Do the real thing(做出个体行动 1)

Success largely boils down to a simple distinction.It’s glaringly obvious once you see it, but also easy to find ingenious ways of ignoring it: do the real thing and stop doing fake alternatives.
成功很大程度上可以归结为一个简单的区别。一旦你看到了，它就变得耀人地显眼，但也很容易找到聪明的办法不予理会:做真正的事情，停止做虚假的替代选择。

Consider one person who wrote to me saying she turned down a job working in French.She didn’t feel her Frech was good enough yet.So instead, she planned to listen to podcasts at home every day until she was ready.
考虑这个例子。一个人写信给我，说她拒绝了一个到法国工作的机会，因为她觉得自己的法语还不够好，所以计划在家每天听广播，直到自己准备好。

You know what would have helped her get good at French?Working at the job in French.
你知道什么有助于她学好法语吗?做那份在法国的工作。

Working at a job in the language she wanted to speak was the real thing for her.Listening to podcasts at home to prepare was the fake alternative she chose instead.
对她而言，在她想要学习的那门语言的环境下工作，才是真正的事情。在家听广播做准备不过是她选择的虚假替代行为。

Or consider another person I spoke with who wanted to get better at writing music.He had come up with a complex analysis project.He was going to do a deep dive into past hits, figuring out what made them great.In all this complexity he ignored the obvious, real thing he should be doing:writing more songs.When I asked how many he had written so far, he said it was just three.
或者考虑另一个人的例子。他告诉我说自己想要写更好的音乐。他提出了一个复杂的分析项目:他要深入研究过去的成功人士，找出是什么造就了他们的伟大。在整个复杂的项目中，他忽视了自己应该做的最明显的、真正的事:写更多曲子。当我问他目前为止写过多少首歌时，他回答只有三首。

Business owners who spend more time printing business cards than finding clients.Students who create elaborate multicolored folders for their classes instead of sitting down and studying.
People trying to get in shape who buy fancy workout gear instead of exercising.Pretend activity instead of the real thing.
花更多时间印名片而不是找客户的企业主，为不同课程制作复杂的彩色文件夹而不是坐下来学习的学生，购买花哨练习器材而不是开始锻炼的健身人士，都在假装忙碌而不是做真正的事。

I’m not immune to this tendency.If anything, I succumb to it more often than most.I’ve spent months dreaming up elaborate projects that precisely avoid doing the real work.Creativity and intelligence can be an enemy here, as they allow ever more elaborate rationalizations into doing fake work.
我自己也难以抵御这种倾向。如果有什么区别的话，就是我比大多数人都更常受此折磨。我曾经花费好几个月构想复杂的项目，而恰恰避免了开始真正的工作。创造性和智慧在此可能成为敌人，因为它们以更精妙的方式去合理化虚假的工作。

Why the real thing matters做真正的事情为什么重要

The fact that a direct strike on a problem often works better than an oblique attach isn’t surprising.But the problem is even more acute than most people would expect.
面对一个问题，正面直接迎击总比迂回的进攻效果更好，这个事实并不新奇。但这个问题比大多数人认为的要更严重。

There’s an enormous literature about the narrowness of acquired skills.Learn to do X, and then switch to do Y, and you often take a huge performance hit even if X and Y are superficially similar.
关于已掌握技能的有限性，存在大量文献。学习做X，然后转到做Y。即使表面上看x和Y很相似，你的表现仍然会受到很大影响。

This applies most obviously to formal education. In countless studies, students are found to not be able to perform on tasks that their classes should have perpared them for. Studying economics then not being able to do better on questions of economic reasoning.Taking one psychology class and not having it help when taking a later one.Pyhsics students failing to solve problems that differ slightly from those taught in class.
这在正式教育中表现得最为明显。无数研究发现，学生不会做课程原本应该已经教过的内容。学习了经济学，结果对于经济理论的问题并没有表现得更好。上过一门心理学课程，对于之后学另外一门并没有帮助。学物理的学生无法解决与课上教的只有微小差别的问题。

But the truth is probably deeper than just s failure of our education system. One researcher I spoke with mentioned how this applies even to very basic skills.With practice, for instance, you can get better at discriminating vertical lines.But switch the best to horizontal lines and the benefit of training goes away.
但真相或许不只教育体制的失败这么简单。一位研究人员在和我聊天时提到，这种现象甚至适用于所有基础技能。比如，经过练习，你可以更好地辨认出垂线。但换成测试辨认水平线，之前练习获得的收益就消失了