不适合做talk和dic材料，后部分的文字好像也不匹配，故放在每日一文。 材料由Bunny提供。致谢！
oh Meet Lucas. He's a young man about to enter college. He's at the difficult life
growing up with his only parent, his mother and his younger sister. Due to his
difficulties in facing his adversities, he's lived a fairly unhealthy life and constantly
indulges in partying, drinking and smoking. ,One day his mother got quite sick and
was rushed to the emergency. The most important person in his life has rocked
through all the difficult times was on the verge of death. She put up a good fight, but
unfortunately passed, and Lucas became the man of the house. Not only did he have to take care of himself, but sister as well.
It was a summer break, and so Lucas immediately took on a full time job as a janitor. He had to provide for himself. And his younger sister. His only goal was to go to
work each day and clean. Day in and day out he went. he took on every opportunity at extra shifts. His discipline and working was unwavering. He used the money to buy
himself and his sister some food for dinner every night. He didn't want to tell his
friend he was working as a janitor. So when they asked if you want to go out in the
evening and party he decided that he would tell them that he had to tutor his little
sister and cook her dinner. Lucas fell into the flow of going to work every day and
eventually got used to it. It wasn't the chore for him anymore. He decided to stop
buying junk food for himself and his sister and decided he would cook them a healthy dinner after work each day and then prepare breakfast for the next day. He kept this
routine up. Working and then cooking, working and then cooking.
Finally school time rolled around and Lucas had to attend classes. He was juggling a lot at once, so now he rolled his hours back to part-time and have to make sure he attended class every single day, so he didn't fall behind. Regardless of how he felt he always went. He went to class, came home and worked and then cooked dinner and breakfast. Lucas kept this up for the whole time in college.
He was able to put himself through college and graduate with honors. He landed a good paying job upon graduation and maintained his good habits. Eventually he was able to put his younger sister to college as well. He got married and eventually so did his sister. They remain best friends throughout life and they reminisced on how happy their mother would have been of Lucas. How he turned his life around And went from lazy and out of control to in control of his destiny and the true king of his fate. He became disciplined, but how did he do it?
The first big thing for Lucas was a strong reason why. When his mother passed, he had a north star to become the man of the house and take care of his younger sister. It was literally do or die. Studies show that a strong motivating reason why allows people to tap into willpower reserves that they might otherwise not have been able to. Studies also show that a strong motivating reason why may only act as a buffer or a temporary solution to increase and that willpower still does have a finite limit. In our example, Lucas had a strong motivating reason for why he was trying become
more responsible, but that doesn't mean that reason can motivate him to do an infinite amount of things for an infinite amount of time. So he tried to work at a part-time job, take care of his sister, try to get a perfect 4.0 GPA and learned to play the guitar all at once. It would be difficult if not impossible regardless of how strong his motivating
reason why was. But in our case Lucas started by focusing on one task only, which was work. You want to work every day. Once that became a habit he directed His willpower and self-discipline onto another singular activity which was followed by school. And that's the key to be wise with how we spend our self-discipline and use it on singular activities and turn them into habits before moving on to another activity.
The first habit could have been a simple as drinking water every day or making his bed every morning. When an activity becomes a habit, it drains lot less willpower.
Lucas also faced a dilemma that many people trying to be disciplined encounter. Peer pressure. His friends represented a temptation into his old life. An easier life requiring a lot less responsibility. There were two reasons Lucas was able to overcome this dilemma. he had a strong reason why and he planned for temptation. In fact he's the very specific technique known as the if-then technique. He had planned that if his friends asked him to go out and party, then he would tell them that he had to tutor his sister and cook dinner. This is a pre-planned decision of self control and avoided him having to exercise willpower to resist the temptation. This is a great strategy to use when we anticipate that there will be times when temptations will be arise and our willpower might be low. It's an automatic and pre-planned response to temptation.
Studies show that practice self-discipline increases self discipline in subsequent acts.
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