自我怀疑的真相

你好呀,我是良哥。

我们都非常善于把有限的精力消耗在自我怀疑之中,把有限的东西无限化,丝毫没有考虑是否符合事实。平心而论,这个世界并没有我们想象的那样可怕,别人也并没有我们想象的那么厉害,无论我们多么的自我怀疑,它只发生在眼前这一刻;它只知道目前这一刻看得见摸得着的东西。它看不到未来,看不到你的成果会随着时间慢慢积累,你的自信会随着每次尝试而逐渐建立,你的不安感也会随着你不断前进而慢慢消失。

Of all the emotions I struggle with, the toughest one is Self-Doubt.

在我努力挣脱的所有情绪中,最难挣脱的是自我怀疑。 

To give you an idea of our tenuous relationship, here are some of the questions Self-Doubt routinely asks me:

为了让你理解我和自我怀疑之间脆弱的关系,这里列举了一些自我怀疑经常向我抛出的问题:

“Hey, you. Yeah, you. Will your work ever be good enough?”

“嗨,说你呢。对,就是你。你的工作做得足够好吗?”

“Do you really think you’ll be able to grow this blog into something financially viable?”

“你真的以为你能运营博客直到带来经济收益吗?”

“Shouldn’t you just give up now and do something else instead?”

“你是不是应该就此放弃,去做点别的事情呢?”

These questions are no fun to face, and the most frustrating part is that they can appear at any random moment. Even when things are going well and I’m feeling good about my work, all it takes is for me to check my website analytics or read another person’s great article for me to question everything I’m doing.

这些因自我怀疑而产生的问题真的很烦人,而且最让人沮丧的是,这些问题随时都可能冒出来。哪怕我工作得很顺利,自我感觉也很好,但只要我一查看博客网站的访问数据,或者读到别人写得很棒的文章,我就会开始怀疑自己做的一切。

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I know I’m not the only one that struggles with Self-Doubt, as it largely comes with the territory of any worthwhile endeavor. However, the interesting thing is that it’s both a bug and a feature; amidst the haze of negativity it stirs up, there is a utility to it as well.

我明白,我不是唯一一个与自我怀疑作斗争的人,自我怀疑是很多人在追求有价值的目标时都会遇到的问题。自我怀疑就像是一把双刃剑;虽然自我怀疑带来了很多负面情绪,但同时也有其好处。

Self-Doubt is useful because it indicates how important something is in our lives, and whether or not that endeavor is worth pursuing deeply. If you had no doubts whatsoever about the work you’re doing, it likely means that you don’t care enough about it, as brash certainty and carelessness tend to be close cousins.

自我怀疑之所以有用,因为它表明了,哪些事情对我们来说真的很重要,以及我们是否应该全力以赴去做这些事。如果你对自己做的事情一点儿都不怀疑,那可能说明你其实没那么关心它,因为通常来说,鲁莽的确定性和粗心大意往往是至亲。

It’s rare to hear someone question the quality of their work at a job they hate – they understand that “good enough” is a satisfactory outlook to get on with their day. Doubt has no room to surface if indifference is running the show.

很少有人会在自己讨厌的工作中去质疑自己工作的质量,他们明白只要工作“过得去”就行了,这样他们就能轻松地度过一天。如果他们对工作漠不关心,自我怀疑也就没机会冒出来了。

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So if you find yourself doubting what you’re doing, then congratulations, that means you’ve found something worth your time. But don’t celebrate too much, as the other side of Self-Doubt is a terror of a place to navigate.

如果你发现自己在怀疑自己正在做的事情,那么恭喜你,这意味着你找到了值得你花时间的事情。但也别高兴得太早,因为自我怀疑的另一面是难以驾驭的可怕地带。

If left unchecked, Self-Doubt can paralyze and derail you from doing the things that matter most. It can prevent you from doing meaningful work in fear of being rejected, from having the patience to play the long game, and perhaps most damning, from making the most out of this one life you have.

如果放任自我怀疑不管,它会让你什么事都做不成,把你从最重要的事情上拉下来。自我怀疑会让你因为害怕被拒绝而不敢去做那些真正有价值的事情,也会让你没耐心去坚持长期的努力。而且最糟糕的是,自我怀疑可能会阻止你充分利用你仅有的这一生。

The ability to silence Self-Doubt is a superpower, and will be one of the greatest assets you can have throughout your creative journey. But in order to cultivate this skill, we must first understand the mechanisms Self-Doubt operates under to appear in the first place. If we can get a good look into the rules it plays by, then we will be better equipped to face it whenever one of those patterns become evident.

能克服自我怀疑就像拥有一种超能力,会是你创作旅程中能拥有的最重要的资产之一。不过,要想练就这项技能,我们得先明白自我怀疑是怎么冒出来的。如果我们能清楚自我怀疑背后的那些规律,那我们就能在自我怀疑出现的时候更好地应对。

Well, fortunately for us, the timing couldn’t be any better. I had a ferocious wrestling session with Self-Doubt the other day, and during the flurry of the battle, it accidentally dropped its handy little rulebook on the ground after I successfully chased it back to its cave.

好吧,我们运气不错,时机刚刚好。前几天,我和自我怀疑大战了一场,在战斗的混乱中,我成功地把自我怀疑赶回了它的老窝,它不小心把随身带的规则手册掉在了地上。因此,我们就能好好研究一下,了解自我怀疑是如何运作的了。

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After leafing through the book, I was surprised to see how succinct it was, and how there were just three basic rules that governed the entirety of Self-Doubt’s existence. Sometimes the most complicated human emotions can be condensed into simple patterns, and it turns out Self-Doubt is no exception.

随手翻翻这本小册,我意外地发现它写得特别精炼,其实就只有三条基本规则支配着自我怀疑。有时候,人类再复杂的情绪也能简化成几个模式,自我怀疑也不例外。

I want to share these three rules with you, but first, there’s a brief prologue in the book that we need to go over. This introduction is necessary because it dispels the most common misconception we have about Self-Doubt, and it is only after reviewing it where the three rules will make the most sense.

我想把这三条基本规则告诉你,不过在这之前,咱们得先看看书里的一个简短的序言。这个序言挺重要的,因为它能帮我们纠正对自我怀疑的一些常见误解。只有先了解了序言,那三条基本规则才能让人豁然开朗。

So with that said, let’s crack open this ancient rulebook, and dive right in.

好的,那就让我来给你简单讲讲自我怀疑的真相。

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Prologue: Self-Doubt Is Not Really About the Self

序言:自我怀疑其实并不完全是关于自我的

It is often said that “you are your own worst enemy,” and this is a statement that creatives in particular love throwing around. The logic behind this cliche goes something like this:

我们平时总爱说“人最大的敌人就是自己”,创意工作者的尤其喜欢把这句话挂嘴边。这背后的逻辑其实挺简单:

“All doubts are internal struggles that are birthed from within. After all, no one is telling you to doubt yourself but you, right? Once you realize that you are creating your own fears, you have to snap out of it and defeat that inner voice that is stopping you from being your authentic self.”

“所有的怀疑都是内心产生的斗争。毕竟,除了你自己,没有人会让你怀疑自己,对吧?一旦你意识到是你自己在制造恐惧,你就得摆脱它,别让内在的声音妨碍你做真正的自己。”

Under this rationale, Self-Doubt arises as an independent barrier that you alone have constructed, and you alone must face. Everything starts – and ends – with you.

按这个道理来说,自我怀疑就是你自己造的一堵墙,你得独自面对,自己把这堵墙拆了。万事开头难,都得靠你自己。

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While it’s somewhat romantic to view Self-Doubt as a heroic solo endeavor, the reality is far from it.

把自我怀疑看成是孤胆英雄的战斗确实有点浪漫色彩,但实际上根本不是那么回事。

Doubt only emerges because we live in a world where we compare our own progress against the progress of others. Whenever we doubt ourselves, what we are actually questioning is our ability to meet the expectations of what we think is possible. And like it or not, our expectations are built by the possibilities that other people have already reached, or are close to reaching.

自我怀疑冒出来,主要是因为我们习惯把自己的成就和别人的拿来比较。我们一怀疑自己,其实质是在质疑自己能不能达到内心设定的标准。而这些标准,不管你愿不愿意,都是被别人已经做到的,或者是接近做到的事情塑造出来的。

After all, we wouldn’t be writers, cooks, or musicians if there were no writers, cooks, or musicians that demonstrated the viability of these art forms before us. This is why the line between inspiration and doubt can be thin – the very people that inspired us to pursue a calling can also make us doubt ourselves when we don’t think we’re reaching what they have attained.

归根结底,如果没有人做过作家、厨师或者音乐家,向我们证明这些艺术行当是靠谱的,我们也不会成为作家、厨师或音乐家。所以,启发和怀疑之间的界限挺模糊的-那些激励我们投身某个领域的人,在我们认为自己没有达到他们的成就时,也可能让我们对自己产生怀疑。

What this reveals is that doubt doesn’t arise on our own accord; it comes about because we live amongst a vast Landscape of Creators that are influencing the expectations we set for ourselves. It is this network of peers, mentors, and public figures that motivate us to do great work, but can also make us question what we’re doing when we don’t think it aligns with what should be possible.

这表明自我怀疑不是凭空冒出来的;自我怀疑之所以会出现,是因为我们周围有一大影响我们自我期望的创造者。就是这些同行、导师和公众人物,他们既激励我们去做大事,又可能在我们觉得自己做得不够好时,让我们开始质疑自己的努力。

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Ultimately, Self-Doubt is more about how you view your relationship with others, and less about a battle with yourself. Once we’re able to understand how our view of others affects our sense of progress, then we are better equipped to handle the fear that Self-Doubt throws at us.

最终,自我怀疑更多是关于你怎么看待自己和别人的关系,而不是你跟自己过不去。一旦我们明白了我们对别人的看法是如何影响我们对自己进步的感觉的,我们就能更好地应对自我怀疑带来的恐惧。

Now that we’ve introduced the Landscape of Creators and how closely tied it is to the sense of self, we can delve into the three rules that Self-Doubt follows to manifest itself in us. And of course, it’s fitting that Rule #1 has everything to do with the way we view everyone in this landscape.

现在我们已经介绍了创造者构建的环境以及这个环境与自我感觉的紧密联系,我们可以深入探讨自我怀疑遵循的三条规则以及它如何在我们身上显现。当然了,最重要的第一条规则,正好和我们怎么看这个环境里的其他人有关。

Rule #1: Overestimate others’ abilities, and underestimate your own

规则#1:高估别人的能力,低估自己的能力。

This simple mechanism is the initial way for Self-Doubt to slip in. Whenever the gap between what you’re doing and what others have done widens, it will feel natural for you to question your progress, and whether or not you’re making any forward movement at all.

自我怀疑一开始就是这么冒出来的。每当你做的事情和别人做的事情之间的差距拉大,你就会很自然地开始质疑自己的进步,甚至怀疑自己到底有没有在向前进步。

But what’s interesting is that this gap is determined by your perception of where you stand relative to others, and not what may actually be the case. For example, someone you perceive to be way ahead of you may actually believe that you are much further along than them.

但有趣的是,这种差距其实是你自己感觉出来的,不见得是真实情况。比如,有些人你可能觉得他们比你厉害多了,但他们自己可能觉得你才更牛。

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The reason this happens has to do with the asymmetrical nature of creativity.

为什么会这样呢?这跟创造力的不对称性有关。

For any piece of work in question, there are two opposing sides in which it is perceived: one from the side of the viewer, and the other from the side of its creator.

任何一部作品,都有两种对立的感知方式:一种是观众的角度,另一种是创作者的角度。

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The viewer can only see the finished product – the polished result that is being presented to the general public. The viewer doesn’t see all the failed prior versions, the countless hours of practice, the trashed drafts, or the sleepless nights that went into building what’s on display.

观众只能看到最终成品-呈现给公众的精心打磨的结果。观众看不到之前所有失败的版本,数不清的练习时间,丢弃的草稿,还有为了完成作品熬过的无数个不眠之夜。

The only thing that matters to the viewer is how that song sounds when it’s uploaded, how the final cut of that film flows, or how that book reads when they pull it off the shelves. Everything is seamless to the viewer, as the quality of the end result of is all that matters.

观众只关心他们听到的歌曲好不好听,电影的剪辑养不养眼,或者从书架上拿下来的书籍读起来感觉如何。在观众看来,一切都是完美的,因为他们只在乎成品的质量。

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The side of the creator, however, is a beautiful mess that only you must navigate. As a creator, you have to go through every daunting step of the process to take that seed of an idea that once lived in your brain, and turn it into something you’re proud of that you can present to others.

然而,创作者的一面则是一场只有自己才能搞定的一团乱麻。作为创作者,你必须经历过程中每一个令人生畏的步骤,把曾经存在于你脑海中的思想的种子,变成你可以自豪地呈现给他人的作品。

Each step of this process is an exercise in determining what feels right and what doesn’t, when to take influence from others and when to ignore them, and when to move forward and when to cut your losses.

创作过程中的每一步,都得琢磨什么是对的什么是错的,什么时候该听别人的,什么时候该自己拿主意,什么时候该继续努力,什么时候该放弃。

As you can imagine, each of these steps are ripe opportunities for Self-Doubt to come in and hijack the whole ordeal. In the end, a creator must make choices with conviction, but it’s natural for doubt to live between the spaces of those decisions. After all, second-guessing yourself is second-nature when your work means so much to you.

可想而知,这些步骤都是自我怀疑最爱趁虚而入的地方,自我怀疑总是出来把事情搞得更复杂。但最后,创作的人得坚决地做出选择,虽然在做决定的时候,心里有点不确定是很正常的。毕竟,当你特别在乎自己的工作时,总会不自觉地多想几遍。

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Doubt and uncertainty are natural obstacles for any creator, but when we view others’ work, what we see is confidence and finality. This is because we will always be viewers of others’ work, but the sole creator of our own. We are constantly comparing the completed works of others to the jagged and messy routes of ours, and this leads us to overestimate everyone else’s abilities:

对于任何创作者来说,怀疑和不确定性都是正常的不过的障碍,但当我们看待别人的作品时,我们看到的是自信和确定性。这是因为我们永远都是别人作品的观众,但却是自己作品的唯一创作者。我们不断地将别人完成的作品与我们自己粗糙且混乱的创作过程进行比较,这导致我们高估了别人的能力:

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While we simultaneously underestimate our own:

而这时候,我们又低估了自己的能力:

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The reality is that everyone else is just as doubting and uncertain as you are, but you can’t see that because you don’t live in their heads. This inability to reconcile the difference between being a creator and a viewer creates the illusory gap that Self-Doubt lives in, which leads us to the next rule that it loves to follow:

真相是,别人也和你一样怀疑和不确定,但你看不到这一真相,因为你没法知道他们脑子里在想什么。这种创作者和观众之间差异,我们无力调和,自然造就了自我怀疑所喜欢的假象差距,这引出了下一个自我怀疑喜欢遵循的规则:

Rule #2: Be envious of what others have accomplished

规则#2:嫉妒别人的成就

If the first rule explained why we doubt ourselves in relation to others, this second rule is what internalizes that doubt into something destructive.

如果第一个规则解释了我们为什么会在与他人的比较中怀疑自己,那么第二个规则就是将这种怀疑内化为具有破坏性的东西。

Envy is a complicated emotion that has its roots in survival and sexual selection, but in the domain of creative work, it has an especially sinister quality that makes it such a negative force for us.

嫉妒是一种挺复杂的情绪,根源在于生存竞争和性资源竞争,但在创作领域,嫉妒就变得特别糟糕,成了我们的一种负面情绪。

Creativity is largely about community and communication – even if most of your work is done in isolation, it has no wider impact if it’s not shared with people, and the work you do is largely influenced by the contributions of others. Relationships – whether personal or intellectual – are the forces that shape what’s important to you, and the closest ones drive that sense of belonging the most.

创造力跟社群和沟通的关系很大,即使你的工作大多是一个人完成的,如果不与人分享,就产生不了更大的影响,而且你的工作很大程度上也受到其他人的影响。不管是私人关系还是知识分子之间的交流,关系决定了什么事情对你来说是重要的,而最亲近的关系更是给了你最强烈的归属感。

Given this, envy has learned a devious trick that threatens to destroy this sense of community altogether.

鉴于此,嫉妒就耍了个小聪明,威胁要彻底摧毁这种社群意识。

Envy has this nasty ability to flare up strongest amongst people you are closest to, primarily because it only appears amongst folks you can readily compare yourself to. So counter-intuitively, it is strongest amongst peers, friends, and family:

嫉妒情绪特狡猾,在我们最亲近的人身上嫉妒之心表现得最厉害,主要是因为我们总是爱拿自己跟他们比。所以,说来也怪,在同事、朋友和家人之间嫉妒之心表现得最强烈:

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And weakest amongst those that may be enormously successful, but are too far removed from your way of life:

在那些特别成功,但与你的生活方式相去甚远的人中,我们的嫉妒之心则是最弱的:

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Philosopher Bertrand Russell summarizes this phenomenon well:

哲学家伯特兰·罗素精辟地总结了这种现象:

Beggars do not envy millionaires, though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.

乞丐不会去嫉妒百万富翁,他们只会嫉妒比自己更成功的乞丐。

Envy takes a group of familiar and loving faces that should make up our support systems, and instead warps them into sources of inadequacy that only makes us doubt ourselves even further.

嫉妒把那些本该支持我们的人,且我们熟悉的、充满爱的人,变成了让我们感到自己不够好的源头,结果就是让我们更加怀疑自己。

If Rule #1 creates a perceived gap between you and other creators, Rule #2 solidifies that gap by turning you away from the people that matter most. Ultimately, all we really have are our peers, friends, and family members, but if you perceive their lives through the lens of envy, your sense of progress will always be relative to theirs, and you will view them as sources of competition rather than beacons of inspiration.

如果说规则一让你觉得自己和别的创作者之间有差距,那么规则二会让你和那些最重要的人疏远,从而加深了这个差距。到头来,我们身边最亲近的无非就是朋友和家人,但如果你总是用嫉妒的眼光去看他们的生活,你就会一直把自己的进步和他们比较,把他们当成对手,而不是灵感的来源。

It is here where Self-Doubt can grow so large that its voice becomes thunderously compelling. Not only do you think you’re underperforming the expectations you’ve set for yourself, but you also cannot find solace and comfort in those closest to you because envy has taken over.

正是在这种情况下,自我怀疑会膨胀得特别厉害,直到自我怀疑的声音大得让你不得不听。你不仅觉得自己没达到自己的期望,而且连身边最亲近的人都没法给你安慰,因为嫉妒已经把这些关系搞砸了。

This is where Self-Doubt leaps to deliver its final blow in the form of its final rule:

这就是自我怀疑要跳出来,用它的终极规则给你最后致命一击的时候:

Rule #3: Make quitting seem like a rational decision

规则三:让放弃看起来是个明智的选择。

In many ways, pursuing any meaningful endeavor is a vote for the rocky path of uncertainty. Not only is fiscal stability a big question mark, but it’s unclear whether or not an audience may even exist for your work in the first place.

追求有意义的事情,很多时候就像是选了一条坎坷又不确定的路。你不仅不知道能不能赚到钱,甚至有没有人会喜欢你的作品都很难说。

There will be moments where it feels like no one cares about what you’re making, despite all the energy and effort you’re putting in. It will feel like the only response to your work is a deafening silence that echoes out violently, making you question why you’ve chosen to spend any time on this endeavor at all.

有时候,你可能会觉得,即使你已经倾尽全力,也好像没人关心你在做的是什么。你的作品好像只换来了一片死寂,这片死寂让你开始怀疑,自己为什么要在这件事上浪费时间和精力。

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If you combine this with the belief that everyone is more capable than you are (Rule #1), it will only seem rational to quit. After all, what’s the point of slogging through this pit if you can instead do something else that has a more predictable outcome? And what if you can’t help but to feel envious of the people you’re closest to (Rule #2)? Doesn’t quitting sound like the most sensical thing to do in this position?

如果你把这种感觉和认为别人都比你厉害的想法(规则#1)放在一起,放弃就显得很合理。毕竟,既然你可以去做其他结果更可预测的事情,何必在这个困境里苦苦挣扎呢?而且如果你对身边的人感到嫉妒(规则#2),那在这种情况下,放弃似乎就是最合乎逻辑的选择了。

These are the fatal questions that Self-Doubt throws to get you off this journey for good. And for many people, these questions will sound compelling enough for them to accept the end of the road, pack up their bags, and walk away with no return date in sight.

这些就是自我怀疑抛出的致命问题,目的是让你彻底放弃这段旅程。对许多人来说,这些问题听起来非常有说服力,足以让他们放弃走这条路,收拾行李,毫不犹豫地离开,连回来的打算都没有。

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This ability for Self-Doubt to sound like the rational voice of reason is its grand finale – the greatest tactic it uses time and time again to prevent people from doing work they love and from reaching their potential.

自我怀疑能让自己听起来像是理智的声音,这是它的终极手段,这是它反复使用的最大策略,目的是阻止人们去追求自己热爱的工作,和实现自己的潜力。

But like all the other nonsense it spews, it’s just one big devious trick.

但跟自我怀疑以前的胡说八道一样,这些都只是骗人的把戏。

The thing about Self-Doubt is that it lives solely in the now; it knows nothing more than what can be seen and experienced at this precise moment. It can’t envision any sort of future where results grow over time, where your confidence builds with each thing you make, and where your insecurities soften as you progress onward.

自我怀疑的特点是,它只活在眼前这一刻;它只知道目前这一刻看得见摸得着的东西。它看不到未来,看不到你的成果会随着时间慢慢积累,你的自信会随着每次尝试而逐渐建立,还有你的不安感也会随着你不断前进而慢慢消失。

Instead, it takes all the frustrations you’re experiencing today and makes it feel like things will always be this way. It sees that you spent ten hours making a blog post that only five people saw, and will convince you that every single post you create afterward will have the same result. It tells you that today’s results will be tomorrow’s inevitabilities, and that these results will extend out to all the months and years to come.

自我怀疑会将今天遇到的所有挫折无限放大,让你觉得事情永远就这样了。你花了十个小时写的文章只有五个人看,自我怀疑会让你觉得以后每篇文章都会这样,没人搭理。自我怀疑会跟你说,今天的惨淡结果就是明天的必然,这些结果会延续到未来所有的年月。

But of course, the truth is far from that. All meaningful endeavors and careers take time to shape and develop, and this type of long-term thinking is something that we all have the power to understand. However, when Self-Doubt hijacks our journeys, it makes us believe that the results we are experiencing today will run onward in perpetuity…

但当然,真相根本不是这样。所有有意义的事业和职业都需要时间来塑造和发展,我们其实都理解要往长远看。然而,当自我怀疑劫持了我们的旅程时,它让我们相信我们今天所经历的结果将会永远持续下去……

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…when in reality, this is just a small subsection of a much longer time horizon that looks more like this:

而实际上,这只是我们长远旅程中的一小段而已。真实的情况更像是这样的::

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When you’re doing meaningful work, you must be able to trade short-term disappointment for long-term progress. While it may seem irrational to continue pursuing this path today, everything will only make sense when enough time has elapsed so you can see how far you’ve traveled.

做有意义的事,就得懂得拿眼前的不如意去换将来的大成就。现在可能看起来继续这么做不太明智,但只要时间足够长,你能够回头看看自己走了多远,一切才会变得有意义。

In my case, whenever I doubt myself based on current results, I try to remember that I must view my writing career through the lens of decades, not days. So if a post I created today didn’t resonate with anyone – oh well – it’s just one of many that I will do over the course of a longer timeframe. Even if things feel stagnant for a while, I can understand that I’m still quietly building the foundations for a period of growth that has yet to come.

拿我自己来说,每当我因为眼前这点成绩就对自己没信心的时候,我就会提醒自己,我要用长期的眼光去看我的写作事业,得看十年二十年,不是只看这几天。所以如果今天我写的东西没人喜欢,那也没什么,这只不过是我将来要写很多很多文章中的一篇。哪怕有段时间感觉没什么进步,我也明白,我其实还在悄悄地为将来的飞跃打基础呢。

Whenever we can frame the creations of today as necessary steps for the future, we can silence Self-Doubt’s cries for attention. If we can commit to playing the long-game, this acceptance of patience brings a clarity that will keep you focused and ready for the challenges that await you today.

只要我们能把今天的创作视为未来成功的必要步骤,我们就能不去理会自我怀疑的呼声。如果我们决心进行长期的努力,这种对耐心的接受会给我们带来清晰的视野,让你保持专注,准备好面对今天等待你的挑战。

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So there you have it – the three simple rules that Self-Doubt operates under. They’re not sophisticated by any means, but they’ve been remarkably effective at preventing us from doing work that matters.

因此,以上就是自我怀疑爱玩的三个简单的规则把戏。这些规则说不上高明,但确实挺能拦着我们去做重要的事。

But now that we know all the tricks Self-Doubt uses on us, here are three things to keep in mind to successfully silence it:

既然我们已经知道了自我怀疑耍的这些花招,接下来记住这三件事,就能成功地让自我怀疑消停:

(1) Stop being so hard on yourself, and give yourself credit where it’s due. Only you have access to the behind-the-scenes struggles that come with doing your work. Whenever you compare yourself to others, remember that you’re seeing their finished product, while you’re feeling the pain of each step of the creative process. It’s not a fair comparison, so don’t use it to base your judgment on whether or not you’re doing great work.

(1)不要再对自己那么苛刻,该表扬的时候就表扬自己。只有你自己知道在完成工作背后所经历的挣扎。每当你将自己与他人比较时,记住你看到的是他们的成品,而你所感受到的是每个创作步骤的痛苦。这并不是一个公平的比较,所以不要用来作为评判你是否在做出色工作的标准。

(2) Do away with envy, and be inspired by your peers instead. Envy’s greatest trick is to flare up strongest among the people you’re closest to. Instead of feeling inadequate around the company of your peers, recognize envy as the deceiving little bastard it is, and replace it with gratitude for these people around you. View their life journeys as inspirations for what is possible, and become a more empowered creator as a result.

(2)别再嫉妒别人了,要从你身边的人那里得到启发。嫉妒最会玩的把戏就是在你身边的人身上表现得最厉害。别在同行面前觉得自己不够好,要认识到嫉妒是一个欺骗性的小人,用对身边人的感激来取代它。把他们的人生经历看作是激发灵感的源泉,这样你就能成为一个更有力量的创作者。

(3) Ignore short-term results, and play the long game instead. If you’ve found something you love working on, chances are you want to stay there for a long, long time. So even if you’re not seeing the results you want today, just know that you’re slowly building yourself an on-ramp to future progress. As long as you can view your endeavor through the lens of decades and not days, you will be able to silence Self-Doubt and continue working on the things that make your life so meaningful.

(3)忽略短期结果,进行长期的游戏。如果你找到了自己热爱的事情,大概率是想长久做下去的。所以就算现在还没达到你期望的成果,你也得明白,你正在慢慢为自己搭建通向未来进步的跳板。只要你能用长远的眼光来看自己的事业,而不是只看眼前的几天,你就能压制住自我怀疑,继续做那些让你的生活充满意义的事。

标题:Why We Doubt Ourselves
By Lawrence Yeo
译:良哥