【TED】How to get better at the things you care about?

How to get better at the things you care about?

如何在你关心的事情上变得更好？

作者：Eduardo Briceño

0:11
Most of us go through life trying to do our best at whatever we do, whether it’s our job, family, school or anything else. I feel that way. I try my best. But some time ago, I came to a realization that I wasn’t getting much better at the things I cared most about, whether it was being a husband or a friend or a professional or teammate, and I wasn’t improving much at those things even though I was spending a lot of time working hard at them. I’ve since realized from conversations I’ve had and from research that this stagnation, despite hard work, turns out to be pretty common.

无论是工作、家庭、学校，还是其他事情，大多数人的一生中都在将这些事尽力做到最好。我感同身受，在这些事上，我也付诸了所有努力。但是不久前，我逐渐意识到，在这些我最为关心的事情上，我并没有取得很大进步。不管是作为丈夫，朋友，专家，还是团队成员，即便我努力了很长时间，我仍没有得到很大提升。自那以后，我从多次谈话和研究中发现，这种停滞不前的情况，即使付诸了努力，结果却是相当普遍的。

0:50
So I’d like to share with you some insights into why that is and what we can all do about it. What I’ve learned is that the most effective people and teams in any domain do something we can all emulate. They go through life deliberately alternating between two zones: the learning zone and the performance zone.

因此，我想与大家分享一些见解，为什么会这样？以及我们能做些什么？我学到的是，我们可以模仿那些在任何领域中，最有效率的人群和团队所做的事情。他们的人生经验是，有意得在两个区域中交替选择：学习区和表现区。

1:09
The learning zone is when our goal is to improve. Then we do activities designed for improvement, concentrating on what we haven’t mastered yet, which means we have to expect to make mistakes, knowing that we will learn from them. That is very different from what we do when we’re in our performance zone, which is when our goal is to do something as best as we can, to execute. Then we concentrate on what we have already mastered and we try to minimize mistakes.

当我们的目标是提升自己时，选择学习区。然后我们做一些能够有所提升的事情，专注于我们还未成为专家的领域，意味着我们要期待犯错，并从错误中学习总结。这与表现区有很大不同，当我们的目标是将某件事情尽力做到最好，重在执行时，才会选择表现区。然后我们专注于自己擅长的领域，并将错误最小化。

1:35
Both of these zones should be part of our lives, but being clear about when we want to be in each of them, with what goal, focus and expectations, helps us better perform and better improve. The performance zone maximizes our immediate performance, while the learning zone maximizes our growth and our future performance. The reason many of us don’t improve much despite our hard work is that we tend to spend almost all of our time in the performance zone. This hinders our growth, and ironically, over the long term, also our performance.

这两种区域都应成为我们生活的一部分。在什么时候选择哪个区域，目标是什么，应该专注于什么，对什么抱有期待，弄清楚这些事，可以帮助我们更好地表现和提升。表现区有益于我们的当下表现，而学习区则是益于我们的成长和未来表现。尽管很努力，也没有很大提升的原因是，我们往往趋向于将大部分时间花在表现区。这阻碍了我们的成长，更讽刺的是，长此以往，就连表现也会有所下降。

2:09
So what does the learning zone look like? Take Demosthenes, a political leader and the greatest orator and lawyer in ancient Greece. To become great, he didn’t spend all his time just being an orator or a lawyer, which would be his performance zone. But instead, he did activities designed for improvement. Of course, he studied a lot. He studied law and philosophy with guidance from mentors, but he also realized that being a lawyer involved persuading other people, so he also studied great speeches and acting. To get rid of an odd habit he had of involuntarily lifting his shoulder, he practiced his speeches in front of a mirror, and he suspended a sword from the ceiling so that if he raised his shoulder, it would hurt.

那么，学习区到底是怎样的呢？德摩斯梯尼是古希腊的一位政治领袖，同时也是一位伟大的演说家和律师。演说家和律师是他的表现区，为了变得更强，他并没有将所有时间都花在这两件事上。而是做了许多可以提升自己的事情。当然，他学习了许多东西。他跟随导师学习法律和哲学，但同时他也意识到作为一个律师需要有说服群众的能力，因此他学习了演讲和表演。练习演讲时，为了摆脱时不时耸肩的怪癖，他坐在镜子前，将一把剑悬挂在天花板上，一旦他耸肩，就会受伤。

2:54
(Laughter)

（哈哈哈）

2:56
To speak more clearly despite a lisp, he went through his speeches with stones in his mouth. He built an underground room where he could practice without interruptions and not disturb other people. And since courts at the time were very noisy, he also practiced by the ocean, projecting his voice above the roar of the waves.

他口齿不清，为了表达清楚，他在演讲时把石头含在嘴里。他建了一个地下室，在练习时既不会被打扰也不会打扰别人。由于当时的法院十分嘈杂，他也会对着大海，在海浪的咆哮声中练习演讲。

3:14
His activities in the learning zone were very different from his activities in court, his performance zone. In the learning zone, he did what Dr. Anders Ericsson calls deliberate practice. This involves breaking down abilities into component skills, being clear about what subskill we’re working to improve, like keeping our shoulders down, giving full concentration to a high level of challenge outside our comfort zone, just beyond what we can currently do, using frequent feedback with repetition and adjustments, and ideally engaging the guidance of a skilled coach, because activities designed for improvement are domain-specific, and great teachers and coaches know what those activities are and can also give us expert feedback. It is this type of practice in the learning zone which leads to substantial improvement, not just time on task performing. For example, research shows that after the first couple of years working in a profession, performance usually plateaus. This has been shown to be true in teaching, general medicine, nursing and other fields, and it happens because once we think we have become good enough, adequate, then we stop spending time in the learning zone. We focus all our time on just doing our job, performing, which turns out not to be a great way to improve. But the people who continue to spend time in the learning zone do continue to always improve. The best salespeople at least once a week do activities with the goal of improvement. They read to extend their knowledge, consult with colleagues or domain experts, try out new strategies, solicit feedback and reflect. The best chess players spend a lot of time not playing games of chess, which would be their performance zone, but trying to predict the moves grand masters made and analyzing them. Each of us has probably spent many, many, many hours typing on a computer without getting faster, but if we spent 10 to 20 minutes each day fully concentrating on typing 10 to 20 percent faster than our current reliable speed, we would get faster, especially if we also identified what mistakes we’re making and practiced typing those words. That’s deliberate practice.

他在学习区的活动与他在法院，即表现区的活动，有很大的不同。Dr. Anders Ericsson将他在学习区的活动称为刻意练习。这包含把一种能力分成多个组合的技能，弄清楚我们需要提升的单项技能是什么。例如改掉耸肩怪癖，在舒适区外迎接更高挑战，超越自我，通过重复和调整不断得到正反馈。观念上遵循导师的建议，因为提高自我的活动是特定领域的，导师和专家知道这些活动是什么，也会提供专业的反馈。正是这种学习区的练习方式导致实质性的改善，而不是仅仅把时间花在完成任务上。举个例子，研究表明，一种专业的工作在几年之后通常都会达到一个停滞期。这表现在教学，医学，护理等其他领域，因为我们一旦认为自己已经足够优秀，就会停止把时间花在学习区上。我们把所有精力都集中在工作表现上，事实证明这并不是一个很好的提升方式。反而是那些坚持在学习区上花时间的人确实在不断进步。最好的销售人员每周至少做一次提高自己的活动。他们通过阅读去扩展知识，向同事和该领域的佼佼者请教，尝试新的策略，征求反馈和建议。最好的棋手并没有将大量时间花在下棋上，即他们的表现区，而是尝试去预测和分析大师们的走法。我们每个人可能花了许多许多时间在电脑打字上，却没有变得更快，但如果我们每天花10到20分钟去集中精力用比平时快百分之10到20的速度去打字，尤其是如果我们还识别了一些错别字并且针对练习，那么我们会变得更快。这就是所谓的刻意练习。

5:23
In what other parts of our lives, perhaps that we care more about, are we working hard but not improving much because we’re always in the performance zone? Now, this is not to say that the performance zone has no value. It very much does. When I needed a knee surgery, I didn’t tell the surgeon, “Poke around in there and focus on what you don’t know.”

在生活的其他部分，或许我们更关心的是，我们努力工作却没有很大进步，是因为我们总是在表现区吗？这并不是说表现区没有任何价值。它很有价值。当我需要做一个膝盖手术时，我不会告诉医生：“你随便戳吧，不懂的地方好好学习一下”。

5:43
(Laughter)

（吼吼吼）

5:44
“We’ll learn from your mistakes!” I looked for a surgeon who I felt would do a good job, and I wanted her to do a good job. Being in the performance zone allows us to get things done as best as we can. It can also be motivating, and it provides us with information to identify what to focus on next when we go back to the learning zone. So the way to high performance is to alternate between the learning zone and the performance zone, purposefully building our skills in the learning zone, then applying those skills in the performance zone.

“我们会从你的错误中学到经验！”我会寻找一位我感觉能够胜任的外科医生，并且我也希望她能够做得很好。在表现区中我们可以尽己所能把事情做到最好。它也可以是一种激励的方式，当我们下次返回学习区时，我们就能知道应该集中在哪些方面的提升。因此，变强的方式就是在学习区和表现区之间做选择，在学习区中刻意学习和提高自己的技能，再把这些技能应用在表现区上。

6:15
When Beyoncé is on tour, during the concert, she’s in her performance zone, but every night when she gets back to the hotel room, she goes right back into her learning zone. She watches a video of the show that just ended. She identifies opportunities for improvement, for herself, her dancers and her camera staff. And the next morning, everyone receives pages of notes with what to adjust, which they then work on during the day before the next performance. It’s a spiral to ever-increasing capabilities, but we need to know when we seek to learn, and when we seek to perform, and while we want to spend time doing both, the more time we spend in the learning zone, the more we’ll improve.

当碧昂斯巡演时，在演唱会上，她处于表现区。但是，每晚当她返回酒店房间时，她就进入了学习区。她观看刚刚表演的视频，为自己，舞蹈人员以及摄像人员寻找改善的机会。隔天早晨，每个人都会收到关于如何调整自己的字条，然后在下一次表演前进行改善。这是一个不断增长能力的螺旋，但我们需要知道何时应该学习，何时应该表现。当我们想要两样都做时，我们在学习区上花的时间越多，则进步越大。

6:54
So how can we spend more time in the learning zone? First, we must believe and understand that we can improve, what we call a growth mindset. Second, we must want to improve at that particular skill. There has to be a purpose we care about, because it takes time and effort. Third, we must have an idea about how to improve, what we can do to improve, not how I used to practice the guitar as a teenager, performing songs over and over again, but doing deliberate practice. And fourth, we must be in a low-stakes situation, because if mistakes are to be expected, then the consequence of making them must not be catastrophic, or even very significant. A tightrope walker doesn’t practice new tricks without a net underneath, and an athlete wouldn’t set out to first try a new move during a championship match.

那么，我们如何才能在学习区花更多时间呢？第一，我们必须相信和理解我们有提升空间，也就是成长型心态。第二，我们必须想要提升某种特定技能。必须要有一个我们所关心的目的，因为这需要花费时间和精力。第三，我们必须要有一个如何提升的想法，我们能够做些什么，而不是像我年轻时练吉他一样，一遍又一遍的弹奏歌曲，应该是刻意地去练习。第四，我们必须处在低风险的情境下，因为如果期待错误，那么犯错的结果不应该造成太大影响。一个走钢丝表演者不会在底下没有安全网时练习新技巧，一个运动员不会在冠军比赛上尝试新招数。

7:44
One reason that in our lives we spend so much time in the performance zone is that our environments often are, unnecessarily, high stakes. We create social risks for one another, even in schools which are supposed to be all about learning, and I’m not talking about standardized tests. I mean that every minute of every day, many students in elementary schools through colleges feel that if they make a mistake, others will think less of them. No wonder they’re always stressed out and not taking the risks necessary for learning. But they learn that mistakes are undesirable inadvertently when teachers or parents are eager to hear just correct answers and reject mistakes rather than welcome and examine them to learn from them, or when we look for narrow responses rather than encourage more exploratory thinking that we can all learn from. When all homework or student work has a number or a letter on it, and counts towards a final grade, rather than being used for practice, mistakes, feedback and revision, we send the message that school is a performance zone.

在生活中，我们花大量时间在表现区的一个原因是，我们经常处于无必要的高风险的环境下。我们为他人创造了社交风险，甚至是在学习就是一切的学校里，我指的不是考试。我的意思是，许多学生，从小学到大学，总是觉得如果自己犯了错误，就会被别人看扁。难怪他们总是紧张过度而不敢为学习冒必要的风险。然而，当老师或父母渴望听到正确答案并拒绝错误而不是欢迎并鼓励他们从错误中学习时，或是当我们只想寻找答案而不是鼓励探索性思维时，他们就会下意识的认为，错误是不受欢迎的。当所有学生作业都带有数字或是字母的评分在上面，并以此来导向期末成绩，而不是用实践，错误，反馈和修改，我们就传达给学生这样一个消息，学校是一个表现区。

8:43
The same is true in our workplaces. In the companies I consult with, I often see flawless execution cultures which leaders foster to encourage great work. But that leads employees to stay within what they know and not try new things, so companies struggle to innovate and improve, and they fall behind.
9:00
We can create more spaces for growth by starting conversations with one another about when we want to be in each zone. What do we want to get better at and how? And when do we want to execute and minimize mistakes? That way, we gain clarity about what success is, when, and how to best support one another.
9:21
But what if we find ourselves in a chronic high-stakes setting and we feel we can’t start those conversations yet? Then here are three things that we can still do as individuals. First, we can create low-stakes islands in an otherwise high-stakes sea. These are spaces where mistakes have little consequence. For example, we might find a mentor or a trusted colleague with whom we can exchange ideas or have vulnerable conversations or even role-play. Or we can ask for feedback-oriented meetings as projects progress. Or we can set aside time to read or watch videos or take online courses. Those are just some examples. Second, we can execute and perform as we’re expected, but then reflect on what we could do better next time, like Beyoncé does, and we can observe and emulate experts. The observation, reflection and adjustment is a learning zone. And finally, we can lead and lower the stakes for others by sharing what we want to get better at, by asking questions about what we don’t know, by soliciting feedback and by sharing our mistakes and what we’ve learned from them, so that others can feel safe to do the same.
10:26
Real confidence is about modeling ongoing learning. What if, instead of spending our lives doing, doing, doing, performing, performing, performing, we spent more time exploring, asking, listening, experimenting, reflecting, striving and becoming? What if we each always had something we were working to improve? What if we created more low-stakes islands and waters? And what if we got clear, within ourselves and with our teammates, about when we seek to learn and when we seek to perform, so that our efforts can become more consequential, our improvement never-ending and our best even better?
11:18
Thank you.

链接：
http://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_briceno_how_to_get_better_at_the_things_you_care_about?language=en