# Why is it that most people's diligence is completely ineffective

By [拖拉机](https://paragraph.com/@0xfce8e65e66cab8e8a93803ff8a849059aad8fb0a) · 2022-06-01

---

1.  The poison of diligence Since my elders were engaged in the bodybuilding industry, I have been in the gym for a long time since I was 11 years old, and I still keep regular training. If a person is willing to go to the gym for exercise, does he have some different characteristics than others? The conclusion of my observation is diligence. The requirements of genes for human beings are: do not move and save energy. A person who insists on going to the gym needs to consume a lot of energy, which is against the nature of genes. If this group of people are not diligent, I certainly disagree. However, most people's diligence in fitness is completely ineffective. The measure of fitness effectiveness is body. If you often go to the gym, you can observe some phenomena. The male students with strong physique usually do not train for more than 1 hour. Only one major muscle group is trained at a time, and one muscle group does 3 movements. One action is repeated in 4 groups, 8-12 in each group, and they leave after training. Boys with poor stature, fat and thin, spend a long time in training. They practice many muscle groups, many groups and many times at a time. I often see some big boys do 10kg bench press. Once they lie down, they do 30. They can't get up when they are tired. They come back after a while. 15 minutes have passed and they haven't finished practicing. I also often see some fat girls walking on the treadmill for an hour, or jogging for 40 minutes, chatting while running, and doing sit ups for half an hour after chatting. They don't do anaerobic exercise for two hours. Most people's training is in the above two cases. Sorry, this is invalid. As a comparison, observe the trainers who have good figure. They never chat during training. The rest interval between groups is basically 30 seconds to 60 seconds. They do not wander in each action, and achieve the most standard. Their expressions are calm, they gasp for breath at every breath, their movements are not wordy, they do not practice their parts much, and they leave after practice. In contrast, this group of people are not diligent. Why is it that most people's training is ineffective? Let's talk about fitness theory. The principle of muscle growth is simply: Demolition - reconstruction. Every time you lift a dumbbell, the muscle fibers will be torn. After training, you can take protein to repair the muscle. The training weight is not up to standard, and the number of groups is not enough, which can not effectively stimulate muscle growth. The boy mentioned above was doing bench press because he didn't have enough weight. In fact, he was doing aerobic training and couldn't increase his muscles. The latter girl chose jogging and sit ups. Jogging can reduce fat to a certain extent, but the problem with only doing aerobic exercise is that exercise consumes not only fat, but also muscle. The decline of muscle rate will lead to the reduction of basic metabolism, thus breaking the balance of daily (energy input - energy output = net calories). In the long run, not only can she lose weight, but also she is likely to rebound. In addition, sit ups can not reduce the meat on the stomach, and local fat reduction is not feasible. If she goes on a diet at the same time, it will cause the brain to raise the weight set point, resulting in an irreversible weight rebound. The fixed cost of the gym is very high, and the capacity is limited, but it can still be profitable, because 90% of the members will not come for a period of time after paying the fees. During this period, they sent a lot of fitness photos to the circle of friends, made a strict fitness plan, strictly controlled diet and even diet, and trained for two hours. After a period of time, neither their weight nor body shape changed, and they also sprained their waist and worn their knees. The way of heaven doesn't pay for diligence. Diligence is ineffective. This is true of those who fail in the gym. If you open your eyes, I find this phenomenon everywhere. Lixiaolai found such contradictions in the students. The strange phenomenon that many students are "both diligent and lazy" comes from their feelings of "time pressure". The panic that "there is no time" or "there is not enough time" makes them extremely diligent. Even if it is only a false "diligence", it can make them want to forget to eat and sleep. The same feeling makes them always look for shortcuts, which is called "improving efficiency", but in fact they think "it's best to do nothing". I have done a lot of marketing training in the company, and I have also found such a phenomenon. Some colleagues have joined the company late and have little experience, but after only oneortwo trainings, the level of planning case is close to or even higher than that of old colleagues. The old colleagues are not industrious. They have participated in every training and completed the case disassembly and knowledge sorting after each class, but the result is still that "heaven does not pay for diligence". Let's take another look at the hard hit area - the entrepreneurial circle. Open up any CEO's circle of friends, and you will find that they all have insomnia, work overtime, meet people, have meetings, take group photos, and think. There is no doubt about the diligence of entrepreneurs, but I was stunned when I saw the death list in the 846 start-ups financed in round a last year, and now they are almost over. I remembered what Lei Jun said. Don't use tactical diligence to cover up strategic laziness. Nokia is the worst victim of tactical diligence. (the subversive innovation theory can explain this conclusion well, and the space is limited.) We didn't do anything wrong, but somehow we lost—— JOMA Ollila, CEO of Nokia In short, I will not kill the poison of diligence. I began to reflect, why do we take diligence as the default option, even though the default option has obvious boundaries?
    
2.  Antidote Psychologists have made in-depth research on people's attitudes towards "change" and "invariance" when facing problems, as well as how problems are formed, why they persist, and how they are broken through and solved. They have put forward two concepts: First order change: the change that occurs in a system, and the system itself remains unchanged. For example, people who have nightmares can do many things in their dreams - run, hide, fight, shout, etc. - but no matter how they change these behaviors, they can't stop the nightmares. The second order change: the change takes place outside the system. The premise of controlling the whole system changes, making the system change to a completely different state, that is, the change is almost like a quantum transition. For example, wake up from a dream. The second order change is often the key to solving problems. Take the fitness problem mentioned above as an example to analyze the problem formation and solutions. Question 1: how to grow the chest muscle? Case 1: the big boy did 10kg bench press. Once he lay down, he did 30. When he was tired, he couldn't get up. After recovering for a while, he did it again. After 15 minutes, he hasn't finished practicing. Obviously, the big boy wants to have long chest muscles. His thinking path is: long chest muscles - you must practice your chest - bench press is easy to learn, so you can use bench press - your chest muscles should be big, of course, you should practice more - you should practice every day, and you should work harder than those big men. Such a thinking path naturally leads to diligent training, which belongs to the first order change. Question 1: how to lose weight? Case 2: the fat girl walks fast on the treadmill for an hour or jogs for 40 minutes, chatting with the people nearby while running, and then does sit ups for half an hour after chatting. She does not do anaerobic for two hours. The fat girl wants to be thin. Her thinking path is: I want to be thin - open my legs - run to lose weight - the more I run, the more fat I consume - more sit ups should be able to slim my stomach - diet, so that fat consumption is faster. Similarly, this also belongs to the first order change. How to find the second order change? A principle of the second order change: the application scope of the second order change aims at the solutions to the problems in the first order change; Because from the point of view of the second order change, these solutions are the key to the problem. For the above two cases, they use diligence to solve problems (not strong enough, not thin enough). Diligent exercise is their solution, and diligence needs to make the second order change. Four steps to change:
    
3.  Clearly define the problem in specific terms.
    
4.  Explore the solutions that have been attempted so far.
    
5.  Have a clear definition of the specific changes you want to achieve.
    
6.  Develop and implement a plan that will produce this change. Follow the above four steps to make a derivation. Question 1: how to grow the chest muscle? The first step is to clearly define the problem in specific words: how does the pectoral muscle grow? Under what circumstances? Under what circumstances does it not grow?. The second step, the solution that has been used at present - diligent exercise, is exactly where the problem lies. We should resolutely abandon it. The third step is to have a clear definition of the specific changes you want to achieve: I want to increase the dimension and density of the chest muscles. Step 4: in order to achieve "I want to increase the dimension and density of the chest muscle", I must know "how does the chest muscle grow? Under what circumstances does it grow? Under what circumstances does it not grow?". Then there are two implementation plans: 1. Ask the fitness coach to teach you. 2. Self study fitness theory. These two schemes can be said to be the second order change. The solution to long chest muscles and weight loss is not to exercise hard, but to learn fitness theory, whether he teaches or self-study. I chose the second plan. Use the above example to explain why diligence is ineffective, and explain the use of "second order change".
    
7.  Diligent correct posture It is interesting that diligence is indeed the first solution that most people think of when they encounter problems. Persistence leads to success. Doing more and talking less. Executive power is greater than everything. This is the correct norm, but there must be a prerequisite. According to the theory of second order change, I make a division of applicable categories for diligence: When solving problems, diligence is only effective under the guidance of the second order change. It coincides with the conclusion of cognitive psychologist Stanovich: Smart people do well only when they are told what to do. Today's diligence has become very cheap. In the circle of friends, it has been proved that diligence does not need any cost. It is not easy to work overtime, hard, hard, hard work, plan and chicken soup. The circle of friends is full of diligence, but the correct posture of diligence is very few. Don't just work hard in your circle of friends.

---

*Originally published on [拖拉机](https://paragraph.com/@0xfce8e65e66cab8e8a93803ff8a849059aad8fb0a/why-is-it-that-most-people-s-diligence-is-completely-ineffective)*
