19 The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated in Life and Work

金发姑娘规则:如何留下生活和工作的动力

IN 1955, Disneyland had just opened in Anaheim, California, when a ten-year-old boy walked in and asked for a job. Labor laws were loose back then and the boy managed to land a position selling guidebooks for $0.50 apiece.

1955年，迪斯尼乐园刚刚在加利福尼亚州的阿纳海姆开业，一个10岁的男孩走了进来，要求一份工作。劳动法是这个男孩设法找到了一个职位，以每本0.5美元的价格出售导游书。

Within a year, he had transitioned to Disney’s magic shop, where he learned tricks from the older employees. He experimented with jokes and tried out simple routines on visitors. Soon he discovered that what he loved was not performing magic but performing in general. He set his sights on becoming a comedian.

不到一年，他就转到了迪斯尼的魔术店，在那里他从老员工那里学到了一些技巧。他尝试着用笑话和简单的例程对游客进行试验。不久，他发现自己所热爱的不是表演魔术，而是普通的表演。他立志成为一名喜剧演员。

Beginning in his teenage years, he started performing in little clubs around Los Angeles. The crowds were small and his act was short. He was rarely on stage for more than five minutes. Most of the people in the crowd were too busy drinking or talking with friends to pay attention. One night, he literally delivered his stand-up routine to an empty club.

从他十几岁开始，他开始在洛杉矶附近的小俱乐部表演。观众很少，他的表演很短。他在台上很少超过五分钟。人群中的大多数人都忙着喝酒或者和朋友聊天而没有注意到。一天晚上，他在一家空荡荡的俱乐部里表演了他的单口相声。

It wasn’t glamorous work, but there was no doubt he was getting better. His first routines would only last one or two minutes. By high school, his material had expanded to include a five-minute act and, a few years later, a ten-minute show. At nineteen, he was performing weekly for twenty minutes at a time. He had to read three poems during the show just to make the routine long enough, but his skills continued to progress.

这不是什么光彩照人的工作，但毫无疑问他正在好转。他的第一套动作只能持续一到两分钟。到了高中，他的素材已经扩展到包括一个五分钟的表演，几年后，一个十分钟的节目。十九岁的时候，他每周都要表演20分钟。在演出过程中，他不得不朗诵三首诗，只是为了让演出时间足够长，但他的技巧仍在不断进步。

He spent another decade experimenting, adjusting, and practicing. He took a job as a television writer and, gradually, he was able to land his own appearances on talk shows. By the mid-1970s, he had worked his way into being a regular guest on The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live.

他又花了十年时间进行实验、调整和练习。他接受了一份电视编剧的工作，渐渐地，他能够得到工作他自己在脱口秀上露面。到了20世纪70年代中期，他已经成为了《今夜秀》和《周六夜现场》的常客。

Finally, after nearly fifteen years of work, the young man rose to fame. He toured sixty cities in sixty-three days. Then seventy-two cities in eighty days. Then eighty-five cities in ninety days. He had 18,695 people attend one show in Ohio. Another 45,000 tickets were sold for his three-day show in New York. He catapulted to the top of his genre and became one of the most successful comedians of his time.

经过近十五年的努力，这个年轻人终于成名了。他在63天内游历了六十个城市。然后在八十天内七十二个城市。然后在90天内到达85个城市。在俄亥俄州，有18695人参加了他的一场演出。他在纽约为期三天的演出还售出了4.5万张门票。他一跃成为他所在流派的顶尖人物，成为他那个时代最成功的喜剧演员之一。

His name is Steve Martin.

他叫史蒂夫·马丁。

Martin’s story offers a fascinating perspective on what it takes to stick with habits for the long run. Comedy is not for the timid. It is hard to imagine a situation that would strike fear into the hearts of more people than performing alone on stage and failing to get a single laugh. And yet Steve Martin faced this fear every week for eighteen years. In his words, “10 years spent learning, 4 years spent refining, and 4 years as a wild success.”

马丁的故事提供了一个迷人的视角，告诉我们如何才能长期保持习惯。喜剧不适合胆小的人。很难想象还有比独自在舞台上表演却没有得到一个笑声更让人心生恐惧的情况了。然而，十八年来，史蒂夫·马丁每周都要面对这种恐惧。用他的话来说，“10年的学习，4年的精炼，4年的成功。”

Why is it that some people, like Martin, stick with their habits— whether practicing jokes or drawing cartoons or playing guitar—while most of us struggle to stay motivated? How do we design habits that pull us in rather than ones that fade away? Scientists have been studying this question for many years. While there is still much to learn, one of the most consistent findings is that the way to maintain motivation and achieve peak levels of desire is to work on tasks of “just manageable difficulty.”

为什么有些人，比如马丁，坚持自己的习惯ーー不管是开玩笑、画卡通还是弹吉他ーー而我们大多数人都很难保持积极性？我们如何设计能够吸引我们的习惯而不是逐渐消失的习惯？科学家们已经研究这个问题很多年了。虽然还有很多东西需要学习，但一个最一致的发现是，保持积极性和达到最高水平愿望的方法是完成“仅仅是可控制的困难”的任务

The human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of difficulty. If you love tennis and try to play a serious match against a four-year-old, you will quickly become bored. It’s too easy. You’ll win every point. In contrast, if you play a professional tennis player like Roger Federer or Serena Williams, you will quickly lose motivation because the match is too difficult.

人类的大脑喜欢挑战，但前提是挑战处于最佳难度区。如果你喜欢网球，并且试图和一个四岁的孩子进行一场严肃的比赛，你很快就会感到厌烦。这太简单了。你会赢得每一分。相比之下，如果你的对手是职业网球选手，比如罗杰·费德勒或小威廉姆斯，你会很快失去动力，因为比赛太难了。

Now consider playing tennis against someone who is your equal. As the game progresses, you win a few points and you lose a few. You have a good chance of winning, but only if you really try. Your focus narrows, distractions fade away, and you find yourself fully invested in the task at hand. This is a challenge of just manageable difficulty and it is a prime example of the Goldilocks Rule.

现在考虑和你的对手打网球。随着游戏的进行，你赢得了一些积分，失去了一些。你有很大的机会获胜，但只有你真的去尝试。你的注意力变得狭窄，干扰逐渐消失，你发现自己完全投入到手头的任务中。这是一个难度可控的挑战，也是金发姑娘规则的一个典型例子。

The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.

金发姑娘规则指出，人类在处理当前能力边缘的任务时，会体验到最大的动力。别太用力。这可不容易。刚刚好。

THE GOLDILOCKS RULE

金发姑娘规则

FIGURE 15: Maximum motivation occurs when facing a challenge of just manageable difficulty. In psychology research this is known as the Yerkes– Dodson law, which describes the optimal level of arousal as the midpoint between boredom and anxiety.

图15:最大的动力发生在面对仅仅是可控困难的挑战时。在心理学研究中，这被称为耶克斯-多德森定律，该定律将最佳唤醒水平描述为无聊和焦虑之间的中点。

Martin’s comedy career is an excellent example of the Goldilocks Rule in practice. Each year, he expanded his comedy routine—but only by a minute or two. He was always adding new material, but he also kept a few jokes that were guaranteed to get laughs. There were just enough victories to keep him motivated and just enough mistakes to keep him working hard.

马丁的喜剧生涯就是金发姑娘规则在实践中的一个很好的例子。每年，他都会将喜剧表演的范围扩大一两分钟。他总是添加新的材料，但他也保留了一些笑话，保证得到笑料。有足够的胜利让他保持动力，有足够的错误让他保持努力工作。

When you’re starting a new habit, it’s important to keep the behavior as easy as possible so you can stick with it even when conditions aren’t perfect. This is an idea we covered in detail while discussing the 3rd Law of Behavior Change.

当你开始一个新的习惯时，保持这个习惯尽可能简单是很重要的，这样即使条件不完美，你也可以坚持下去。这是我们在讨论第三行为变化法则时详细介绍过的一个想法。

Once a habit has been established, however, it’s important to continue to advance in small ways. These little improvements and new challenges keep you engaged. And if you hit the Goldilocks Zone just right, you can achieve a flow state.*

然而，一旦养成了一个习惯，重要的是要继续以小的方式前进。这些小小的改进和新的挑战让你保持专注。如果你恰到好处地达到了适居带，你就可以达到流动状态。

A flow state is the experience of being “in the zone” and fully immersed in an activity. Scientists have tried to quantify this feeling. They found that to achieve a state of flow, a task must be roughly 4 percent beyond your current ability. In real life it’s typically not feasible to quantify the difficulty of an action in this way, but the core idea of the Goldilocks Rule remains: working on challenges of just manageable difficulty—something on the perimeter of your ability— seems crucial for maintaining motivation.

心流状态是一种“在状态中”的体验，完全沉浸在一项活动中。科学家们试图量化这种感觉。他们发现，要达到一种心流状态，一项任务必须大约超出你当前能力的4%。在现实生活中，用这种方式量化一个行动的难度通常是不可行的，但金发姑娘规则的核心理念依然存在:应对仅仅是可控难度的挑战ーー在你能力范围之内的挑战ーー似乎对保持动力至关重要。

Improvement requires a delicate balance. You need to regularly search for challenges that push you to your edge while continuing to make enough progress to stay motivated. Behaviors need to remain novel in order for them to stay attractive and satisfying. Without variety, we get bored. And boredom is perhaps the greatest villain on the quest for self-improvement.

改善需要人海万花筒(电影)。你需要定期寻找挑战，推动你到你的边缘，同时继续取得足够的进展，保持积极性。为了保持吸引力和满足感，行为需要保持新颖。没有多样性，我们就会感到无聊。在追求自我提升的道路上，无聊也许是最大的恶棍。

HOW TO STAY FOCUSED WHEN YOU GET BORED WORKING ON YOUR GOALS

当你厌倦了为自己的目标工作时，如何保持专注

After my baseball career ended, I was looking for a new sport. I joined a weightlifting team and one day an elite coach visited our gym. He had worked with thousands of athletes during his long career, including a few Olympians. I introduced myself and we began talking about the process of improvement.

在我的棒球生涯结束后，我开始寻找一项新的运动。我参加了一个举重队，有一天一个精英教练来到我们的体育馆。在他漫长的职业生涯中，他曾与数千名运动员共事，其中包括一些奥运选手。我介绍了自己，然后我们开始讨论改进的过程。

“What’s the difference between the best athletes and everyone else?” I asked. “What do the really successful people do that most don’t?”

“最好的运动员和其他人有什么不同?”我问道。“真正成功的人做了哪些大多数人做不到的事情?”

He mentioned the factors you might expect: genetics, luck, talent. But then he said something I wasn’t expecting: “At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.”

他提到了你可能期待的因素:遗传，运气，天赋。但是后来他说了一些出乎我意料的话:“从某种程度上来说，这取决于谁能应付每天训练的无聊，一遍又一遍地做同样的托举动作。”

His answer surprised me because it’s a different way of thinking about work ethic. People talk about getting “amped up” to work on their goals. Whether it’s business or sports or art, you hear people say things like, “It all comes down to passion.” Or, “You have to really want it.” As a result, many of us get depressed when we lose focus or motivation because we think that successful people have some bottomless reserve of passion. But this coach was saying that really successful people feel the same lack of motivation as everyone else. The difference is that they still find a way to show up despite the feelings of boredom.

他的回答让我很惊讶，因为这是对职业道德的一种不同的思考方式。人们谈论为了实现自己的目标而“激动起来”。无论是商业、体育还是艺术，你都会听到人们说这样的话:“一切都归结于激情。”或者，“你必须真正想要它。”因此，当我们失去专注力或动力时，我们中的许多人会变得沮丧，因为我们认为成功人士有着无限的激情储备。但是这个教练说真正的成功人士和其他人一样缺乏动力。不同之处在于，尽管感到无聊，他们还是会找到一种方式表现出来。

Mastery requires practice. But the more you practice something, the more boring and routine it becomes. Once the beginner gains have been made and we learn what to expect, our interest starts to fade. Sometimes it happens even faster than that. All you have to do is hit the gym a few days in a row or publish a couple of blog posts on time and letting one day slip doesn’t feel like much. Things are going well. It’s easy to rationalize taking a day off because you’re in a good place.

掌握需要练习。但是你练习的越多，它就变得越无聊和例行公事。一旦初学者获得了收益，我们学会了期待什么，我们的兴趣就开始消退。有时甚至比这还要快。你所要做的就是连续几天去健身房锻炼，或者按时发表几篇博客文章，让某一天溜走并不会让你感觉太多。一切都很顺利。休息一天很容易找到理由，因为你身处一个好地方。

The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. The outcome becomes expected. And as our habits become ordinary, we start derailing our progress to seek novelty. Perhaps this is why we get caught up in a never-ending cycle, jumping from one workout to the next, one diet to the next, one business idea to the next. As soon as we experience the slightest dip in motivation, we begin seeking a new strategy—even if the old one was still working. As Machiavelli noted, “Men desire novelty to such an extent that those who are doing well wish for a change as much as those who are doing badly.”

成功的最大威胁不是失败，而是厌倦。我们对习惯感到厌倦，因为它们不再让我们感到快乐。结果是预料之中的。当我们的习惯变得普通，我们开始出轨我们的进步寻求新奇。也许这就是为什么我们陷入了一个永无止境的循环，从一个锻炼跳到下一个，从一个节食到下一个，从一个商业想法跳到下一个。只要我们的积极性稍有下降，我们就会开始寻找新的策略ーー即使旧的策略仍然有效。正如马基雅维利所指出的，“人们渴望新奇，以至于那些做得好的人和那些做得不好的人一样渴望改变。”

Perhaps this is why many of the most habit-forming products are those that provide continuous forms of novelty. Video games provide visual novelty. Porn provides sexual novelty. Junk foods provide culinary novelty. Each of these experiences offer continual elements of surprise.

也许这就是为什么许多最容易形成习惯的产品是那些提供持续形式的新奇感的产品。电子游戏提供视觉上的新颖性。色情片提供了性的新鲜感。垃圾食品提供了烹饪上的新奇。这些经历中的每一个都带来了持续不断的惊喜。

In psychology, this is known as a variable reward.* Slot machines are the most common real-world example. A gambler hits the jackpot every now and then but not at any predictable interval. The pace of rewards varies. This variance leads to the greatest spike of dopamine, enhances memory recall, and accelerates habit formation.

在心理学中，这被称为可变奖励。老虎机是现实世界中最常见的例子。一个赌徒偶尔会中头奖，但不是以任何可预测的间隔。奖励的速度各不相同。这种差异导致多巴胺的最大峰值，增强记忆回忆，并加速习惯的形成。

Variable rewards won’t create a craving—that is, you can’t take a reward people are uninterested in, give it to them at a variable interval, and hope it will change their mind—but they are a powerful way to amplify the cravings we already experience because they reduce boredom.

变化的奖励不会产生渴望----也就是说，你不能接受人们不感兴趣的奖励，在一个变化的时间间隔内给予他们，并希望这会改变他们的想法----但变化的奖励是一种强有力的方式，可以放大我们已经体验到的渴望，因为它们。

The sweet spot of desire occurs at a 50/50 split between success and failure. Half of the time you get what you want. Half of the time you don’t. You need just enough “winning” to experience satisfaction and just enough “wanting” to experience desire. This is one of the benefits of following the Goldilocks Rule. If you’re already interested in a habit, working on challenges of just manageable difficulty is a good way to keep things interesting.

欲望的最佳点出现在成功和失败各占一半的时候。有一半的时间你能得到你想要的。有一半的时间你不知道。你只需要足够的“成功”来体验满足感，足够的“欲望”来体验欲望。这是遵循金发姑娘规则的好处之一。如果你已经对一个习惯感兴趣了，那么处理一些可以应付的困难是一个让事情变得有趣的好方法。

Of course, not all habits have a variable reward component, and you wouldn’t want them to. If Google only delivered a useful search result some of the time, I would switch to a competitor pretty quickly. If Uber only picked up half of my trips, I doubt I’d be using that service much longer. And if I flossed my teeth each night and only sometimes ended up with a clean mouth, I think I’d skip it.

当然，并不是所有的习惯都有一个可变的奖励成分，你也不会希望他们这样做。如果谷歌有时只提供有用的搜索结果，我会很快转向竞争对手。如果Uber只占用了我一半的出行时间，我怀疑我还会继续使用这项服务。如果我每天晚上都用牙线清洁牙齿，只是有时候我的嘴巴会很干净，我想我会跳过它。

Variable rewards or not, no habit will stay interesting forever. At some point, everyone faces the same challenge on the journey of self-improvement: you have to fall in love with boredom.

不管有没有可变的奖励，没有一个习惯会永远保持有趣。在某种程度上，每个人在自我提升的过程中都面临着同样的挑战:你不得不爱上无聊。

We all have goals that we would like to achieve and dreams that we would like to fulfill, but it doesn’t matter what you are trying to become better at, if you only do the work when it’s convenient or exciting, then you’ll never be consistent enough to achieve remarkable results.

我们都有我们想要实现的目标和我们想要实现的梦想，但是不管你想要在什么方面做得更好，如果你只是在方便或令人兴奋的时候做这件工作，那么你就永远不会有足够的持续性来取得卓越的成果。

I can guarantee that if you manage to start a habit and keep sticking to it, there will be days when you feel like quitting. When you start a business, there will be days when you don’t feel like showing up. When you’re at the gym, there will be sets that you don’t feel like finishing. When it’s time to write, there will be days that you don’t feel like typing. But stepping up when it’s annoying or painful or draining to do so, that’s what makes the difference between a professional and an amateur.

我可以保证，如果你开始养成一个习惯并坚持下去，总有一天你会想要放弃。当你开始做生意的时候，总会有一些日子你不想出现。当你在健身房的时候，会有一些你不想完成的项目。当需要写作的时候，总会有那么几天你不想打字。但是，当这样做令人恼火、痛苦或者精疲力竭的时候，站出来，这就是专业人士和业余人士的区别。

Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. Professionals know what is important to them and work toward it with purpose; amateurs get pulled off course by the urgencies of life.

专业人士严格按照时间表行事，业余人士则让生活成为绊脚石。专业人士知道什么对他们来说是重要的，并且有目的地朝着这个目标努力;业余人士会被生活的紧急事件拖下水。

David Cain, an author and meditation teacher, encourages his students to avoid being “fair-weather meditators.” Similarly, you don’t want to be a fair-weather athlete or a fair-weather writer or a fair-weather anything. When a habit is truly important to you, you have to be willing to stick to it in any mood. Professionals take action even when the mood isn’t right. They might not enjoy it, but they find a way to put the reps in.

作家兼冥想教师戴维·凯恩(davidcain)鼓励他的学生避免成为“风雨无阻的冥想者”同样的，你也不想成为一个只能适应不良气候的运动员，或者一个只能适应不良气候的作家，或者任何不能适应不良气候的人。当一个习惯对你真正重要的时候，你必须愿意在任何情绪下坚持下去。专业人士甚至会采取行动当心情不好的时候。他们可能不喜欢这样，但是他们找到了一种方法让销售代表加入进来。

There have been a lot of sets that I haven’t felt like finishing, but I’ve never regretted doing the workout. There have been a lot of articles I haven’t felt like writing, but I’ve never regretted publishing on schedule. There have been a lot of days I’ve felt like relaxing, but I’ve never regretted showing up and working on something that was important to me.

有很多组我不想完成，但是我从来没有后悔做这个锻炼。有很多文章我不想写，但我从不后悔按时发表。有很多天我都觉得很放松，但是我从来没有后悔过出现在这里，并且做一些对我来说很重要的事情。

The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.

成为优秀的唯一方法就是不断地重复做同样的事情。你不得不爱上无聊。

Chapter Summary

The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities.

金发姑娘规则指出，人类在处理当前能力边缘的任务时，会体验到最大的动力。

The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom.

成功的最大威胁不是失败，而是厌倦。

As habits become routine, they become less interesting and less satisfying. We get bored.

随着习惯变成常规，他们变得不那么有趣，不那么令人满意。我们感到无聊。

Anyone can work hard when they feel motivated. It’s the ability to keep going when work isn’t exciting that makes the difference.

任何人只要有动力就可以努力工作。当工作不令人兴奋的时候，能够坚持下去的能力才是最重要的。

Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way.

专业人士严格按照时间表行事，业余人士则让生活成为绊脚石。