Run that marathon! Write that novel! How to make 2022 the year you finally smash your goals
跑马拉松！写小说！如何让2022成为你最终攻破你目标的一年
Every year millions of us resolve to learn a new language, get super fit or master a new skill ... then never start. How can we make it happen? Experts explain all
每一年我们中的数百万人都下定决心去学一门语言，变得超级健康或者精通一种新技能......然后从未开始过。怎样才能实现它呢？专家介绍一切
This year, my new year resolution is to finish the first draft of a novel. It’s a realistic goal – I’m not saying it has to make money, or even be any good. I just want the words on the page, even if all they do then is languish for ever in a folder.
今年，我的新年决心时完成一本小说的初稿。这是一个很现实的目标——我不是说它必须赚钱，甚至是什么好东西。我只是想让文字在页面上，即使它们做所的只是在文件夹里面吃灰。
Well, I say that’s what I want – but of course finishing a draft was my new year resolution last year, and the year before that, and before that. In truth, I’ve been pushing back this particular ambition since 2017.
好吧，我说这就是我想要的——但当然完成一个草稿是我去年的新年决心，前一年，以及前一年之前。实际上，我自从2017年就一直在推迟这个特别的野心。
Maybe for you, it’s running a marathon – or a 5k. It might be losing a particular amount of weight, or completing a course in yoga or a foreign language. It could be a time-intensive project such as making a quilt or researching your family history.
可能对于你来说，新年决心是跑一场马拉松——或者一个5公里。它可能是减掉一部分体重，或者完成一门瑜伽或是外语的课程。它可能是一个耗时的工程，比如制作被褥或者调查你的家庭史。
Many of us have these mid-to long-term goals that are ambitious, but (in theory) achievable with the requisite investment of time and effort. I’m going to guess that many other people also have not made a start – even if last year’s lockdowns meant that they, like me, had endless hours to fill.
我们中的大部分人都有这些野心勃勃的中长期目标，但是（理论上）通过必需的时间和精力投入是可以实现的。我猜别的许多人也没有开始——即使去年的封闭意味着他们和我一样，有无穷的时间去填补。
So why do we put off these goals, and how can we make 2022 the year we finally attain them? I spoke to experts to find out.
所以为什么我们推迟这些目标，我们怎样才能让2022成为最终实现这些目标的一年呢？我与专家们对话来找到答案。
Focus on the process – not perfection
专注于过程 —— 而不是完美
“It’s a very human problem,” says Fuschia Sirois when I describe my situation. A professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield, Sirois studies procrastination and perfectionism – and their toll on wellbeing. She says both factor into our failure to get started on projects.
“这是一个非常人性化的问题，”当我描述我的情况时，Fuschia Sirois说道。谢菲尔德大学心理学教授，Sirois研究拖延症和完美主义——以及它们对幸福的影响。她说，这两个都是我们没能使计划开始的原因。
“When you’re working towards something and you’re not quite there, anything is possible; you can imagine how successful it will be,” says Sirois. “But we know that’s not what happens in real life.”
“当你没有完全向着某件事努力时，一切皆有可能；你可以想象它会有多么成功，”Sirois说。“但我们知道那没有发生在现实生活中。”
In other words, just taking a step towards my goal will be a sobering reminder of the long road ahead. The story I’m capable of writing may not be bad, but it will, inevitably, be unlike how I have imagined it, and that realization alone can throw us off, says Sirois. “We preserve that goal when we never get started – it just becomes that abstract thing, out there.”
换句话来说，只要向着我的目标迈出一步，就会清醒地提醒我前方漫长的道路。我能写出的故事可能还不错，但它不可避免地会与我想象的不同，而仅凭这一认识就可以让我们丧气，Sirois说。“当我们在没开始的时候保留这个目标——它就变成了那个抽象的东西，就在那里。”
So willpower and a plan are not necessarily enough. Sirois’s research shows that we procrastinate on a task to avoid difficult emotions. “We are not rational beings. Our fears, anxieties, personal internal struggles, the negative scripts we have about ourselves, our self-esteem – all these things come into motion.” Procrastinating can then add another layer of self-criticism – while perfectionism can trick us into thinking that there’s an optimum time to start.
所以意志力和计划并不一定是足够的。Sirois的研究表明，我们拖延任务是为了避免复杂的情绪。“我们不是理性的人。我们的恐惧，焦虑，内心的挣扎，我们的自尊——所有的这些事情在起作用。”拖延随后会施加另一层自我批评——当完美主义让我们错以为有一个开始的最佳时机的时候。
The paralysis Sirois describes is painfully familiar. I couldn’t count the number of weeknights and weekends that I’ve felt ambient guilt for not writing, even though I had not planned to do so.
Sirois所说的瘫痪实在是刻在DNA里的熟悉。我不知道有多少个工作日的夜晚和周末因为没有动笔而内疚，尽管我没有计划去做这些东西。
Sirois suggests, instead, that I try drilling down into these emotional blocks. For instance, they could represent my being critical of myself, which I can meet with self-compassion – or my uncertainty about the task, calling for research.
相反，Sirois建议我尝试深究这些情绪障碍。比如，它们可以代表我对自己的批评，我可以用自我关心来匹配——或者我任务的不确定，需要加以研究。
“It’s easy to blame the plan. It’s much harder to say: ‘I don’t know how to manage my emotions’,” says Sirois. Part of the problem, she says, is that we find it hard to accurately forecast our emotional states, meaning we can overstate the struggle of working towards our goal or the satisfaction we will feel achieving it – or both.
“很容易归罪于这个计划。也很难去说：‘我不知道怎么去控制我的情绪’，Sirois说道。她说，我们发现一部分问题是很难准确地预测我们的情绪状况，这样意味着我们会夸大向目标奋斗的努力或者我们实现目标后的满足——也可能两者都有。
“What we learn about ourselves along those longer journeys such as running a marathon or writing a novel, how we build our skills, the relationships we make and strengthen: that is actually what makes the experience much more rich and rewarding than we could ever imagine – but we tend to forget these things.”
“我们从那些类似跑马拉松或者写小说这样比较长的旅途中认清我们自己，我们是怎样培养技能的，我们建立并且巩固之间的关系：这实际上让经历比我们想象的更加丰富和有益——但我们往往会忘记这些事情。”
The solution, says Sirois, is to seek meaning from the process, not the outcome. A recent study showed that people who thought about why their goal was important to them spent much less time procrastinating than those who only thought about how good it would feel to achieve it.
Sirois说，解决办法是在过程中寻找意义，而不是从结果中寻找已经。一份近日的研究显示，思考为什么目标对自己很重要的人，比那些只考虑实现目标的感觉有多棒的人拖延的时间要少很多。
If I thought my latest chapter was bad, she suggests that I could reframe it to myself as “I’m becoming a better writer”. Someone training for a marathon might focus on keeping fit, spending time with friends, or following in family members’ footsteps.
如果我觉得我的最新章节不好的话，她建议我可以换个角度将其理解为自己像“正变成一个更好的作家”一样。有人练习马拉松可能是为了保持健康、与朋友一起消磨时光、或者是跟着家人亦步亦趋。
“You can look at the struggles you’re experiencing in a broader perspective, to see what it means in terms of your own personal growth,” says Sirois.
“你可以从更开阔的角度看待你所经历过的挣扎，看看它在你个人成长方面的意义，”Sirois说。
But it’s tough, even for the experts. When she was on deadline for her recent audiobook, Do It Now: Overcoming Proscrastination, Sirois says, “it took me for ever to get started”.
但这很难，甚至对专家来说也是一样。当她在她最近的有声书《Do It Now: Overcoming Proscrastination》到了截止日期时，Sirois说，“我花了很长时间才堪堪开始”。
Pay yourself
自己付费
Katy Milkman, a behavioural scientist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of How to Change, suggests the barrier to making progress is often our bias towards feeling good now.
Katy Milkman，宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院的行为学科学家，同时也是《How to Change》的作者，他认为进步的阻碍往往是我们目前感觉良好的错觉。
“It may not be that pleasant, in the moment, to achieve that long-term goal,” she says. “You know you should, you know that you will be glad when you have – but each time you sit down, there’s something more tempting or proximate that is taking your attention away.”
“为了实现这个长期目标，目前可能并不令人愉悦，”她说。“你知道你该做什么，你也知道当你实现它时会高兴——但是每当你坐下，会有某些更诱人或更直接的东西来转移你的注意力。”
One way to overcome this is by linking the task to something pleasurable – for instance, restricting our favourite snacks or tea to writing sessions or watching TV only when on the treadmill. Milkman mentions a student who let herself light a scented candle only when she was working on her dissertation.
克服这种问题的一种方式是将任务与令人愉悦的事情联系起来——例如，把我们最喜欢的零食或茶限制在写作时间，或者只在跑步机上看电视。Milkman提到一个学生，她只在写自己论文的时候点一根香薰蜡烛。
It would have to be a pretty special scented candle, I say. “I agree,” says Milkman. “That’s not the thing for me.” Instead, she has beloved audiobooks that she uses to motivate herself for workouts.
我说，这必然是一个精妙的香薰蜡烛。“我同意，”Milkman说。“那不适合我。”相反，她用她心爱的有声书来激励自己去锻炼。
Another way is to use cash. Milkman recently conducted a “megastudy” of more than 60,000 US gym members, which found that this worked. Awarding reward points (equivalent to only 9¢ or about 6½p) to people who returned to the gym after missing a planned workout increased visits by about 16% compared with the baseline offering. Extending a bigger reward (points worth $1.75) for every workout was almost as effective, increasing visits by about 14%.
另一种方法是使用现金。Milkman最近牵头了一个多于60000美国健身房会员的“超级研究”，研究发现这是有效的。奖励积分（仅仅等同于9美分或者大约6.5便士）给错过规律锻炼后又重回健身房的人们，相较于访问量基线增加了约16%。后续给每次锻炼提供更大的奖励（价值1.75美元的积分）几乎同样有效，增加了大约14%的访问量。
So, if you want to run a marathon, try paying yourself a pound for every day you stick to your training plan. That strategy can be applied as the stick, not just the carrot, says Milkman: ask a loved one to charge you for every run you miss. That also adds an extra layer of accountability.
所以，如果你想去跑马拉松，试着为自己坚持训练计划的每一天付一磅。这招可以作为大棒吗，而不是萝卜，Milkman说：让一位家人在你每次不跑步的时候罚款。这也增加了一个额外的负责方。
If you don’t want to burden friends with this, there are services that automate it. Beeminder.com, for instance, plots your progress towards a quantifiable goal on a graph. When you cross to the wrong side of your trend line, Beeminder charges you.StickK.com likewise leverages the “psychological power of loss aversion” to drive behaviour change, charging you when you break the terms of your “commitment contract”.
如果你不想因为这点事麻烦家人们，这有些托管服务。比如说，Beeminder.com将你向着可量化的目标的进展绘制在图表上。当你穿过你的走向线到的错误一侧时，Beeminder会向你收费。StickK.com同样充分利用了“厌恶损失的心理力量”以驱动习性改变，当你违反了你的“合约守则”条款时向你收费。
According to Beeminder, you might find this strategy effective if there is “anything you know you should do, you really do want to do, you know for certain you can do, yet that, historically, you don’t do”. Also, if you are a “nerdy, lifehacking data freak”.
按照Beeminder的说法，如果“你知道你要做的所有事，你真的想去这么做，你知道你确实可以做到，但以前你从没做过”你可能会发现这个策略十分有效。同样，如果你是一个“书呆子，生活数据黑客怪”。
Sounds like me. I stop short of signing up, for now, but I think this would work better for me than a scented candle.
像我一样。我尚未报名，但我觉得对我来说这比香薰蜡烛要有用。
Stop daydreaming
别做白日梦
One of the most common strategies for success is to visualise it – picturing yourself crossing the finish line with a personal best, or seeing your bestseller on shelves. But, says Gabriele Oettingen – a professor of psychology at New York University and the University of Hamburg, and author of Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation – this could actually be counterproductive.
成功的最常见的一个策略就是让它可视化——想象一下你在你个人最好的成绩下通过终点线，或者在货架上看到你的畅销书。但是，Gabriele Oettingen——纽约大学和汉堡大学的心理学教授，也是《Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation》的作者——说道，这实际上可能适得其反。
Over many studies, her research has established an unexpected but powerful correlation between positive thinking and poor performance. “The more positive a daydream about the future, the less I put in effort to actually realise it,” Oettingen explains over Zoom from New York.
在许多研究中，她的调查建立了在积极思考与表现不佳之间一种出人意料却强有力的相关性。“白日梦与未来的相关性越强，我在真正实现它而投入的精力就越少，”Oettingen在《Zoom from New York》上解释道。
In other words, fantasising about our goals makes us feel good in the short term – to the point of lowering our blood pressure – but it saps us of the energy we need to take action. “People feel accomplished,” says Oettingen. “Like they’re already there.”
换句话说，对目标的幻想会使我们在短期内感觉良好——因为降低了我们的血压——但它会消耗我们行动所需的精力。
Worryingly, Oettingen suggests, this inaction could over time even lead to depression, with a correlative link established between fantasising about the future and a more negative mood.
Oettingen表示，令人担忧的是，这种不作为随着时间的发展甚至会导致抑郁，在对未来的幻想与更加消极的情绪之间存在关联。
So, instead of simply visualising, Oettingen advocates what she calls “mental contrasting”: not just fantasising about success but comparing your daydream with reality to reveal what, specifically, is holding you back from achieving it. Once you understand clearly the obstacles standing in your way, you can plan to overcome them with an “if it’s this then I do that” plan. For example, my issue is that I prioritise work over writing my novel. So I could resolve to write fiction first thing in the morning, before I check my work email. Or if my goal was to jog in the evenings, but I lacked the motivation at the end of the workday, I could start small by putting on my running shoes before I clocked off – helping me over the first hurdle.
所以，Oettingen所言的“心理对比”并不是空想：不仅幻想成功而且将白日梦与现实做对比针对性地去揭露出什么拖了你实现目标的后腿。一旦你搞清楚了挡在你路上的绊脚石，你就可以采取一个“如果该这样，那我就去这样做”的计划去克服它。比如说，我的问题是我将我工作的优先级置于写小说之前。所以我可以决定早上的第一件事是去写小说，然后再查看我的工作邮件。或者若是说我的目标是今晚去慢跑，但我在工作日的结束阶段缺乏动力，我可以在下班前穿上我的跑鞋，从细微处着手——帮助我克服第一个障碍。
Oettingen dubs this approach “Woop” – wish, outcome, obstacle, plan – and says it works for just about any behaviour change, from creating healthy habits to improving relationships and academic performance. (There are free resources at woopmylife.org, and an app.)
Oettingen给这个法子命名为“Woop”——希望、战胜、险阻、计划——并表示它几乎适用于任何习惯的改变，从养成健康的习惯到改善人际关系和学习成绩。（这里有免费的资源在woopmylife.org，和一个app。）
Once you have nailed down what is holding you back, you will find that you are energised to work towards your goal – or that you aren’t as invested in it as you thought. In that case, Oettingen says, you can let go of this dream without guilt.
一旦你确定是什么脱了你的后腿，你就会发现你开始激情四射地向着目标努力——或者并没有想象的那么投入。若是这样的话，你可以不带有负罪感地放弃这个梦想，Oettingen说。
You could well find out that your goal was something you thought you should achieve, she says, because it is socially desirable or something your family and friends want. “By really looking at the obstacle, I will understand what to do to overcome it – I will also understand if the obstacle is too costly, there is not enough time, or it is simply not surmountable,” she says. “And then, with good conscience and full consciousness, I will simply get out and devote myself to more promising, feasible futures … Mental contrasting is a way to clean up your life.”
你可能会发现你的目标是某些你认为你应该实现的东西，她说道，因为它是社会认可的或是你的家庭和朋友所期望的。“通过真正地凝视障碍，我会明白该怎么做来战胜它——我也会明白这个障碍是否是代价太大，时间不够充足，亦或是单纯的无法解决，”她说道。“之后，凭着问心无愧和整体的认知，我会干脆地离开，投身于更有希望的、更可行的未来......心理对比是一种整理你生活的方式。”
And with that, Oettingen articulates the uneasy thought I have every time another new year rolls around without a draft done: how much can I really want to write this novel, if I still haven’t finished it?
在此之后，Oettingen明确回答了我每次新年到来时都没有完成草稿的担忧：如果我还是没能完成它，到底我有多想写这本小说？
Test your goals
测试你的目标
Dave Evans was an early employee at Apple under Steve Jobs, and led the design of its first mouse. Now – as co-leader of Stanford University’s Designing Your Life course, and as co-author (with his boss Bill Burnett) of the bestseller of the same name – he teaches a practical approach to problem-solving. “We’re the get-you-unstuck guys,” he says cheerfully over Zoom from his office in sunny California.
Dave Evans是乔布斯手下苹果的一名早期员工，主导了它第一款鼠标的设计。现在——作为斯坦福大学“设计你的生活”课程的联合负责人，以及同名畅销书的合著者（和他的老板Bill Burnett）——他教授解决问题的实际方法。“我们是帮你解惑的人，”他在阳光灿烂的加州办公室用ZOOM高兴地说道。
What I am grappling with, Evans tells me, is known as an “anchor problem” – in other words I am stuck on only one solution to my goal, which makes it “either impossible, or incredibly difficult to reach”..
Evans告诉我，我正困扰着的东西被称为“锚点问题”——也就是说我固执于一种解决方法来实现目标，这使得它“要么不可能实现，要么很难实现”......
Evans suggests a spot of reverse engineering – that I try reframing my problem by picturing myself six months after I’ve finished my draft. Why, specifically, am I happy? How is my life different, or better? “The first thing you have to do is be really empathetic with yourself, and with the person you think you’re trying to be.” From there, he says, you can work backwards.
Evans建议来点逆向工作——我尝试想象我六个月后完成我的草稿的画面来重新审视我的问题。为什么呢？具体点说，我快乐吗？我的生活有了怎样的不同呢，有更好一点吗？“你要做的第一件事就是真正地感受你自己，以及你认为你想要成为的人。”从这里开始，你可以反向思考。
It might be that what future Elle wants, more than a finished draft, is to have a regular practice of fiction-writing – and I (she?) can work towards that without needing 80,000 words to show for it, Evans points out. “Give yourself a chance at succeeding,” he says.
可能这就是Elle所希望的那样，不仅仅是一份草稿，而是养成一个写小说的习惯——并且我（她？）可以朝着这方面努力而无需80000字来展示它，Evans提示道。“给你自己一个成功的机会，”他说。
“One of the biggest problems psychologically with the grand goal is unattainability. It’s incredibly de-energising – people give up. So set the bar low: ‘What if I wrote for a week? I’m not writing a novel, I’m writing a chapter.’ Then do it again. Give yourself a chance at succeeding,” says Evans.
“远大的理想在心理上最大的问题之一是难以实现。这样非常打击人的激情——从而放弃。所以把门槛设低一点：‘我写一个星期怎么样？我没写一本小说，我只在写一章。’之后再去做它。“给你自己一个成功的机会，”他说。
He calls this prototyping: exploring different paths and possibilities through defined experiments. “Before you run a marathon, try a couple of 10ks,” he suggests. Not just for practice, but because you may find that achievement is enough, or that you don’t enjoy running enough to do a full marathon.
他称这个原型为：通过预定义的实验来探索不同路径和可能性。“在你跑马拉松之前，尝试跑几个10千米，”他建议道。不仅仅是为了练习，还因为你可能发现成绩达标了，或者你并不喜欢跑完全程马拉松。
The flexibility helps to ground your goal in reality, Evans says – to connect with your actual motivation, and confront the inevitable cost of pursuing it at the expense of other goals. “Many people who have this goal – the book, the marathon, the peak, ‘gotta lose 50lb’ – have almost no idea at all what’s involved.”
这种灵活性可以帮助你将目标落在实地，Evans说——去连接你真正的动力，并正视以其他目标为代价来追求它的不可避免的成本。“很多人都有这样一个目标——书、马拉松、山顶、‘必须减重15磅’——他们几乎完全不知道要面对什么。”
Some may even be in a “long-term, nostalgic relationship” with their fantasy, says Evans. “But design always starts with reality.”
Evans说，一些人可能甚至和他们的幻想保持“长期的、念念不忘的关系”。“但计划总是从现实开始。”
If you revisit your goal and find it is no longer relevant, you can still honour it as something that was significant to your past self, which has steered you this far and from which you can now move on.
如果你重新审视你的目标，发现他不再适合了，你仍可以像某些过去对你意义重大的东西一样尊重它，它曾引领你走了这么远，而现在你可以继续前进了。
People who test their “grand goal” report feeling two things, says Evans: “They feel more hopeful – and they feel it’s doable.” I assure him that I’ll check back in next year. Then, that night, I write a scene: messy, not beautiful, but words on a page.
尝试“宏伟的目标”的人们反馈出两件事，Evans说：“他们感到更有希望——他们认为这是可行的。”我向他保证我明年再回来看看。之后，那天晚上，我写下一个画面：凌乱的、不优美的、但确实在页面上的文字。
—— 本文译自卫报，仅用于学习和交流目的