What are the best tricks to keep yourself motivated?

最好的保持积极性的技巧有哪些？

 In 2009, Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson made a surprising discovery in the science of motivation.She conducted a series of studies where she asked participants to solve a set of puzzles and problems.In one group — the “be-good” group — participants were told that their score reflected their “conceptual and analytical abilities.”They should try to solve as many problems as possible and aim for a high score to demonstrate how good they were.

 2009年，海蒂博士在积极性的研究中有惊人的发现。 她指导了一系列研究，研究中让参与者解决一系列的谜题和难题。其中一组，优秀的一组，参与者被告知他们的分数会反映他们的概念分析能力。他们需要解决尽可能多的难题，目标是更高的分数，从而证明他们有多棒。

 In another group — the “get-better” group — participants were told that each problem was a “training tool” and that they ought to “take advantage of this valuable learning opportunity” to improve their problem-solving skills. For some participants in each group, Halvorson also increased the difficulty level by introducing a few challenges She interrupted participants to use up some of their allotted time. She threw in extra, unsolvable problems to frustrate them, without telling participants that the problems were unsolvable..

 另一组，“变得更好”组，参与者被告知，他们的每一个难题是训练自己的工具，他们应该利用好这次有价值的学习机会来提高他们解决难题的能力。对于每个组的参与者，哈弗尔森也会用新的难题来增加难度。她干扰参与者使用他们的指定时间。她不断用额外的，难以解决的难题让他们感到沮丧，也不告诉参与者这些难题本身是无解的。

 What surprised Halvorson was how the two groups dealt with the challenges. The ones in the “get-better” group remained unfazed and solved as many as problems in the challenging conditions as the easy ones.They stayed motivated and kept trying to learn. The ones in the “be-good” group, however, were so demoralized when they faced the challenges and obstacles that they solved substantially fewer problems than those who didn’t have to face them.And those differences happened just because of how the initial goal was framed.

 哈佛尔森对两组参与者如何应对难题感到很吃惊。 变得更好组的参与者并没有表现出苦恼，表现很轻松的尽可能多的解决难题。他们一直很积极，不停地在学习。然而优秀组的成员当面对挑战和困难时却很失落，他们大体上比不需要面对这些难题的人解决的问题更少。发生的这些区别恰恰是因为初始目标确定所致。

Define Mastery Goals, Not Performance Ones, For Difficult Problems

明确要掌握的目标，不是执行类的目标，而是更加困难的难题。

 Halvorson’s experiments illustrate the difference between a mastery goal, where you aim to learn and get better at some skill, and a performance goal, where you aim to be good, either to demonstrate you’re talented or to outperform other people.

 哈弗尔森的实验论证了掌握目标的目的是为了学习和获得更好的技能，执行类的目标只是为了有好的表现，或者证明你有天赋，各方面都超出常人。

 Your objective for a given problem can often be framed in either way:

 面对问题，你的目标可以从不同方面制定

· Are you studying for tests to learn and to grow or to demonstrate your intelligence?

· 你是为了考试而学习还是为了证明你的聪明才智而学习？

· Are you spending years on a PhD to innovate in your research area or because you think it’ll be a good stepping stone for your career?

· 你花费那么多年时间读博士学位是为了探索你的研究领域还是因为你认为这是生涯的跳板？

· Are you training for a 10K race to improve your own time or to beat the competition?

· 你训练一万米跑是为了提高时间的价值还是赢得比赛？

· Are you working on side projects and brushing up your coding skills to become a better software engineer or to simply get a better-paying job?

 当你做项目或提高你的编程能力是为了成为一个更好的软件工程师还是只是为了得到一份薪酬不错的工作？

 The actions you perform to accomplish a mastery goal or a performance goal might be the same, but your motivation and your mindset will be quite different.

 完成两种类型的目标采取的行动可能是一样的。但是你的积极性和心态可能完全不同。

 When you’re focused on improving your own skills, rather than on demonstrating them, you’re less likely to get discouraged by obstacles, time pressure, or other unexpected challenges. You’ll believe that you can still improve and do better next time. You’ll have a growth mindset.

当你专注于提升你的技能，而不是证明它们，你就不太可能因为遇到困难，时间压力，或者其他未预料到的挑战而失去信心，你会相信可以提升自己，下一次做的更好。你的心态得到了成长。

 That’s not to say performance goals don’t have their place. ，Professor Dan Ariely conducted a series of experiments at MIT, the University of Chicago, and in rural Madurai, India.Subjects were asked to participate in a number of games and offered either a small, moderate,or large financial incentive for performing well on each particular game — a clear example of performance goals in action.

那也不是说执行类的目标就没有一席之地了，丹教授在麻省理工大学，芝加哥大学和印度的马杜赖进行了一系列的实验。参与者被要求参加一些游戏，表现优异的话，可以获得或多或少的金钱奖励，很清楚的一个执行类目标

 For memory games, creativity games, or motor skill games, those offered a large financial incentive actually performed worse than those offered smaller ones.The only task where participants actually performed better when offered a large financial incentive was when they were performing the mechanical task of alternating keypresses on a keyboard as quickly as possible. [2]。

 像记忆游戏，创造力游戏，摩托技巧游戏等提供较大金额奖励的，表现的却比提供小奖励的游戏的表现更糟糕。唯一一个提供大金额奖励表现更好的任务是尽可能快的在键盘上来回敲打。

 Daniel Pink reinforces this idea in his book Drive, explaining that when there is a clear goal and when the problem can be solved by brute force, performance-based goals — especially those incentivized by a reward  It’s when the problems require some ingenuity or some mental effort, that performance-based goals and rewards start to backfire and reduce performance.

 丹尼尔在他的书里加强了这个观点，当有一个清晰的目标，可以用无尽的力量完成时，执行为基础的目标，尤其是那些以物质为奖励的— work extremely well.表现的特别好。当问题需要心灵手巧或一些脑力时，执行为基础的目标和奖励开始回火，执行力会下降。

Making This Research Useful

如何让此研究帮助我们

 Set the right type of goal for the task at hand to get better results.You’re better off setting a performance goal when you can brute force through the problem,particularly if there’s a reward at stake. For example, performance goals work well if you’re:

 为了更好的成果，需要设目标的正确类型。对某些难题，如果你有一股子猛劲，就最好设成执行型的目标。尤其是有物质奖励的。如果以下几种，执行类目标很合适

· Triaging through a long bug or feature list.

· 筛选长漏洞和特性的列表

· Responding to a long backlog of personal emails or customer support emails.

· 回复个人的邮件或是客户的邮件

· Finishing a laundry list of chores around the apartment.

· 完成住处一系列的家务活

· Mechanically grinding through any number of mindless tasks.

· 机械地完成任意数量的任务

 It can be helpful for each of these short-term tasks, where there isn’t much opportunity to master a new skill, to instead tie a reward to the completion of the task. Make an if-then rule: If you get everything done, then you’ll treat yourself (or your team) to something nice. The performance incentive can help you get things done faster.

 短期的任务都是很有帮助的，但没有特别多的机会习得新技能，倒不如和奖励挂钩从而完成任务。制定一个“如果，然后”的规定，如果你把所有事完成，你就会用东西来奖励自己。绩效奖励可以帮你更快的完成事情。

 But for our long-term goals, we’ll stay much more motivated in the long run if we adopt a mindset where we’re aiming to master our skills rather than to hit a performance goal.

 对于我们的长期目标，如果我们用学习技能的心态而不是仅仅为了获得奖励，那我们会长期保持着动力

For example,

· Rather than focusing on getting promoted to a staff engineering position at your company, focus on improving your engineering skills and your ability to create meaningful impact.

· 专注于提升你的工程技能，用你的能力带来有意义的影响，而不是只关注于提升在公司的职位。

· Rather than training to win at some sport — whether it’s running, a tennis match, ultimate frisbee, etc. — train to become a better player or athlete.

· 成为一个更好的运动员，而不只是为了赢得比赛，无论是跑步，乒乓球，等等。

· Rather than joining at a startup to get rich, join because you're passionate about the problem space and excited to learn from the journey.

· 不单单是为了成为富人，也是因为你充满热情，希望从成长中有所收获。

原文作者及出处：Edmond Lau, from Quora

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