????大多數(shù)公司的辦公室可能都像高盛公司（Goldman Sachs）的會議室一樣放著一些小點心，你的辦公室里可能也有。高盛的常務(wù)董事卡羅琳?阿諾德每次與同事或者客戶會面的時候都會來上兩塊。

????卡羅琳在一本名叫《小步走，大變化：用微決定徹底改變生活》（Small Move, Big Change: Using Microresolutions to Transform Your Life Permanently）的新書中寫道，每塊小點心大概含有350卡路里的熱量，而且“它創(chuàng)造出甜味非常強烈，可以支持你撐過最漫長的會議。”

????只可惜這些甜點打擊了她想減肥的決心。于是她做出了一點小的改變，也就是她的新書副標題里所說的“微決定”：以后不再在會議室里吃甜點了。她寫道，這樣做的關(guān)鍵是，“我并不是決定以后再也不吃點心了，也不是說以后再也不在會議室里吃東西了……因為我的解決方案合理而明確，成功也很容易衡量?！弊詈笏纬闪艘粋€習(xí)慣，接過盤子隨手就會遞給別人，最終幫助她在其它地方也減少了卡路里的攝入。

????卡羅琳表示，正如亞里士多德所言，“我們反復(fù)做的事情造就了自己?！辈环e跬步無以致千里，我們每天的大多數(shù)行為都是由習(xí)慣決定的，也就是卡羅琳所說的“慣性”。因此要改掉慣性行為的關(guān)鍵，就是利用“微決定”每次改變一點我們的習(xí)慣，具體方法就是她在書中列出的下面七個步驟：

????1. 選擇容易執(zhí)行的“微決定”。卡羅琳指出，我們的大多數(shù)決心往往堅持不了多久，原因是它們太大或者太空泛了。因此，她表示，我們要從“一些有意義的個別行為”著手。比如說，與其痛下決定瘦身減肥，不如決定做一些“有限但是可以完成”的事，比如每個禮拜都有一天走路上班。一旦你把這個小改變堅持下去，下一步做其它瘦身決定就會容易些。

????2. 微決定應(yīng)該是明確的、可以量化的行動。比如如果你想對工作上那些不太積極的評價表現(xiàn)得不那么有防御性，“你就得想想你在什么環(huán)境下會變得具有防御性，你的防御性會以哪些方式表現(xiàn)出來，你可以給自己發(fā)出什么明確的信號來阻止這種表現(xiàn)?！睕Q心越明確，它就越有效果?！办`活的或者模棱兩可的決心，以及你給自己開的‘例外’和‘后門’”都會限制你，使它變得容易放棄。

????3. 微決定應(yīng)該立竿見影。人性的弱點就是急功近利。我們總是喜歡付出立刻就有回報，而不想讓心懸在縹緲的未來。對此卡羅琳寫道：“如果你的決心需要幾個月的努力才能見到效果，而你又在這之前放棄了，那么就是竹籃打水一場空。如果能立竿見影的話，那么你每次實現(xiàn)了自己定下的一個小目標，就會迫切地希望馬上實現(xiàn)下一個微決定?！?/p>

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????Most offices, maybe even yours, have some equivalent to the cookies in Goldman Sachs' (GS) conference rooms. Caroline Arnold, a managing director at the firm, used to eat several snacks every time she met with colleagues or clients.

????Each cookie was "probably 350 calories," she writes in a new book called Small Move, Big Change: Using Microresolutions to Transform Your Life Permanently, and "produced a sugar high so powerful that it could outlast the longest meeting."

????Unfortunately, the sweet treats also played havoc with her resolve to lose a few pounds. So she made a small change, or what her book's subtitle calls a microresolution: No more conference room cookies. The key, she writes, was that "I didn't resolve never to eat a cookie again, or never to eat food in a conference room again ... Because my resolution was reasonable and specific, success was easy to measure" -- and to repeat until it became second nature to pass the cookie plate along without taking any, which eventually led her to cut calories elsewhere as well.

????In explaining how small changes produce big results, Arnold quotes Aristotle: "We are what we repeatedly do." Most of what any of us do on any given day is dictated by habit, or what Arnold calls "autopilot." The key to changing entrenched behaviors, by her lights, is to alter our autopilot a little bit at a time, using microresolutions. These seven steps, from her book, explain how:

????1. Microresolutions should be easy.Most resolutions don't stick, Arnold says, because they're too big and vague. Instead, she says, start with "a discrete change in behavior that will make a difference." Rather than resolving to get in better shape, for example, decide something "limited [and] achievable", such as walking to work one day a week. Once you've been doing just that one thing for a while, she writes, it will be easier to make other fitness decisions.

????2. A microresolution is an explicit and measurable action.If, for instance, you resolve to react less defensively to not-so-hot feedback at work, she writes, "you'll need to think about the specific circumstances under which you become defensive, the form your defensiveness takes, and what explicit message you can send yourself" to stop it. The more specific you can make your resolution, in other words, the more effective it will be: "Flexible or fuzzy resolutions, escape clauses, and loopholes", she writes, will just stress you out and make it easy to give up.

????3. A microresolution pays off up front.Human nature being what it is, we crave instant gratification and have trouble caring much about hypothetical rewards that are somewhere in the foggy future. "If your resolution delivers only after months of effort and you quit ahead of time, you end up empty-handed," Arnold notes. "Getting 'paid' up front" -- that is, every time you succeed at one task you've set yourself -- will "leave you eager to nail your next microresolution and its reward."

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