Do the real thing(做出个体行动 2)

This specificity of training means fake alternatives often accomplish a lot less than you’d naively expect.
训练的这种专门性意味着，虚假替代选择的效果，往往远低于你天真地以为的。

The stragegy for success looks obvious.成功的策略看起来显而易见
When you examine case studies of people who have had major accomplishments, you expect there to be some trick or shortcut.Some amazing technique they used that others weren’t clever enough to recognize.
在仔细研究取得重大成就的人的例子时，你期待着有什么窍门或捷径。他们使用了某种神奇的技术，其他人不够聪明所以没能看出来。

More often, however, the strategy used is dead simple:doing the real thing.
然而，更常见的情况是，他们使用的策略非常简单:做真正的事。

Tristan de Montebello went from near-zero speaking experience to a finalist for the World Championship of Public Speaking in seven months.How? By gettting on stage and speaking constantly, sometimes as often as twice in a day.
特里斯坦·德蒙特贝洛(Tristan de Montebello)几乎从零开始，经过7个月，入围世界公共演讲锦标赛决赛。他是怎么做到的?方法是频繁登上舞台演讲，有时甚至多达一天两次。

I found many other examples when researching my book:
在为写书做研究时，我发现了其他许多例子:

Eric Barone, who went on to sell millions of copies of his game, overcome his struggles at creating art by making and remarking the art assets for his game dozens of times.
埃里克·巴罗内(Eric Barone)，他的游戏卖出了上百万份，靠的是几十次为他的游戏制作和重制艺术素材，克服艺术创作上的困难。

Vat Jaiswal, was struggling to land work as a new arichitect, until he committed himself to mastering the software and style practiced at actual firms.
瓦特·贾斯瓦尔(Vat Jaiswal)，作为初出茅庐的建筑师难以找到工作，直到他致力于掌握了公司中实际应用的软件和设计风格。

Countless polyglots show that being able to speak a language depends, critically, on spending a lot of time speaking it. Playing with apps alone doesn’t count.
无数通晓多门外语的人表明，能够说一门外语，很大程度上靠的是花大量时间说，光是使用应用软件并不算数。

Why then, if the way forward is so straight, do we insist on taking detours?
那么，如果前行的道路如此一目了然，为什么我们还坚持要绕弯路呢?

The real thing is hard.做真正的事情很难
Real things require real difficulty.Fake stuff never does.真正的事情需要克服真正的困难，而假的东西从不需要。

This doesn’t mean fake work is effortless.Instead, pretend activity always has just enough difficulty to allow you to trick yourself into thinking you’re doing something that matters.But, conveniently, it avoids any of the truly difficult things the real situation would create.
这不是说虚假的行为就不用付出努力。相反，假装的活动通常同样困难，从而让你欺骗自己，觉得自己正在做某件重要的事情。但它方便地避免了真实情境会产生的所有真正困难的事情。

Consider the examples above.My friends’s music analysis project is definitely a lot of work.However, it conveniently misses the real frustration and challenge of struggling to write your own songs.It requires effort, but always in a way that feels doable and safe. Listening to language learning podcasts for hours is mildly strenuous.She can feel like she’s doing “something” even though it probably won’t perpare her for working in French.
考虑上面的例子。我朋友的音乐分析项目无疑需要大量工作，但它方便地错过了努力写出自己的歌时面临的真正挑战与挫败。它需要付出努力，但通常是以某种让人觉得可行且安全的方式。听几小时学习语言的广播是有点费力。她可能觉得自己在做“什么事"，尽管那可能无法为她到法国工作做好准备。

Real things have risk.They have the possibility of failure.They have frustration.They force you to confront the possibility that maybe you just aren’t good enough.
真正的事情有风险。它们有可能失败，会带来挫折，迫使你面对这种可能，即你也许就是不够优秀。

Fake activity is great for making yourself feel better, but lousy for actual results.
虚假的活动对于让你感觉良好效果不错，但对于实际结果效果糟糕。

Rules for Doing the Real Thing做真正事情的法则
I can think of a few guidelines to try to crystallize the attitude I want to encourage:
我能想到一些行动原则，来具体说明我想要鼓励的态度:

1.Nothing is often better than something."什么都不做"经常比“做”好
We’re trained to think that something is better than nothing.This is true, but only if it’s a real something. Fake somethings not only fail to create progress, they numb you to the possilbility of real striving.
我们被训练得认为，做总比不做好。确实如此，但前提是做的是真正的事情。虚假的事情不仅无法取得进展，还使你对真正的努力麻木无知。

Fill your days with enough fake activity, and you get into the situation where you fail to make meaningful progress on any of your goals, but still feel exhausted at the end of the day.
把一天填充满虚假的活动，你就会陷入一种状态，即无法朝任何目标取得有意义的进展，却在一天结束时仍然感到精疲力竭。

Doing nothing, in contrast, is restorative.It fosters the urge to do something, rather than draining it away.
相比之下，什么都不做是在恢复元气。它培养想做某件事的欲望，而不是将其逐渐耗尽。

2.The hard way is the easy way.困难的道路就是容易的道路
The starting point for any new effort should be to ask yourself,“How would I do this, if doing it well were all that mattered?”
任何新的努力的起点都应该是自问:“如果最重要的就是将这件事做好，我会怎么做?”

Difficulty is paradoxical.The hardest things often become the easiest once we’re fully commited to them.What’s difficult is the commitment, not the action; the word , not the deed.
困难是有两面性的。一旦你全身心投入了，最困难的事情通常就变成了最容易的。困难在于身心投入，而不是行为本身。

Taking the real thing as your starting point, the deviations you must take to overcome obstacles tend to be minor.Taking a fake and convenient substitute as the starting point, and you can often never work back to the original thing that mattered.
以真正的事情作为起点，你为了克服困难而必须走的弯路通常是微不足道的。而如果以虚假的方便替代行为作为起点，常常永远回不到最初真正重要的事。

3.If you’re not sure what the real thing is, just ask. 如果你不确定什么是真正的事情，只管问。

Those who have been there before know what the real path is.If you ask them, they can instantly spot the difference between strategies that attack the heart of the problem and fanciful projects that lead nowhere.
曾经到过这里的那些人知道哪条路是真正的通途。如果你开口询问，他们立刻就能发现直击问题核心的策略与不会有任何结果的花哨项目之间的区别。

In case it’s unclear what you should be working on the solution is simple:ask.Find someone who has been there before.Tell them your plan and ask them if they think it’s direct enough.Forums,Quora, LinkedIn and many other places exist where you can ask the question, so saying you don’t know anyone who has done it before is no longer an excuse.
假使你不清楚应该做什么，解决办法很简单:问。找到某位经历过这些的人，告诉他们你的计划，询问他们认为这是否足够直接。论坛、问答网站、领英，以及其他许多地方都可以提出问题，因此再说你不认识谁曾经做过这件事已经不能作为借口了。

A meaningful life depends on doing real things 有意义的生活取决于做真正的事情
There’s a feeling that goes along with real work.It’s not always positive.It often has fear, frustration or teh sense that maybe you’ve bit off more than you can chew.
真正的工作伴随着一种感受，它不总是积极的。通常有恐惧、挫败，或者感到自己心有余而力不足。

But doing the real thing matters.Days wasted on fake activity may keep you busy, but they never seem to to anywhere.A life spent on real work may not always be the easiest or most entertaining, but it’s the one that adds up in the end.
但做真正的事至关重要。浪费在虚假活动上的日子或许让你始终忙碌，但它们不会有任何结果。花在真正事情上的一生，或许不总是容易的，或者不总是快乐的，但这些事情最终能够积少成多