如何找到你真正擅长的事How to Recognize What You are Really Good At

How to Recognize What You’re Really, Really Good At

One of life’s biggest challenges is figuring out what you’re good at. But something else can be even harder-figuring out what you’re, frankly, not so good at. Coming to terms with your shortcomings, or the things you can’t quite excel at, is an incredibly valuable skill.

人生最大的挑战之一，是弄清楚自己擅长什么。但还有一件事可能更难——坦率地说，弄清楚自己不擅长什么。接纳自己的不足，或那些你无法真正精通的事，是一项极其宝贵的技能。

That’s because you don’t have to be good at everything. In fact, in this era of professional specialization, it can be much more advantageous if you’re not. The best way you can become valuable is by not doing everything, but, instead, by doing something really well-and by knowing your own limitations.

这是因为，你根本不需要什么都擅长。事实上，在这个专业分工极其细致的时代，不追求全能反而会让你更具优势。让自己变得更有价值的最佳途径，不是什么都揽在身上，而是把某件事做到极致——并且清晰地知道自己的局限在哪。

Imagine almost having everything. The year is 1999. Marc Randolph is the CEO and cofounder of a startup called Netflix, which is struggling to grow. He can’t figure out why.

想象一下那个“几乎拥有一切”的时刻。时间回到1999年。马克·兰多夫(Marc Randolph)是一家名为Netflix的初创公司的联合创始人兼CEO。当时，公司正陷入增长停滞的泥潭，而他却找不到原因。

One day, Marc hears a knock at his office door. It’s his fellow cofounder, Reed Hastings, who asks if he can show Marc a PowerPoint presentation. Sure, Marc says. So Reed begins. “At first I couldn’t quite understand what was happening,” Marc told me in an interview.

有一天，马克听到办公室的门被敲响了。是他的合伙人里德·哈斯廷斯（Reed Hastings），里德问能不能给马克看一份PPT演示。马克答应了。于是里德开始了。马克在一次采访中告诉我:“刚开始，我完全搞不懂他在干嘛。”

That’s because this wasn’t a typical PowerPoint presentation. It was kind of… about Marc. Reed made a presentation about Marc for Marc. Eventually, Marc understood. In his presentation, Reed argued that he should replace Marc as the company’s CEO.

这是因为那并不是一份常规的PPT。它其实……是关于马克本人的。里德专门为马克做了一份关于他的演示。慢慢地，马克听懂了。在这份PPT里，里德直言不讳地提出:他应该取代马克，成为公司的新任CEO。

I asked Marc how he processed this. “I remember sitting in the dark for quite a long time, while the office slowly shut down around me,” Marc told me. “I remember driving home and sitting out on my back porch with my wife, having a glass of wine and talking this through—and recognizing that, although it was incredibly painful and disappointing, Reed was right.”

我问马克当时是如何消化这一切的。马克回忆道:“我记得我在黑暗中坐了很久，看着办公室的人慢慢走光、关灯。”“我记得我开车回家，和妻子坐在后院的门廊上，一边喝着红酒一边聊这件事——最后我意识到，尽管这极其痛苦和令人沮丧，但里德是对的。”

But the reason why Reed was right was the revelation that altered the course of Marc’s life. Marc dreamed of being a big-time CEO—the guy who can make a company worth billions. But, Reed thought, he was not good at doing that. It’s why Netflix was stuck.

而里德之所以是对的，正是因为他揭示了一个改变马克人生轨迹的真相。马克一直梦想着成为一名呼风唤雨的CEO——那种能把公司做到市值百亿的大佬。但里德认为，马克其实并不擅长干这个。这就是Netflix停滞不前的原因。

That’s not to say Marc was useless, though. “What I truly loved was the early stages,” he told me. “And I’ll be modest here—it’s what I’m actually good at!” In fact, this is exactly what he’d already done at Netflix. He turned an idea into a company.

不过，这并不是说马克毫无价值。“我真正热爱的，其实是创业的早期阶段，”他告诉我。“我也不谦虚了——这确实是我真正擅长的事！”事实上，这正是他在Netflix已经做到的事。他把一个绝妙的点子变成了一家真正的公司。

But he wasn’t the guy to grow it into a billion-dollar company—because that requires a separate skillset. Marc had a choice: he could either be an amazing version of his amazing self, or he could be a mediocre version of someone else. He chose to be amazing.

但他并不是那个能把公司带到百亿规模的人——因为那需要一套截然不同的技能。马克面临着一个选择：他要么做“极其出色的自己”，要么去做“平庸版的别人”。他选择了前者。

He stepped down as CEO and went on to a career helping early-stage startups—which is to say, Marc Randolph now wakes up every day doing the thing he is best at. You can do that, too. Marc’s story can be shortened like this: he discovered his limitations, and it helped him recognize his strength.

他辞去了CEO的职务，将职业生涯转向了去帮助那些早期的初创企业——也就是说，现在的马克·兰多夫，每天醒来都在做自己最拿手的事。你也可以做到。马克的故事可以浓缩成一句话:他认清了自己的局限，而这恰恰帮他找到了真正的优势。

Three questions to ask yourself. Think about what you’re struggling with and ask yourself: Why am I not excellent at this? I’m using “excellent” on purpose.

问自己三个问题。想一想你目前正在苦苦挣扎的事情，然后问自己:1.为什么我在这件事上做不到“极致”?我是故意用“极致(excellent)”这个词的。

NBA All-Star Chris Bosh once told me, “We don’t work to be average.”

NBA全明星球员克里斯·波什(Chris Bosh)曾对我说:“我们努力，可不是为了成为平庸之辈。”

It’s true—we work to be excellent. Because excellence gives us purpose and excitement. And excellence is worth sharing. Other people deserve our excellence. So, why are you not excellent?

没错——我们努力是为了追求卓越。因为追求极致能带给我们目标感和激情。而且，极致是值得被分享的。别人值得看到我们最出色的那一面。那么，你为什么做不到极致呢?

There are many reasonable answers to this question.

这个问题有很多合理的答案。

Maybe you’re learning something new. Maybe you’re exploring. Or building. Excellence takes time, and it is hard, and that’s OK. If your new pursuit satisfies and excites you, then please, please- keep going. But if you don’t have a good answer to the question, then it’s time to ask another one: Is it because I’m excellent at something else? This sounds so obvious. But in the moment, it doesn’t feel obvious. It sure didn’t to Marc. Maybe the answer is right in front of you. Maybe it is not. Either is fine. I’ve gone through a version of myself.

也许你正在学习新东西。也许你还在探索，或者正在打基础。做到极致需要时间，而且过程很艰难，这都很正常。如果你新的追求能让你感到满足和兴奋，那么请一定、一定要坚持下去。但如果你对这个问题给不出一个好答案，那就该问自己第二个问题了:是不是因为我其实在别的事情上能做到极致?这听起来似乎是废话。但在当局者迷的时候，你根本意识不到这一点。马克当时就没意识到。也许答案就在你眼前，也许还没出现。都没关系。我也曾经历过这样一场自我审视。

For most of my career, I aspired to be a celebrated magazine features writer. These are the people who write regularly for the New Yorker or the New York Times Sunday Magazine-whose big, award-winning, investigative articles get turned into movies, and that used to be buzzed about by all the big-time journalists on Twitter.

在我职业生涯的大部分时间里，我都渴望成为一名备受赞誉的杂志特稿记者。就是那种经常在《纽约客》或《纽约时报》周日杂志上发表文章的人——他们写出的那些斩获大奖、篇幅宏大的调查报道会被拍成电影，在推特上被各路传媒大咖疯狂转发讨论。

But I never achieved that. Oh, I tried! I really tried. I wrote a lot of magazine features. And they were received… fine. But no awards. No movie deals. The New Yorker never reached out.

但我从未达到那个高度。哦，我试过!我真的拼命试过。我写了大量的杂志特稿。反响嘛……还可以。但没拿过什么大奖。没有电影版权的邀约。《纽约客》也从未向我抛出过橄榄枝。

And deep down, I understood: I’m perfectly good at this, but I’m not excellent. And that hurts. Now, third question: 3. What would happen if I just did the thing I’m excellent at? Nobody ever said, “Shaq was a terrible basketball player because he couldn’t shoot three-pointers.” No.

在内心深处，我很清楚：我能把这事做得挺好，但我做不到极致。这真的很扎心。现在，来到第三个问题：3.如果我只做自己能做到极致的事，会发生什么?从来没有人说过:“奥尼尔是个糟糕的篮球运动员，因为他投不进三分球。”绝不可能。

Shaq was amazing because he did a few things very, very well. So try this thought experiment. Let’s say you know what you’re excellent at. How much of your day is spent doing it? Twenty percent? Fifty percent, if you’re lucky? So what would it look like if you increased that? What if 80 percent of your day was spent on what you’re excellent at?

奥尼尔之所以伟大，是因为他把少数几件事做到了登峰造极的地步。所以，不妨试着做个思维实验。假设你已经知道自己擅长什么了。你每天有多少时间是花在这件事上的?百分之二十?如果运气好的话，百分之五十?那么，如果你把这个比例提高，生活会变成什么样?如果你每天有百分之八十的时间都在做自己最擅长的事呢?

I bet it sounds good. Now, how do you make that happen? Maybe you make a major change. Maybe you just do your job differently. Maybe you start offloading work that takes you away from your excellence. Maybe you just start to see the pathway towards maximizing yourself.

我打赌那听起来棒极了。那么，该如何实现它呢?也许你需要做出一次重大的改变。也许你只需要换个方式工作。也许你可以开始把那些消耗你精力的琐事甩出去。也许你只是需要开始去寻找一条能将自我价值最大化的路径。

Or maybe this isn’t possible right now. That’s also fine! Not all of us are Marc Randolph, who can casually step down as CEO of a company. But we can build a bridge there. We can work backwards, and think: to get there tomorrow, what needs to happen today? And what if you simply don’t know what you’re excellent at? Well, it’s time to think deeper.

又或者，这在当下根本就不现实。那也没关系!我们不可能都是马克·兰多夫，能随随便便就辞去公司CEO的职务。但我们可以为未来搭桥。我们可以倒推一下:为了明天能到达那里，我今天需要做些什么?如果你压根不知道自己擅长什么呢?那么，是时候往更深处去挖掘了。

Like I said: I am not an excellent investigative magazine features writer. But years ago, as I thought about it, I realized: I am excellent at something underneath that. I’m an excellent communicator. Magazine features were just one way I tried expressing that skill.

就像我刚才说的:我并不是一个拔尖的调查类特稿记者。但在多年前反思时，我意识到:在这层表象之下，我有一种真正的优势。我是一个极其出色的沟通者。写杂志特稿，只不过是我试图发挥这项技能的其中一种方式罢了。

So what else can I do with that? I didn’t really know. But I thought: I’ll just keep trying, and trying… This gave me the freedom to explore the kind of writing I’m doing right now. It didn’t come naturally.I had a lot of imposter syndrome at first.I wondered: will anyone take me seriously?

那么，我还能拿这项技能做点什么呢?当时我其实毫无头绪。但我心想:我只管去试，不停地试……这给了我去探索我现在这种写作风格的自由。这个过程并不自然。一开始我充满了冒名顶替综合征的折磨。我常常自我怀疑:会有人把我的文字当回事吗?

It also required an emotional break with the work I’d done before-to think, “I am no longer that thing I identified with, but I’m making room to become something better.”

这也要求我在情感上与过去的工作彻底切割——我要告诉自己:“我不再是那个我曾极力认同的角色了，我要腾出空间，去成为更好的自己。”

But once I started writing in an earnest, direct, helpful way-tapping into a part of myself I’d never let fully bloom-people sent me long, personal notes about how it helped them. Nobody did that when I was just a magazine writer.

但当我开始以一种真诚、直接、能给人带来实质帮助的方式去写作时——当我触碰到内心那个从未被允许完全绽放的部分时——人们开始给我发来长长的心声，告诉我这些文字是如何帮到了他们。当我还只是个特稿记者时，从来没有人对我这么做过。

And oh, it matters. It is an incredible gift, helping people like this. It feels, in a word, excellent. I asked Marc Randolph if he has advice for others.

天哪,这太重要了。能像这样帮到别人,是一种不可思议的礼物。用一个词来形容这种感觉,就是:极致。我问马克·兰多夫,他还有没有什么建议可以分享给大家。

“If people are looking for what success is,” he told me, “then spending your day doing the things you love: That’s success.” Success is not doing everything, in other words. It’s doing something—something meaningful, something purposeful.

“如果人们在寻找什么才是成功,”他告诉我,“那么,把你的一天花在你真正热爱的事情上:这就是成功。”换句话说,成功不在于什么都做。成功在于去做点什么——做那些有意义的、有目标感的事情。