你是否在个人发展中犯了这八个错？

大多数人的自我改善能力很差。即使他们在为变成更好的人而倾尽全力，也会演变成个人发展的可怕轮回——多付出，零收获

It’s not because they’re stupid. It’s not because they’re lazy. It’s definitely not because it’s not possible. It’s because they’re making the mistakes that most people make when they’re trying to change their life for the better. That’s why there’s so many people reading self-help blogs, self-help books, and taking self-help classes and yet so few people making a meaningful and lasting difference.

  这并不是因为他们笨，不是因为他们懒，当然也不是因为他们没有自我完善的可能。这是因为他们正在犯大多数人在试着改善生活时所犯的错。这就是为什么那么多人在看励志博客，读励志书籍，上励志课程，却只有极少数人取得了明显并持久的成果。

So here’s a list of the eight most common (and most damaging) mistakes that people make in personal development. 

  为此，这里有一张列表，它列出了一些在自身发展中，人们最常犯（同样是危害最大）的错误。

Are you guilty of any of these? 

 你犯过这些错吗？

Are You Fixing Your Weaknesses? 

  你在弥补你的缺陷吗？

Don’t you just hate being bad at things? It makes you feel dumb playing tennis when you’ve only ever played against Wii characters. You feel small when someone mentions James K. Polk and expects you to know he was the 11th American president (not that anyone would ever expect that). 

  对于你不擅长的事情你只会感到厌恶吗？如果你只和任天堂里的游戏角色打过网球的话，当你打真网球时会让你觉得自己很笨拙。当有人提到詹姆斯·波尔克，并希望你知道他是第十一任美国总统（从未有人期望过会是那样）时，你会感到自己很渺小。

So it’s natural to focus the majority of your personal development time on fixing your weaknesses. That’s all well and good, but you get a much better return on that time if you focus on improving your strengths. 

   因此，你自然想把主要的个人发展时间用在弥补你的缺陷上。这样做是没错，不过如果你把精力集中在提高你的强项，那么在同样的一段时间里你会获得更好的回报。

Think of it like this. The vast majority of any successes you have in life will be because of your strengths. Your career security will be based on the strengths you bring to the table. You’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule (80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts). That’s what I recommend here: 

    想想看，你在生活中取得的任何成功将主要都来源于你的强项。你的职业安全感将基于你能展现出的能力。也许你听过“二八定律 ”（80%的结果来自20%的努力）。那正是我在这里所推荐的：

Focus the majority of your personal development efforts on your top 20% of skills, strengths, and talents. For the rest of the 80% do what you can to avoid them, delegate them to someone else, or create a system to avoid doing them. If a weakness is preventing you from hitting your goals, then get just good enough so that you can continue to focus on becoming an expert at what you’re good at. 

    把你主要的个人发展努力用在你最好的20%，也就是你的技能，强项和天赋上。剩下的80%要尽可能的避开，把它们委派给别人，或者创建一个系统来避免做这些事情。如果有一个弱项让你无法达到目标，那就尽你所能的做好它就行了，这样便于你能够继续集中精力在你擅长的事上成为专家。

Do You Want to Become “Better”? 

   你想变得“更好”吗？

Why do you focus on personal development? Well, to be a “better” person. To have a “better” life. To have “better” skills. 

   你为何要把精力集中在个人发展上？没错，为了成为一个“更好”的人。为了拥有“更好”的生活。为了掌握“更好”的技能。

...What does “better” mean? 

......“更好”是什么意思呢？

Every sane person on earth wants to be “better” in a bunch of ways. That’s a good thing – we’re ambitious. But “better” is a vague goal. We all know the thing about vague goals – vague goals produce vague results. Or in other words, vague goals don’t produce real results. 

   地球上每一个头脑清醒的人都在用各种方法来变得“更好”。那是件好事 —- 我们有雄心壮志。但是“更好”是一个模糊不清的目标。我们都知道模糊的目标这回事———模糊的目标导致模糊的结果。或者换句话说，模糊不清的目标无法产生实质性的结果。

Your personal development path must have a purpose. There has to be a reason you’re working on whatever it is you want to improve. That’s the only way anything will actually ever happen. Change “better” to something like “know how to build a website so I can share my advice.” That’s how personal development actually happens in the real world. 

  你的个人发展道路必须要有一个目的。无论你想要改善哪一个方面，你都必须要有一个理由。那是让事情真实发生的唯一途径。把“更好”换成“知道怎样建设一个网站来分享我的建议。”这就是让个人发展在现实世界中发生的方法。

Are You Learning Awesome Theories?

  你学过很棒的理论吗？

Theories are awesome and a lot of them are amazing. Seriously. 

  认真的说，理论知识很棒，还有很多是令人惊讶的。

An investment strategy can sky rocket your wealth. A lifestyle design philosophy can get you out of the cubicle. A productivity system can help you get a whole heck of a lot more done. 

  一个投资策略能让你的财富骤增。一种人生方式的设计理念能让你走出房间。一个生产力系统可以帮助你完成更多的工作。

But theories are also like crack or girl scout cookies – they’re addictive. 

 但是理论也像瑕疵和女童子军饼干一样——会让人上瘾。1

Once you’re exposed to a compelling theory or philosophy about something, it’s hard not to try to learn everything about it. Then it’s hard not to look for all the other competing theories or philosophies and learn everything about them. Then it’s hard to not look for comparisons to figure out which one’s best. 

一旦你接触到令人信服的理论或哲学的事却不去学习关于它的一切，是一件很难做到的事。接着，你很难做到不去找寻并学习与之相竞争的其它理论或哲学。再然后就很难不去寻求对比，以此来弄清楚哪一个是最好的。

Worst of all it’s hard to bring any of the theories into real action. 

  最糟糕的是，把任何理论放进实际行动都是很困难的。

It’s helpful to remember this simple concept – “everything that’s not stupid works.” 

  “ 只要是不愚蠢的方法都是好方法 。”记住这个简单的概念是很有帮助的。

For example, there is an infinite number of ways to lose weight – choose from a million diets, exercise programs, supplements, gyms, programs, etc. – but nothing works if you’re doing nothing but researching. 

 打个比方，减肥有无数种方法——精挑细选的食物，各种锻炼方案，不同的补给品，健身房， 计划等等。——但如果你只是去找这些方法而不付诸行动，结果就是一无所成。

It doesn’t matter if you have the #1 possible theory. It’s better to just find a path that’s not stupid and stick to it. (You can always improve it later). Learning theories isn’t personal development. Implementing them is. 

 你是否有一种可行的理论并不重要。去找到一种不愚蠢的方式并坚持它，才是对你更有益的（你要在此后不断完善它）。学习理论并非自身发展，把它们付诸实践才是。

Have You Never Had a Major Failure? 

 你有过严重的失败吗？

Avoiding failure makes you feel successful. After all, failure is bad. Right? 

 避免失败能让你觉得自己很成功。毕竟失败不是件好事，对吧？

Well, kind of. No one should try to fail. That would make you weird. But if you’ve never had a major failure, then you’ve never really tried to succeed. If you’ve got your skin in the game for long enough something will go wrong. Period. 

 是的，可以这么说。没有人应该去尝试失败，那么做会让你显得很奇怪。但是如果你从未有过很严重的失败，那你就没有真的尝试过成功。如果你埋头做一件事情做得太久，就会有问题出现。没错，就是这样。

Don’t believe me? Name one successful person who’s never failed. 

你不信？那你指出一个从未失败过的成功人士。

The strange paradox of it is that you cannot learn much from successes, but the bigger the failure the more you learn. In most aspects of life, people tend to look at the successes and copy them so that they can avoid the failure. The first part is good – copying previous successes is just smart. But you should expect to fail eventually. The only possible way to avoid failing is to not try in the first place. 

这是个奇怪的自我矛盾：你往往从成功中学不到太多东西，却能从越大的失败中学到越多东西。在生活的方方面面中，人们都倾向于朝成功人士看齐并模仿他们，以此来避免失败。这句话的前半部是不错的——复制曾有过的成功经验是很聪明的做法。但你最终还是极可能会失败。可以让你避免失败的唯一方法就是，从一开始就不要尝试。

Work hard for those failures, because that’s the best way possible for you to grow. 

 认真研究那些失败，从中吸取教训，因为那是最有可能让你成长的途径。

Are You Crazy Busy? 

 你忙疯了吗？

Everyone intends to improve themselves, but it’s just damn hard to find the time (see New Years resolutions). 

 人人都打算完善自身，但该死的是很难找到时间（见新年决议 ）。

You got work, family, obligations, travel, chores, and sleep. Who has time to work on themselves? 

 你有工作， 有家庭，有各种义务，你要旅行，要干家务活儿，还要睡觉。谁还有时间来提升自己？

Yep, it’s tough. 

没错，这的确很难。

It’s really got to be a matter of priority. How much of a priority is it that you improve yourself, your skills, and your life? It may be obvious that that’s a top priority for you, but real world implementation may be a bit tricky. Time may only allow you to settle for reading advice, not implementing it. 

 这真的是件很重要的事。完善你自身，提高你的技能以及改善你的生活有多重要呢？对你来说，这可能显然是头等大事，但在现实世界里实施起来可能会有些棘手。时间也许只够你去阅读建议，而不够你把这些建议用来付诸实践。

There’s two solutions: 

这儿有两个解决方法：

First, you can schedule time for whatever kind of personal development you want to focus on. Then you guard that time with your life. 

首先，你可以为任何一种你想要的个人发展来计划时间，计划好之后再誓死遵守它。

Second, if you can’t do that for whatever reason, you need to find ways to incorporate your improvement in other activities you have to do anyway. 

 其次，如果你因为某种理由而做不到第一点，你就需要想办法把你个人发展计划和那些每天无论如何都要做的事情相结合。

Truth be told, you should probably find a way to do both. 

 老实说，也许你该设法做到以上两点。

Did You Choose The Newest and Shiniest Version? 

 你会选择最新最耀眼的版本吗？

It’s easier to think that the newest thing out there is the best. The newest strategy, technique, tactic, idea, book, etc. 

我们很容易就会觉得最新的东西就是最好的东西。最新的方案，技术，策略，观念，书籍，等等。

It’s true with a lot of things – technology and medicine being two obvious examples. It’s not true with a lot of others. 

 对很多事物来说，这的确是事实——技术和医学就是两个很显然的例子。但对于其它的很多东西来说却不然。

Want to get an amazing memory? The best current memory courses are variations on methods from ancient Greece. Want to calculate crazy math problems in your head? India had that figured out about 2,500 years ago. 

 你想要拥有惊人的记忆力吗？当今最好的记忆课程教授的记忆法是从古希腊演变过来的。你想心算那些疯狂的数学题吗？印度人大约在两千五百年前就找到方法了。

We like bells, whistles, and that new car smell, but sometimes we’re missing the old and tested approaches to things. Most personal development is about subjects that are timeless – the mind, the body, the spirit, selling, finances, communication, friendship, love, etc. 

 我们喜欢门铃，汽笛，以及新车里的味道，但是有些时候，我们也会怀念那些古老的经得起考验的方式。大多数的个人发展对象都是永久性的——心灵，身体，精神，销售，财务，交流，友谊，爱情等等。

I guess the point here is no matter what you want to improve about yourself  many people have gone through the same thing. Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be. 

  我猜这里要指出的问题是，不管你想提升你的哪个方面，都有人经历过跟你相同的事情。别把事情搞得太复杂。

Is Your Personal Development for Personal Development’s Sake? 

 你是为了“个人发展”而发展的吗？

If “personal development” doesn’t have a result, then it doesn’t count. 

 如果“个人发展”没有结果，那就不能算发展了。

By“result” I mean a tangible, objective, other-people-can-see-change kind of result. That means you have to get something from your improvement efforts.

 我这里所说的“结果”是指有实质性的，客观存在的，所产生的变化能够被人看出来的结果。那就意味着你必须要从你所作出的自我改善努力中有所收获。

What’s that something. 

  是什么样的收获呢？

Well, if you truly improve yourself then you should see some of the following things come into your life: 

  好吧，如果你真的得到了提升，那么你就能发现以下事情在你生活中发生了：

More money (gasp!) – Yep, if you’re more skilled then you should command a higher income whether your self employed or work for someone else

  更多的钱（吃惊吧！）——没错，不管你是个体营业还是为别人工作，如果你的技术更加熟练了，你就应当得到更高的报酬。

More confidence – You’re more confident when you’re good at something. The more you improve, the more that should happen.

  更多的自信心——当你对某件事情擅长时你会变得更加自信。你自我完善得越好，你擅长的事情就会越多，你的自信心也会随之变得越强。

More influence – The more you improve in a noticeable way, the more others will value your opinion on things

  更大的影响力——你自我提升得越明显，别人就会越重视你对事物的意见。

If you’re not seeing those things, maybe your personal development path isn’t quite on track. Instead, focus your personal development efforts on things that will cause real world effects.

如果你感觉不到这些变化的发生，也许是因为你的个人发展道路还没有走上正轨。那你就要改变方法，把个人发展精力集中到那些能够带来现实世界效应的事情上去。

Do You Love to Read? 

你喜欢阅读吗？

Loving to read is great, but dangerous. 

 爱好阅读是好习惯，但是也是很危险。

It’s dangerous because it takes you to another world. When you’re reading your imagination sparks and you are inspired by great possibilities. The world in your head is fantastic! 

  说它危险是因为阅读会带你进入另一个世界。当你阅读时，你的想象力会被点燃，你也会被无数的可能性所鼓舞。你头脑中的世界是极其精彩的！

...then you go back to the real world. 

.......接着，你回到了真实的世界。

With your personal development, spend maximum 25% of your time reading, learning, and researching. The other 75% (or more) should be spent taking action. 

 对于你的个人发展来说，你最多花25%的时间来阅读，学习和调查研究。其余的75%（或者更多）的时间你该用来采取实际行动。

Let’s be honest, with most things we already know what we need to do, or at least where to start. Wanna be fit? Start with jogging before work and stop eating fast food. Wanna make friends? Start by joining a club or organization. Wanna be productive? Close your email. 

实话实说吧，对于大部分事情我们都已经清楚我们需要做什么，或者至少知道该从哪里开始。想减肥？那就从上班前的慢跑和告别快餐开始。想交朋友？就先从加入一个俱乐部或团体开始。

For something we just don’t know how to do, finding that information is simple – Google it. 

 至于那些我们确实不知道该怎么做的事情来说，寻找它的相关信息十分简单——用谷歌来搜索它。

New information can inspire and motivate, but more often it can derail. So, maximum 25% reading and minimum 75% doing.

  新资讯可以起到激励和鼓舞的作用，但更多时候它都在破坏。因此，你最多花25%的时间阅读，并至少保证75%的时间在付诸行动上。

So Put Yourself Out There.Testing the quality of your personal development efforts can be one of the most powerful things that you can do today.

那就去展现自己吧。去测试你个人发展努力的成效是你现在可以做的最有力的事情。

Making mistakes can be frustrating (especially when it comes to something personal), but identifying those mistakes allows us to improve. Most progress starts by noticing a mistake and deciding to do something differently in the future. 

 犯错会让你感到挫败（特别是在涉及到一些私事的时候），但认识到那些错误能使我们有所改善。大多数的进步都是从发现错误并下决心在将来改掉它开始的。

The worst personal development mistake didn’t make the list. The worst mistake is ignoring or refusing to do anything about failures. It’s turning a blind eye to potential learning opportunities. When that happens, people are doomed to continue running on that personal development hamster wheel. 

我没有把最糟糕的个人发展错误列进表里。最糟糕的错误就是，对待失败采取忽略或拒绝对其采取措施的态度。那就是对待潜在的学习机会视而不见。如果那样做的话，人们就注定要继续个人发展的轮回，没个头了。

I didn’t include it, because folks in that situation will always be stuck. On the other hand, if you’re passionately pursuing improvement and have an open mind to change, you’re almost guaranteed to succeed. 

我没有把它列进表里，因为处于那种情形下的人们总是会陷入困境无法自拔。另一方面，如果你是充满激情去追求改善并抱着开放的心态去改变，那就几乎可以保证你的成功了。

So go out there and become great.

既然如此，就去成为一个更好的人吧。