1) Setting Goals

1）设定目标

You can have virtually anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want.

事实上，你想要什么都行，但你无法拥有一切。

The first, most important, and typically most difficult step in the 5-Step Process is setting goals, because it forces you to decide what you really want and therefore what you can possibly get out of life. This is the step where you face the fundamental limit: life is like a giant smorgasbord of more delicious alternatives than you can ever hope to taste. So you have to reject having some things you want in order to get other things you want more.

五大步骤中，通常最重要又最困难的就是设定目标了，因为这是在逼你决定什么是你真正想要的以及可能获得的现实结果。这一步会面临最根本的局限：生活如同一盘大杂烩，美味佳肴种类繁多、应接不暇。所以你得学会舍弃一些想要的东西，才能获得你更想要的东西。

Some people fail at this point, afraid to reject a good alternative for fear that the loss will deprive them of some essential ingredient to their personal happiness. As a result, they pursue too many goals at the same time, achieving few or none of them.

有人会在这点上失败，不敢舍弃看起来不错的选择，害怕一旦失去，个人幸福感中某些重要组成元素就被剥夺了。所以这些人同时设置很多目标，但鲜有真正实现的。

So it’s important to remember: it doesn’t really matter if some things are unavailable to you, because the selection of what IS available is so great. (That is why many people who had major losses—e.g., who lost their ability to walk, to see, etc.—and who didn’t narrow-mindedly obsess about their loss but rather open-mindedly accepted and enjoyed what remained, had equally happy lives as those who didn’t ever have these losses.)

所以得记住，无法拥有某些东西并不要紧，因为在可以拥有的东西中进行挑选是很棒的事情。有人先天残疾，比如无法行走，看不见东西，但能和身体健全的人一样幸福，因为他们不狭隘地沉浸在失去的情绪中，而是大方接受并享受自己依然拥有的东西。

In other words, you can have an enormous amount: much, much more than what you need to have for a happy life. So don’t get discouraged by not being able to have everything you want, and for God’s sake, don’t be paralyzed by the choices. That’s nonsensical and unproductive. Get on with making your choices.

换句话说，你可以拥有很多东西，远多于你生活幸福所需，所以无法拥有一切也不要沮丧，也千万别被各种选择打垮，这样既没意义又无效，要习惯做选择。

Put another way, to achieve your goals you have to prioritize, and that includes rejecting good alternatives (so that you have the time and resources to pursue even better ones—time being probablyyour greatest limiting factor, though, through leverage, you can substantially reduce time’s constraints).

换个说法，要实现目标就要有优先次序，包括舍弃看起来还不错的选项。这样你就有时间和资源追寻更好的选项，时间可能是限制你最多的因素，最大程度利用好时间，就能极大减少时间带来的约束。

It is important not to confuse “goals” and “desires.”

不要混淆“目标”和“欲望”，这很重要。

Goals are the things that you really want to achieve, while desires are things you want that can prevent you from reaching your goals—as I previously explained, desires are typically first-order consequences. For example, a goal might be physical fitness, while a desire is the urge to eat good-tasting, unhealthy food (i.e., a first-order consequence) that could undermine you obtaining your fitness goal. So, in terms of the consequences they produce, goals are good and desires are bad.

目标是你真的想实现的东西，而欲望是你想要但会阻碍你实现目标的东西。我之前解释过，欲望一般是一级效应。例如，假设目标是身体健康，欲望就是吃可口但不健康的食物，这个是一级效应。这种结果不利于你实现健康这一目标。所以单从结果来看，目标是好的，欲望是不好的。

Some societies define evil to be the desires that can take you away from your goals, which I think is a good way of seeing the difference between goals and desires. That doesn’t mean I think that there isn’t room for a little “bad”, but I do think that desires that fundamentally divert you from your goals should be avoided at all cost.

有社会学家把导致自己远离目标的欲望称为邪恶，我认为这是用来区分目标与欲望很好的思路。这并不是说我不允许大家“不以恶小而为之”，但我真的认为，要想让自己远离目标的欲望应不惜一切代价将其铲除干净。

Don’t get me wrong; I believe you can choose to pursue any goal you want as long as you consider the consequences. So, staying with this example, I think it is perfectly OK for you to make your goal to enjoy eating good-tasting, unhealthy food if that choice will bring you what you really want. As I said earlier, if you want to be a couch potato, that’s fine with me—seriously. But if that’s not what you want, you better not open that bag of chips. In other words, failing to make the distinction between goals and desires will lead you in the wrong direction, because you will be inclined to pursue things you want that will undermine your ability to get things you want more. In short, you can pursue anything you desire—just make sure that you know the consequences of what you are doing.

别误解了我的意思，只要考虑了后果，我认为你完全可以去追寻任何你想要的目标。还是拿健身举例，如果你要把尽享可口不健康的食物作为目标，这是完全没问题的，只要能带来你想要的结果就行。我说过，你想做成天宅在家里看电视吃薯片无所事事的人，这对于我来说真的完全没问题。但如果这不是你想要的生活，最好就别撕开薯片包装袋了，换句话说，不能清晰辨别目标与欲望，将于事无补。因为你会倾向于追求你渴望的事情，而这件事情会影响你收获更多的能力。简而言之，你想追求什么都行，只要你确信自己知道这样做的后果就行。

Another common reason people fail at this stage is that they lose sight of their goals, getting caught up in day-to-day tasks.

导致你在这个阶段失败的另一个普遍原因是你忽视了自己的目标，陷入到一复一日的工作任务中去了。

Avoid setting goals based on what you think you can achieve.

避免基于自己主观意愿设定目标。

As I said before, do each step separately and distinctly without regard to the others. In this case, that means don’t rule out a goal due to a superficial assessment of its attainability. Once you commit to a goal, it might take lots of thinking and many revisions to your plan over a considerable time period in order to finalize the design and do the tasks to achieve it. So you need to set goals without yet assessing whether or not you can achieve them.

我提到过，每一步都要单独操作，绝不相互影响。这种情况下，也就是说目标不能仅根据表面上的可实现度而进行设定。一旦开始投身到实现目标的过程中，会需要大量的思考、反思，耗费大量的时间来最终确定实现目标的方案和具体任务。所以设定目标时，不要一开始就下结论说能不能实现。

This requires some faith that you really can achieve virtually anything, even if you don’t know how you will do it at that moment. Initially you have to have faith that this is true, but after following this process and succeeding at achieving your goals, you will gain confidence. If you like, you can start with more modest goals and, when you build up the track record to give you faith, increase your aspirations.

这需要你坚信没什么是办不到的。即使当下不知道怎么操作也不要紧。只要刚开始坚定这个信念，按这个过程依次推进，实现目标后，就会获得真正的信心。如果你愿意，刚开始可以设定一些简单普通的目标，小有成就后就能增强信念，个人志向也开始日趋宏大起来。

This might sound inconsistent with the previous point that you can’t have everything. It’s not. I am saying that, at this stage of goal-setting, don’t set your goals based on what you think you can achieve. In the process of doing the other four steps (especially designing) you will thoroughly think through what is possible. Then you will circle back and enter the goal-setting mode again. As I mentioned, this five-step process is iterative, but it must be pursued one step at a time in order to do each step excellently.

这里似乎和我之前提到的“你不能拥有一切”的观点有点矛盾，其实不是。在目标设置阶段，不要根据主观认为能实现什么而设定目标。在进行另外四个步骤，特别是方案设计时，你将会仔细思考可能的解决方案。那时又会返回到目标设定模式。我提过，这五大步骤是循环往复的，但每次必须认真完成一个步骤，才能为下一步顺利完成打好基础。

Every time I set goals, I don’t yet have any idea how I am going to achieve them because I haven’t yet gone through the process of thinking through them. But I have learned that I can achieve them if I think creatively and work hard.

每次我设定目标时都还不知道怎么去实现，因为这还没进入到仔细思考的步骤，但我认为只要思维富有创造性，勤奋努力，就能实现我的目标。

The more creative I am, the less hard I have to work.

我的创造力越强，我的工作就越轻松。

I also know that I can “cheat.” Unlike in school, in life you don’t have to come up with all the right answers. You can ask the people around you for help—or even ask them to do the things you don’t do well.

我还知道可以“作弊”。学校里事事都得有正确答案，而现实生活中，遇到问题你可以问身边的人，甚至让他们做你不擅长的事情。

In other words, there is almost no reason not to succeed if you take the attitude of 1) total flexibility—good answers can come from anyone or anywhere (and in fact, as I have mentioned, there are far more good answers “out there” than there are in you) and 2) total accountability: regardless of where the good answers come from, it’s your job to find them.

换句话说，采取以下的态度，没有理由不成功。1）完全的灵活性-任何人在任何地方都能提供令人满意的答案，事实上如我所说，我们自身能提供的答案是有限的，外在的人和环境能提供多得多的答案；2）要完全负责。不管合适的答案来自何处，找到它们是你的职责所在。

This no-excuses approach helps me do whatever it takes to get whatever I want most. Not all goals are achievable, of course. There are some impossibilities or near-impossibilities, such as living forever, or flying with just the power of your arms. But it’s been my experience that if I commit to bringing creativity, flexibility, and determination to the pursuit of my goals, I will figure out some way to get them, i.e., almost all goals are attainable. And as I don’t limit my goals to what seems attainable at the moment I set them, the goals I set tend to be higher than they would otherwise be. Since trying to achieve high goals makes me stronger, I become increasingly capable of achieving more. Great expectations create great capabilities, in other words. And if I fail to achieve my goal, it just tells me that I have not been creative or flexible or determined enough to do what it takes, and I circle back and figure out what I need to do about this situation.

这种不找借口的方法，助我尽全力实现最想达成的目标。当然，不是所有的目标都有可能实现。有些目标是不可能或几乎不可能实现的，例如长生不死，张开双臂飞翔等等。但根据我的经验，只要在追寻目标时，投入创造力，灵活性和决心，总能找到办法实现的。这么看来，几乎所有的目标都是可以实现的。我设置目标时，也不只是看它当下是否可能实现，我设的目标都是立足长远的。努力实现高难度目标，助我变得强大，能够实现更多的新目标。对期望值设定越高，能力也会变得越强。如果没能实现目标，我会对自己说，肯定我不够创新，不够灵活，毅力不够，然后回过头思考应该怎么解决。

Achieving your goals isn’t just about moving forward.

实现目标不仅仅只是前进

Inevitably, you must deal with setbacks. So goals aren’t just those things that you want and don’t have. They might also be keeping what you do have, minimizing your rate of loss, or dealing with irrevocable loss. Life will throw you challenges, some of which will seem devastating at the time. Your goal is always to make the best possible choices, knowing that you will be rewarded if you do. It’s like playing golf: sometimes you will be in the fairway and sometimes you will be in the rough, so you have to know how to play it as it lies.

挫折无法避免。目标是你想要但还没实现的东西，目标也能让你保留已有的东西，让失去的机率最小化，应对不可挽回的损失。生活会向你抛来挑战，有时是灾难性的。你的目标基本上都是在寻找最优解，并明白实现就能获得回报。跟打高尔夫球一样，有时球在光滑的球道上，有时在粗糙的地面上，要根据具体情况才能知道怎么去玩。

Generally speaking, goal-setting is best done by those who are good at big-picture conceptual thinking, synthesizing, visualizing, and prioritizing. But whatever your strengths and weaknesses are, don’t forget the big and really great news here: it is not essential that you have all of these qualities yourself, because you can supplement them with the help of others.

总的来说，目标设置最好能够由擅于在把握大局情况下进行概念思维、合成、形象化和优先排序的人来操作。不管你有什么优缺点，都别忘了最令人兴奋的好消息，就是你不必具备所有的能力素质，因为你可以通过别人的帮助来进行补充。

In summary, in order to get what you want, the first step is to really know what you want, without confusing goals with desires, and without limiting yourself because of some imagined impediments that you haven’t thoroughly analyzed.

总的来说，要实现梦想，第一步是真的知道自己要什么，不混淆目标与欲望，不因缺乏全面分析的假想障碍而把自己限制住了。

How well do you know what you want most out of life?

你有多了解自己想要什么？

What are your most important goals?

你最重要的目标是什么？

Are you good at setting your goals?

你擅于设定目标吗?

How confident are you that your assessment of your ability to set goals is right?

对自己设定目标的能力进行评估，你有几分自信？

If you are confident of your self-assessment, why should you be confident (e.g. because you have a demonstrated track-record, because many believable people have told you, etc)?

如果你对自我评估很有信心，请论述自信的原因。是因为有过往业绩吗，还是值得信赖之人告诉过你？