyway. If you meditate every day so you can get a streak on your calendar, you might just say “fuck it” and quit meditating entirely after losing a 364-day streak. If the only thing powering your habit is tricking yourself into it, you’ll never really reach that crucial maintenance stage. Little hacks can’t power big changes.
But habit hacks do work well for simple, low-stakes items, or for smaller pieces of a larger goal. It can be helpful to think of them as reminders rather than motivation. Stacking is great for building a bedtime routine (or a morning routine, or a pre-gym routine), but that is only part of the larger behavior-change habit you’re really aiming for (“go to bed on time”). When you’re building your habits, you have to think big before you think small.