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In any field, there are a few ideas that are core to understanding everything else. Biology makes little sense without evolution. Physics without symmetries and conservation laws is baffling. All mathematics can be built out of sets. 在任何领域，都有一些思想是理解其他一切内容的核心。如果没有进化思想，生物学就失去了意义；如果没有了对称性与守恒定律，物理学就是一团糟；而所有数学都可以由集合建立起来。 Self-improvement isn’t usually regarded as an intellectual field. It’s mostly an assortment of various gurus and pundits’ suggestions on how you ought to be more successful, happier or wise. Thus it might seem like self-improvement doesn’t really have core ideas at all—just opinions. 自我提升通常不被看作一个知识领域，大多只是专家或者权威人士给出的各种建议，告诉你应该怎样变得更成功、更快乐、更有智慧。因此，自我提升看起来根本不存在真正的核心思想，有的只是看法。 However, I think there are some common themes to the art of living better. These ideas are pervasive, coming up again and again. Even in the writing of people who take a stand against them, their prevalence still requires that they be acknowledged. 然而，我认为对于获得更好的生活这门艺术来说，有一些常见的主题。这些思想是普遍性的，出现了一遍又一遍。即使是持反对立场的人所写的文章，也不得不承认这些思想的普遍存在。 The Core Ideas核心思想1. Habits1. 习惯Nearly all forms of self-improvement first require that you change your behavior. Unless the improvement you’re after is purely mental, you’re going to have to actually do something first. 几乎所有形式的自我提升，都首先要求你改变自己的行为。除非你想要提升的是完全思想性的，否则都必须先真的做些事。  Habits, then, form a central idea in behavior change. Being able to make certain behaviors automatic (or at least, more automatic) is going to help tremendously with any change you might want to make. To get fit you need to have a habit of eating well and exercising. To get rich you need a habit of saving and investing. To have loving relationships you need good habits of communication. 习惯因此构成了行为改变的核心思想。能够让某些行为自动化（或至少更加自动化），对于你想做出的无论什么改变，都将带来巨大的帮助。要拥有好身材，你需要养成健康饮食和定期锻炼的习惯；要变得富有，你需要养成储蓄和投资的习惯；要拥有美好的感情，你需要养成沟通的习惯。 Not only are habits central to self-improvement, but they’re also one of the best studied aspects of psychology. We have countless studies showing how the impact of association, rewards, punishments and contextual cues will have impacts on behavior. 习惯不仅是自我提升的核心，同样也是被研究得最充分的心理学领域之一。有无数研究显示了关联、奖赏、惩罚和情境信息会如何影响行为。 If you’re looking to dive deeper into habits, I recommend: 如果你想要更深入地了解习惯，我推荐：
2. Goal-Setting2. 设置目标How can you reach a destination if you don’t first know what it is? Goal-setting not only involves deciding what you want, but also planning how you should get there. It’s a common theme, even if many people disagree about which aspects are most important. 如果一开始不知道要去哪里，又怎么能到达目的地呢？设置目标不只是决定你想要什么，也包括计划你要如何到达那里。尽管很多人对于哪个最重要莫衷一是，但这依然是一个常见的主题。  Goal-setting has also been studied by psychological research and generally found to be helpful. However, it also seems clear that just having the idea of what you want to achieve usually isn’t enough (although it may be a necessary start). Thus, goal-setting on its own needs to be paired with plans, systems or habits if it is going to be successful. 心理学也研究了目标设置，而且大部分研究发现都很有帮助。不过同样清楚的是，仅仅拥有想要实现什么的想法通常是不够的（尽管这或许是必要的开始）。因此，要产生作用，设置目标本身还必须搭配上计划、体系或习惯。 A good heuristic for goal-setting is that they should be SMART (specific, measureable, attainable, relevant and time-bound). Implementation intentions, formulated as IF... THEN... plans tend to work better than just focusing on an outcome on its own. Planning fallacies also need to be watched for as many goal-setting efforts can be overly optimistic. 一种有用的探索性目标设置方法是，目标需要满足 SMART 原则（具体、可测量、可实现、相关、有时间限制）。表述为如果……那么……形式计划的实施意向，通常比仅仅关注成果本身效果更好。也要当心计划出错的情况，因为很多目标设置的做法都过于乐观了。 Some view the disadvantages of explicit goal-setting to outweigh the benefits. These people either argue for being entirely process oriented and ignoring outcomes, or simply negate the value of achievement itself in favor of different values. 有些人认为明确的目标设置弊大于利。这些人或者主张完全由过程出发而忽视结果，或者否认实现目标本身的价值，而主张其他价值。 If you’re looking to dive deeper into goal-setting, I recommend:如果你想更多了解目标设置，我推荐：
3. Systems3. 体系Systems are tools that structure your behavior and decision with formal rules. A productivity system is one type of system—in this case aimed at helping you get work done by organizing the things that need doing and telling you when to do them. Other systems exist for helping make decisions, managing knowledge or organizing your approach to specific domains of life. 体系是一些工具，通过形式化的规则组织你的行为和决定。生产力体系就是其中一类，它的目的是通过安排各种事项并告诉你什么时间该做什么，来帮助你完成工作。此外还有制定决策、知识管理，或安排生活具体领域中做事方式的体系。  The opposite of systems is an intuition-based or informal approach. What systems often encourage is creating explicit rules or guidelines which will discourage some tendencies you’d like to avoid. Getting Things Done, for instance, is a famous productivity system based on avoiding the tendency to forget what you need to do. 体系的反面是基于直觉的或非形式化的方法。体系通常鼓励建立明确的规则或指南，从而阻止某些你想要避免的倾向。举例来说，尽管去做（GTD）就是一个著名的生产力体系，它所基于的理念是避免忘记需要做什么的倾向。 Systems are often built off of concepts of scientific management and organizational theory, but applied to one’s personal life. Thus business concepts like standard operating procedures, quarterly reviews and key performance indicators get repurposed as self-improvement concepts. 体系通常建立在科学管理或组织理论的概念上，但将它们应用到个人的生活中。因此标准操作程序、季度审核，以及关键业绩指标等商业概念被重新定义成个人提升的概念。 Systems, like goal-setting, also have detractors. Spontaneous, intuitive, creative or emotional approaches to improvement may be suppressed in an overly rigid system. Nonetheless, understanding systems, even if you choose to apply them selectively, is a core concept worth knowing. 与目标设置一样，体系也遭到一些批评。在过度严格的体系中，自发的、直觉的、创造性的或情绪化的提升方法可能会被压制。尽管如此，体系的思想仍是值得了解的核心概念，即使你决定只是有选择地应用。 If you’re looking to dive deeper into systems, I recommend: 如果你想要更深入地了解体系，我推荐：
4. Emotional Self-Regulation4. 情绪的自我管理Much of self-improvement has to deal with managing, guiding or listening to our emotions. Indeed, those who take happiness to be an emotional state, central to our existence, may argue that all self-improvement ultimately is aimed at making us feel better. 大部分自我提升都需要管理、指引或听从我们的情绪。事实上，那些把快乐视为生存之本的情绪状态的人，可能会主张所有自我提升最终的目的都是让我们感觉更好。  Beyond being an end in itself, emotional self-regulation has many important instrumental purposes. Overcoming fears and anxieties represent a huge swath of self-improvement literature. Motivation and willpower overlap here as well, even if they may be better seen as concepts distinct from emotions or subjective feelings. 除了作为目的本身，情绪的自我管理还有很多重要的工具性目的。大量自我提升的文献都与克服恐惧和焦虑有关。这里也涉及动机和意志力，尽管它们可能更适合被视为与情绪或主观感受不同的概念。 Cognitive behavioral therapy, sees thoughts, feelings and behavior as all being part of an interrelated system. The way you think about things affects how you feel, which affects what you do. How you feel, in turn, affects your thoughts and actions. Actions too, with their consequences can impact later feelings (exposure therapy is a clear example of this direction). 认知行为理论认为，思想、感受和行为是一个相互关联的体系的不同组成部分。你看待事物的方式影响了你对它们的感受，进而又影响了你的做法。反过来，你的感受也影响了你的想法和行动。同样，行动的结果会影响你之后的感受（暴露疗法就是这一方向的清晰例证）。 Others argue in favor of listening to emotions more than trying to manage them. In this view, emotions are important signals to tell you about the significance of events, often surpassing your ability to analyze situations rationally. The job, school or relationship you feel bad about might not be good, even if you can’t say why. 另一些人主张更多地倾听情绪，而不是试图管理情绪。在这种观点看来，情绪是重要的信号，告诉你事件的意义，而这通常超出了你对情境的理性分析能力。让你感到糟糕的工作、学校或人际关系可能就是不好的，尽管你说不出为什么。 If you’re looking to dive deeper into emotional self-regulation, I recommend: 如果你想要更深入地了解情绪的自我管理，我推荐：
5. Learning5. 学习Learning is a tricky concept here because there are actually two different senses of the word. The first is a synonym for studying. This is something that matters to students, certainly, but it may not be something that feels central to your life if you’re no longer in school. 学习在这里是个微妙的概念，因为这个词事实上有两个不同的含义。第一个是读书的近义词。当然，这对于学生来说是件重要的事，但如果已经离开学校了，它可能就不是你生活的中心了。  On the other hand, learning is also a basic psychological process. Every time we change from experience, get better at anything or remember something, we’re learning. 另一方面，学习也是一个基本的心理过程。每当我们因为经历做出改变，在某件事上做得更好，或者记住一些事，都是在学习。 In this second sense, learning is a core concept of self-improvement. Like habits, learning has been studied in incredible detail, making it a rich source of research-driven insights into self- improvement. Some might argue that learning is the core of psychology itself. 在第二个意义上，学习是自我提升的核心概念。与习惯一样，学习也得到了惊人详细的研究，为我们基于研究深刻理解自我提升提供了丰富的资料。有些人甚至会说，学习就是心理学自身的核心领域。 I’ve spent more time writing about this core concept than anything else, in part because I feel it has often been neglected in self-improvement, perhaps because many people conflate it with studying. Learning in the first sense, of deliberate studying, is also an important tool simply because it’s the means by which one can understand the other tools better, so I tend to give it priority even if other authors don’t. 我在写作这个核心概念上花的时间比其他任何内容都多，部分是我感到在谈论自我提升时，我们经常忽视了学习，可能是由于许多人混淆了学习与读书。第一个意义上的学习，即细致认真地读书，也是一项重要的工具，因为这是让我们更好地理解其他工具的方式。因此尽管其他作者没有这样做，我还是打算把学习放在重要位置。 If you’re looking to dive deeper into learning, I recommend: 如果你想要更深入地了解学习，我推荐：
6. Values and Meaning6. 价值和意义Most of the core concepts I’ve discussed so far are instrumental, useful for reaching some purpose. However, a core concept of self-improvement is a reflection on those purposes themselves. 到此为止，我讨论的大多数核心价值都是工具性的，可用于实现某个目标。然而，自我提升的一个核心概念是反思那些目标本身。  This typically moves away from psychology and more towards philosophy and religion. What you ought to value in life and how you derive meaning from things are deep questions which we’ve debated for millennia. Even self-improvement itself is a perspective, one for which some pundits argue explicitly against. 这通常偏离了心理学的范畴，而更属于哲学和宗教领域。你在生活中应该看重什么，以及如何从事情中获得意义感，这是我们讨论了上千年的深刻问题。甚至自我提升本身也是其中一个方面，有些专家就明确反对这一做法。 There are two levels that this issue can be approached. The first is to find a system of meaning or values that you want to self-consciously emulate. This could be Stoicism, Buddhism, Christianity or some kind of secular humanism. You might want to consciously inhibit some of your vices and enhance your virtues. You might decide that happiness is the meaning of life or that the purpose of our lives transcends how we feel in the moment. 分析这个问题可以从两个层次入手。第一个层次是找到一个你想要有意识地模仿的意义或价值体系，可以是斯多葛哲学、佛学、基督教，或者某种世俗的人道主义。你可能想要有意识地戒除某些缺点而发扬自己的美德，可能会认定快乐是人生的意义所在，或者人生的目的超越了我们此在的感受。 The second level of this system is to investigate meaning itself. This is a more esoteric job of philosophers, and perhaps too abstract for many people who simply want an answer for how life is to be. But given the plurality of systems which often contradict, understanding meaning and values themselves can often help structure your decision of which to strengthen. 这个体系的第二个层次是考察意义本身。这是哲学家要做的更为艰深的工作，对于大多数只想找到生活答案的人来说，或许过于抽象了。但是考虑到存在着多种经常存在冲突的体系，理解意义和价值本身通常有助于组织你的决定，判断要加强生活中的哪个方面。 The variety of value systems expressed in the former is too broad to give recommendations, but for those looking to think more deeply about the issue of meaning itself I recommend: 前人提出的各种价值体系涉及范围十分广泛，因此难以给出推荐，但对于想要更深入地思考意义问题本身的读者，我推荐：
7. Thoughts and Beliefs7. 想法和信念Thoughts refer to the things you say to yourself in your head. Much mental content isn’t verbal, but our ongoing self-narrative is an important part of both our quality of life and as an instrument to achieving things. 想法指的是你在头脑中对自己说的话。大部分思维内容都不是言语性的，但不间断的自我叙事不仅是决定我们生活质量的重要部分，也是我们做成事情的方式。  What beliefs are precisely (and whether they actually exist) is less precise. Some would classify a belief as a propositional statement in your head, like a little bit of logic with TRUE or FALSE attached. Others would see beliefs as statements of probability (90% TRUE or 54% FALSE). Still others might argue that beliefs don’t really exist in our head at all, but are only inferrable by our behavior. In this sense we act as if we had beliefs, but don’t really have anything corresponding to probabilities or propositions inside our minds. 信念准确来说是什么（以及它们是否真的存在），则是不那么准确的。有人可能会把信念看作头脑中一种提议性的陈述，带有几分真或假的逻辑。有人可能把信念看作一种概率性的陈述（90%为真或54%为假）。还有人可能指出，信念根本不是真实存在于你头脑中的，而仅仅只能从我们的行为来推断。在这个意义上，我们表现得好像自己有信念，但其实头脑中并不存在什么概率性或提议性的东西。 Regardless of the exact format of thoughts and beliefs, they form a core concept in self- improvement for multiple reasons. 无论思想和信念的准确形式是什么，它们都构成了自我提升的核心概念。原因有很多。 The first is that beliefs and thoughts may become self-fulfilling prophecies. Many argue that since your thoughts and beliefs have a causal impact on your behavior, and thus your results, you may get into cycles of self-limiting beliefs that become true only because you believe in them. 首先，信念和想法可能成为自我提升的预言。很多人指出，由于思想和信念会影响行为，进而影响结果，因此你很可能进入一个循环，自我限定只有当你相信某个信念时，它才会成真。 Thoughts can also create emotional feelings as well, and thus we may want to control our thoughts even if we don’t care so much about changing our external outcomes. The constant worrier may have a nagging voice in her head that says her success never counts. 思想也会产生情绪感受，因此即使当我们并不在乎外部结果的改变时，可能也会想要控制自己的思想。爱担忧的人头脑中可能有个声音一直在说，她的成功都不算数。 The importance of thoughts and beliefs ranges depending on whom you ask. For some, beliefs have mystical powers that transcend a physically justifiable version of reality. To believe something is, in a certain sense, to literally make it true. Others reject the supernatural, but argue that beliefs still highly constrain our attention, making self-fulfilling prophecies frequent. On the opposite extreme are those that argue for a mostly passive role of beliefs, recording the world but not much changing outcomes. To those people, having true beliefs matters more than believing things to make them true. Regardless of where you sit in this spectrum, the content of our thoughts and beliefs is central to self-improvement. 思想和信念的重要性，取决于你问的是谁。对于一些人来说，信念具有神奇的力量，超越了物理可以解释的现实。在某种意义上，相信某件事就是真正使它成为真的。另一些人拒绝这种超自然的解释，但认为信念依然高度限制了我们的注意力，从而经常造成自我实现的预言。与此相反的人主张信念大多数时候只是扮演了被动的角色，它们记录世界但不会改变多少结果。对这些人而言，拥有真正的信念比相信某件事并让它们成真更重要。不论你处于这个光谱的什么位置，我们思想和信念的内容都对自我提升至关重要。 If you want to go deeper into this topic, I recommend: 如果你想更深入地了解这个话题，我推荐：
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