如果你想获得巨大的成功，就不要制定雄心勃勃的目标。

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Study: Most Nobel Laureates Are Not Specialists | 大多数诺贝尔奖获得者都不是专家

After spending months studying the habits of every single Nobel laureate across every single discipline across all of history, researcher Robert Root-Bernstein found a fascinating pattern…

Nobel Laureates have significantly more and deeper interests than average scientists.

Whereas average scientists view their hobbies as having nothing to do with their work, Nobel laureates don’t look at their hobbies as hobbies. They look at them as fundamental parts of their creative process.

A camping trip isn’t just a camping trip. It’s an opportunity to get perspective on their work while looking at the stars. Art isn’t just art. It’s an opportunity to hone their visualization skills and therefore think better. Just as every moment, personal or professional, is potential material for a comedian, so too is every moment potential fodder for a Nobel laureate. Everything we learn or experience is fodder.

When we look back at many of the most creative people in history, including Nobel laureates, they seem to operate in a completely different way. They pursue curiosities, sometimes purposely not thinking of immediate applications. They embrace serendipity. At certain points in their career, they were even considered aimless or seen as lazy under-performers. I write about Einstein’s winding journey in How To Rapidly Double Your Brain Power With The Einstein Technique.

We see a similar pattern among many of the most innovative companies and founders in the world as well…

研究人员罗伯特-罗特-伯恩斯坦在花了几个月时间研究历史上每一个学科的每一位诺贝尔奖获得者的习惯后，发现了一个迷人的模式...

诺贝尔奖获得者比普通科学家的兴趣明显更多、更深入。

普通科学家认为他们的爱好与他们的工作无关，而诺贝尔奖获得者不把他们的爱好看成是爱好。他们把它们看成是他们创造过程的基本组成部分。

野营旅行不仅仅是一次野营旅行。它是一个在看星星时获得对他们工作的看法的机会。艺术不仅仅是艺术。这是一个磨练他们的视觉化技能的机会，因此可以更好地思考。正如每一个时刻，无论是个人还是职业，都是喜剧演员的潜在材料一样，每一个时刻也是诺贝尔奖得主的潜在素材。我们学习或经历的每件事都是炮灰。

当我们回顾历史上许多最具创造力的人，包括诺贝尔奖获得者，他们似乎以一种完全不同的方式运作。他们追求好奇心，有时故意不考虑直接应用。他们拥护偶然性。在他们职业生涯的某些时候，他们甚至被认为是漫无目的的，或被视为懒惰的表现不佳者。我在如何用爱因斯坦技术使你的脑力迅速翻倍中写到了爱因斯坦的曲折历程。

我们在世界许多最具创新性的公司和创始人中也看到了类似的模式......

Our Great Innovators Share These Three Traits In Common | 我们伟大的创新者有这三个共同的特征

Over my last several years of writing about great innovators, I’ve seen that they almost universally share three uncommon commonalities. They…

All while conventional wisdom recommends that people become specialists who are razor-focus on their goals.

For example…

When Michael Dell was asked to name the one attribute CEOs will need most to succeed in the turbulent times ahead, he answered, “I would place my bet on curiosity.”

Under Eric Schmidt’s leadership as CEO, Google grew from a few hundred employees to over 32,000. After years of experimentation, he found that two qualities mattered more than anything else: persistence and curiosity.

Jeff Bezos believes Amazon’s success is directly correlated with the number of experiments they perform.

Elon Musk famously spent hours a day during his childhood exploring his curiosity by reading books across physics, programming, philosophy, spirituality, and science fiction.

Many of Apple’s greatest innovations directly come from Steve Jobs’ meandering curiosity. Learning calligraphy helped Apple pioneer typefaces on the first personal computers. Jobs’ love of music enabled him to spot the opportunity to launch the world’s first truly successful MP3 player.

Self-made billionaire Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett’s right-hand person has collected the most valuable mental models across the biggest disciplines for his entire career.

I write about this surprising pattern more deeply in The Founders Of The World’s Five Largest Companies All Follow The 5-Hour Rule.

Learning that following my meandering curiosity and love of exploration could be a strength rather than a weakness if harnessed correctly has been life-changing. So has learning about the hidden downsides of goals…

在我过去几年关于伟大的创新者的文章中，我看到他们几乎都有三个不常见的共同点。他们...

尽管传统智慧建议人们成为专注于自己目标的专家。

比如说...

当迈克尔-戴尔被要求说出首席执行官在未来的动荡时期最需要的一个属性时，他回答，"我会把赌注押在好奇心上。"

在埃里克-施密特作为首席执行官的领导下，谷歌从几百名员工发展到超过32,000人。经过多年的实验，他发现两种品质比什么都重要：坚持和好奇心。

杰夫-贝索斯认为亚马逊的成功与他们进行的实验数量直接相关。

埃隆-马斯克著名的每天花几个小时在他的童年时期，通过阅读物理学、编程、哲学、精神学和科幻小说等书籍探索他的好奇心。

苹果公司许多最伟大的创新直接来自于史蒂夫-乔布斯的蜿蜒好奇心。学习字体设计帮助苹果公司开创了第一批个人电脑的字体。乔布斯对音乐的热爱使他发现了机会，推出了世界上第一个真正成功的MP3播放器。

自食其力的亿万富翁查理-芒格和沃伦-巴菲特的得力助手在他的整个职业生涯中收集了跨越最大学科的最有价值的心理模式。

我在世界五大公司的创始人都遵循5小时法则中更深入地阐述了这一惊人的模式。

了解到如果正确利用我蜿蜒的好奇心和对探索的热爱可以成为一种力量而不是一种弱点，这改变了我的生活。此外，我还了解到目标的隐藏弊端。

The Surprising Downsides Of Goals That No One Talks About | 没有人谈论的目标的令人惊讶的缺点

Since I can remember, I’ve been a deeply curious person. I love reading across disciplines. I love meeting interesting people and peppering them with questions. I love understanding things at a deeper level that may not have an immediate and obvious connections to my goals.

On the other hand, I love setting and achieving ambitious goals. Since I became an entrepreneur at 16, I’ve believed that if you want something bad enough, you get specific about what you want and when you want it, you keep visualizing it, and then you take massive action, you can have it. And worst case scenario, “shoot for the stars and hit the moon.”

The tension is that my curiosities are rarely on the direct path to my goals, making pursuing them hard to justify. Therefore, I’ve often relegated my curiosities to the hobby zone. Telling my team that I was going to read a book on evolution or network science felt like I was letting them down, even if those have paid huge dividends for my business over the long term. Earlier in my career, I hid my curiosities from my bio and resume, because they didn’t give a clear story of someone who was ambitious and focused.

Previously, I saw the holes in the goals model as personal shortcomings. Now, I have a clear picture of how only using the goals-only model can backfire:

从我记事起，我就是一个深感好奇的人。我喜欢阅读跨学科。我喜欢遇见有趣的人，并向他们提问。我喜欢在更深的层次上理解那些可能与我的目标没有直接和明显联系的事物。

另一方面，我喜欢设定和实现雄心勃勃的目标。自从我16岁成为一名企业家以来，我一直相信，如果你想要的东西足够多，你对你想要的东西和时间有具体的了解，你不断想象它，然后你采取大规模的行动，你就可以拥有它。在最坏的情况下，"向星星开枪，击中月亮"。

紧张的是，我的好奇心很少在通往目标的直接道路上，使追求它们的理由难以成立。因此，我经常将我的好奇心归入爱好区。告诉我的团队，我要读一本关于进化论或网络科学的书，感觉我让他们失望了，即使这些书在长期为我的企业带来了巨大的红利。在我职业生涯的早期，我把我的好奇心隐藏在我的简历中，因为它们没有给出一个雄心勃勃和专注的人的清晰故事。

以前，我把目标模型中的漏洞看作是个人缺点。现在，我清楚地认识到，只用目标模式会适得其反。

Downside #1: Goal obsession can lead to being unlucky | 缺点一：对目标的痴迷可能导致不幸运的结果

One of the best examples of how goals can lead to myopia is a famous study conducted by UK researcher Richard Wiseman.

In this study, Wiseman gave people who considered themselves lucky and unlucky a newspaper and then asked them to look through it and count the number of photos inside.

Here are the average results of how long it took people:

Unlucky people: 2 minutes

Lucky people: seconds

How was this even possible? On the second page, there was a huge half-page ad that said:

“Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.”

Amazed by the results, in his next experiment Wiseman placed a second large message halfway through the newspaper:

“Stop counting. Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250.”

Once again, the unlucky people missed the message. They were too busy counting.

To summarize the surprising results, Wiseman writes:

And so it is with luck — unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else.They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and as a result miss other types of jobs.Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.

The goal paradox is that the people who most fixedly pursue a goal might also be the worst at recognizing opportunities along the journey.

目标如何导致近视的最好例子之一是英国研究人员理查德-怀斯曼进行的一项著名研究。

在这项研究中，怀斯曼给自认为幸运和不幸运的人一份报纸，然后要求他们翻阅报纸并数出里面的照片数量。

以下是人们花了多长时间的平均结果。

不走运的人： 2分钟

幸运的人： 2 秒

这怎么可能呢？在第二页，有一个巨大的半页广告，上面写着。

"停止计数。这份报纸上有43张照片。"

怀斯曼对这一结果感到惊讶，在他的下一个实验中，他在报纸的一半位置放置了第二个大的信息。

"别数了。告诉实验者你看到了这个，就能赢得250英镑。"

不幸的人们再次错过了这一消息。他们太忙于计数了。

为了总结这个令人惊讶的结果，怀斯曼写道

运气也是如此--不幸运的人错过了机会，因为他们太专注于寻找别的东西。他们去参加聚会，打算寻找他们的完美伴侣，因此错过了交好朋友的机会。他们翻阅报纸，决心找到某些类型的工作广告，结果错过了其他类型的工作。幸运的人更加放松和开放，因此看到了那里的东西，而不仅仅是他们正在寻找的东西。

目标悖论是，最固定地追求一个目标的人可能也是最不善于识别旅途中的机会的人。

Downside #2: Achieving goals can leave you feeling empty | 缺点二：实现目标会让你感到空虚

“The most common reaction of the human mind to achievement is not satisfaction, but craving for more.” —Yuval Noah Harari

As the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for because you might get it.”

We’ve all had this experience of going after empty goals. We think a goal is going to change everything, so we sacrifice our health or our close relationships (or both) for it. Then, in the end, we realize that what we sacrificed may have been more important than the goal itself. In my twenties, I had a goal to build a business with over $1 million in revenue. Our team referred to it as the two commas goal. When we achieved it, nothing really changed, and I wondered why we had put so much energy to achieving this goal as rapidly as we could.

When we look at some of the world’s top performers, one is left to wonder about the sacrifices they made. For example, consider Michael Phelps and Tiger Woods — two of the best athletes in history. They followed the goal playbook to a tee (no pun intended). They started super young, accumulated tens of thousands of hours of deliberate practice, were single-minded, and actually achieved their most ambitious goals. Yet, they were left feeling empty.

Phelps, for example, has gone on the record saying that, “Really, after every Olympics I think I fell into a major state of depression.” He even added, “I didn’t want to be in the sport anymore … I didn’t want to be alive anymore.”

Tiger Woods repeatedly ignored signals that parts of his body were failing him. He prided himself on playing through pain. He will now have to live in significant pain for the rest of his life. And his rampant cheating on his wife and lying about it ruined his marriage. In the biography on him, which I recommend, we see how being so single-minded didn’t leave space for Tiger to do deeper work on himself or build deep relationships with those closest to him.

"人类思想对成就最常见的反应不是满足，而是渴望得到更多"。-尤瓦尔-诺亚-哈拉里

俗话说："要小心你所希望的东西，因为你可能会得到它"。

我们都有过这种追求空洞目标的经历。我们认为一个目标会改变一切，所以我们为它牺牲了我们的健康或亲密关系（或两者）。然后，到了最后，我们意识到我们所牺牲的东西可能比目标本身更重要。在我二十多岁的时候，我有一个目标，就是建立一个收入超过100万美元的企业。我们的团队把它称为两个逗号的目标。当我们实现这个目标时，没有什么真正的改变，我想知道为什么我们把这么多精力放在尽可能快地实现这个目标上。

当我们看一些世界顶级的表演者时，人们不禁要问，他们做出了什么牺牲。例如，考虑一下迈克尔-菲尔普斯和泰格-伍兹--历史上最好的两位运动员。他们完全遵循了目标游戏规则（不是双关语）。他们从超级年轻开始，积累了数万小时的刻意练习，一心一意，实际上实现了他们最宏大的目标。然而，他们却感到空虚。

例如，菲尔普斯曾公开说："真的，每届奥运会后，我想我都会陷入严重的抑郁状态。" 他甚至补充说："我不想再从事这项运动了......我不想再活着了。"

泰格-伍兹多次忽略了他身体的某些部分正在衰竭的信号。他为自己能在痛苦中打球而自豪。现在，他的余生将不得不生活在巨大的痛苦中。而他对妻子猖狂的出轨行为和对此事的撒谎毁了他的婚姻。在我推荐的关于他的传记中，我们看到如此单一的心态并没有给老虎留下空间，让他对自己做更深的努力，或与最亲近的人建立深厚的关系。

Downside #3: The second you set a goal it starts to become stale | 缺点三：你一设定目标，它就开始变味了

“The reason that most of us are unhappy most of the time is that we set our goals, not for the person we’re going to be when we reach them, but we set our goals for the person we are when we set them.” — Jim Coudal

Two things happen after you set a goal:

You change

The world changes

Yet, when we set a goal, we often unconsciously make the assumption that we won’t change significantly and neither will the world. Neither is true.

If we set a 10-year goal to go down a certain path, the person we are in five years may actually feel trapped by it. There is such a large sunk cost of time, money, and energy. We have publicly committed to it. Many of the people we have built relationships with still value the goal. As a result, it’s hard to give up.

Furthermore, we will be confronted with new opportunities in the future we can’t even imagine now.

"我们大多数人在大多数时候都不快乐的原因是，我们在设定目标时，不是为了达到目标时的自己，而是为了设定目标时的自己。" - Jim Coudal

在你设定一个目标后，有两件事会发生。

你改变了

世界变了

然而，当我们设定一个目标时，我们常常不自觉地做出这样的假设：我们*不会发生重大变化，世界也不会。两者都不是真的。

如果我们设定了一个10年的目标去走某条路，那么5年后的我们实际上可能会觉得被它所困。有这么大的时间、金钱和精力的沉没成本。我们已经公开承诺了。与我们建立关系的许多人仍然重视这个目标。因此，很难放弃。

此外，我们将在未来面临现在无法想象的新机会。

Downside #4: Goals can make you feel insecure | 缺点四：目标会让你感到不安全

Goals predictably make us feel insecure. Here’s how:

可以预见，目标会让我们感到不安全。这就是原因。

First, most people tend to set big goals that stretch them and to set aggressive deadlines. One of the 20th century self-help bibles, The Magic Of Thinking Big, proclaims, “Believe Big. The size of your success is determined by the size of your belief. Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success. Remember this, too! Big ideas and big plans are often easier — certainly no more difficult — than small ideas and small plans.”

Naturally, we underestimate how long it will take us to achieve the goal, because it is a big goal and likely something we haven’t done before. This is known as the Planning Fallacy.

And, even when we are aware of the Planning Fallacy, it still takes way longer than expected. This is known as Hofstadter’s Law.

As a result of the Planning Fallacy and Hofstadter’s Law, we are almost always behind where we thought we should be, which then makes us feel insecure.

When I set the million dollar revenue goal, I framed the goal, and hung it in the closet so I could see it every morning when I got dressed. Year after year, I full heartedly pursued the goal. The more I missed it, the more I felt insecure, like I was doing something wrong.

首先，大多数人倾向于设定大的目标，使他们的能力得到提升，并设定积极的最后期限。20世纪的自助圣经之一，The Magic Of Thinking Big，宣称："Believe Big。你成功的大小由你的信念的大小决定。思考小目标，期待小成就。思考大目标，赢得大成功。也要记住这一点! 大想法和大计划往往比小想法和小计划更容易--当然也不难"。

自然，我们会低估实现目标所需的时间，因为这是个大目标，而且很可能是我们以前没有做过的事情。这被称为计划谬误。

而且，即使我们意识到了计划谬误，它仍然比预期的时间要长得多。这就是所谓的霍夫斯塔特定律。

由于计划谬误和霍夫斯塔特定律，我们几乎总是落后于我们认为应该达到的目标，这就使我们感到不安全。

当我设定一百万美元的收入目标时，我把目标裱起来，挂在衣柜里，这样我每天早上穿衣服时就能看到它。年复一年，我全心全意地追求着这个目标。我越是错过，就越是感到不安全，好像我做错了什么。

Downside #5: Goals can reduce learning | 缺点五：目标会减少学习效果

When it relates to learning, several studies have shown that setting performance goals can backfire.

For example, when someone sets a goal to get an A in school, they may end up studying for the test rather than studying to learn. As a result, performance goals can hurt learning goals.

当它涉及到学习时，一些研究表明，设定绩效目标会适得其反。

例如，当某人设定的目标是在学校获得A时，他们最终可能是为了考试而学习，而不是为了学习而学习。因此，绩效目标会损害学习目标。

Downside #6: Goals can actually make you feel unmotivated | 缺点六：目标实际上会让你感到没有动力

They can even lead to procrastination. When you set a big goal you inevitably create a mental image of the road in front of you, and science shows that this journey to a big goal has predictable motivation dips:

Going from zero to one. As the saying goes, “Half of the journey is beginning it.” When you have a big goal that may take months or years of hard work and going outside of your comfort zone, taking the first can feel intimidating.

The OK (good enough) plateau. When we get OK in any discipline, it is very easy to just coast. For example, when was the last time you tried to deliberately improve at driving or typing?

The dip (aka — the long middle). After the initial excitement wears off, and you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s easy to give up.

Ultimately, the six main downsides of goals are:

Goal obsession can lead to being unlucky

Achieving goals can leave you feeling empty

The second you set a goal it starts to become stale

Goals can make you feel insecure

Goals can reduce learning

Goals can actually make you feel unmotivated

Many of these downsides can be somewhat fixed with better goal setting. But over time, I’ve come to believe that the problem with goals runs deeper. Many of these downsides are inherent to the goal-setting model itself.

Enter the “other” success model that many of the most famous innovators in history have followed, but that few people are even aware of.

Next, I’m going to introduce the essence of this model and then give you a very simple hack you can do to start getting results from curiosity right away.

它们甚至会导致拖延症。当你设定一个大目标时，你不可避免地会在脑海中形成前面的道路形象，而科学表明，这个通向大目标的旅程有可预测的动力低谷。

从零到一。俗话说，"旅程的一半是开始"。当你有一个大目标，可能需要几个月或几年的努力工作，并走出你的舒适区时，迈出第一步会感到很害怕。

OK（足够好）的高原期。当我们在任何学科中达到OK时，很容易就会停滞不前。例如，你最后一次尝试刻意提高驾驶或打字水平是什么时候？

低谷（又名：漫长的中间阶段）。最初的兴奋感消失后，你看不到隧道尽头的光，很容易放弃。

归根结底，目标的六个主要缺点是。

对目标的痴迷会导致不幸运的结果

实现目标会让你感到空虚

当你设定一个目标时，它就开始变得陈旧。

目标会让你感到不安全

目标可以减少学习

目标实际上会使你感到没有动力

这些缺点中的许多都可以通过更好的目标设定来解决。但随着时间的推移，我逐渐相信，目标的问题更深。这些弊端中有许多是目标设定模式本身所固有的。

进入 "另一种 "成功模式，历史上许多最著名的创新者都遵循这种模式，但甚至很少有人知道。

接下来，我将介绍这种模式的精髓，然后给你一个简单的技巧，你可以做的就是马上开始从好奇心中获得结果。

For Great Innovation, Stepping Stones Beat Goals | 对于伟大的创新，垫脚石胜过目标

New research and simulations coming from the field of artificial intelligence are painting a completely different picture of success. Surprisingly, researchers Kenneth Stanley and Joel Lehman are finding that the algorithms most effective at solving the kind of big, hard problems that we see in the real world are NOT the ones based on setting a goal, measuring progress, and then checking each milestone off as they complete it.

The goal model is effective when the steps between where you are now and where you want to go are clear. For example, it still makes sense to set goals like losing 10 pounds, getting 8 hours of sleep per night, spending more time with your family, or hitting quarterly business targets.

However, when the steps between where you are now and where you want to go are numerous and unclear, the researchers have found that a different model works better.

来自人工智能领域的新研究和模拟正在描绘一幅完全不同的成功图景。令人惊讶的是，研究人员肯尼斯-斯坦利和乔尔-雷曼发现，在解决我们在现实世界中看到的那种大而难的问题时，最有效的算法不是基于设定目标、衡量进展，然后在完成每个里程碑时打勾的那些。

当你现在的位置和你想去的地方之间的步骤清晰时，目标模式是有效的。例如，设定减肥10磅、每晚睡8小时、花更多时间与家人在一起、或达到季度业务目标等目标仍然有意义。

然而，当你现在的位置和你想去的地方之间的步骤很多而且不明确时，研究人员发现，不同的模式效果更好。

In other words, goals are good for exploiting what you already know. The Stepping Stone model, which I’ll explain next, is good for exploring what you don’t.

In fact, Stanley and Lehman go a step further in Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned:

[Ambitious] objectives actually become obstacles towards more exciting achievements, like those involving discovery, creativity, invention, or innovation — or even achieving true happiness. In other words (and here is the paradox), the greatest achievements become less likely when they are made objectives. Not only that, but this paradox leads to a very strange conclusion — if the paradox is really true then the best way to achieve greatness, the truest path to “blue sky” discovery or to fulfill boundless ambition, is to have no objective at all.

“Wow!? What did I just read?!” That was the first thought that went through my head when I saw this passage.

I felt like a religious devotee who had spent my whole life doing everything by the book in hopes of going to heaven, only to have a rude awakening. Not only did the religious practices not work, but I was going straight to hell.

Stanley and Lehman make big claims, and big claims need big evidence. So, let’s unpack their studies and conclusions at a deeper level.

换句话说，目标适合于利用你已经知道的东西。我接下来要解释的 "垫脚石 "模式，则有利于探索你所不知道的东西。

事实上，斯坦利和雷曼在为什么伟大不能被计划中更进一步。

[雄心勃勃的]目标实际上成为实现更多令人兴奋的成就的障碍，比如那些涉及发现、创造、发明或创新的成就—— 甚至是实现真正的幸福。换句话说（这里有一个悖论），当最伟大的成就被定为目标时，它们就变得不太可能。不仅如此，这个悖论还导致了一个非常奇怪的结论 —— 如果这个悖论真的是真的，那么实现伟大的最佳方式，通向 "蓝天 "发现或实现无限野心的最真实路径，就是根本没有目标。

"哇！？我刚刚读了什么？" 这是我看到这段话时脑子里的第一个想法。

我觉得自己就像一个宗教信徒，一生都在按部就班地做事，希望能上天堂，结果却被粗暴地唤醒。不仅宗教实践不起作用，而且我还直接下了地狱。

斯坦利和雷曼提出了大的主张，而大的主张需要大的证据。因此，让我们从更深的层面来解读他们的研究和结论。

The 3 Keys To The Stepping Stone Model | 垫脚石模式的三个关键

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”― Richard Feynman

So, if goals aren’t the best model for ambitious creative feats, what is?

Stanley and Lehman describe this new model as the stepping stone model.

To accomplish something big, you do NOT set ambitious goals and then work backwards. Rather, you follow the stepping stones immediately in front of you that give you the most novel paths forward, even if you aren’t sure exactly how that stepping stone will pay off in the future. Then, from that new stepping stone, you look for the the most novel path forward again. And so on, jumping from one novel stepping stone to another.

"以最无纪律、最不敬业和最原始的方式努力学习你最感兴趣的东西。" —— 理查德 · 费曼

那么，如果目标不是雄心勃勃的创造性壮举的最佳模式，什么才是？

斯坦利和雷曼将这种新的模式描述为垫脚石模式。

要完成一件大事，你不要设定雄心勃勃的目标，然后再向后努力。相反，你会沿着眼前的垫脚石前进，这些垫脚石能给你带来最创新之路，即使你不确定这块垫脚石在未来会有什么回报。然后，从这个新的垫脚石开始，你再次寻找最新颖的前进道路。就这样，从一个新颖的垫脚石跳到另一个。

To someone reared in the goals model, this thinking is counterintuitive:

If you just follow the most novel path, won’t you just aimlessly jump from one thing to another without making any real progress?

If you just follow the most novel path, won’t you become an aimless wanderer?

Novelty may sound overly simplistic, but it is actually incredibly powerful on three levels:

对于在目标模式下长大的人来说，这种思维是反直觉的。

如果你只是遵循最新颖的路径，你不就会漫无目的地从一件事跳到另一件事，而不会有任何真正的进展？

如果你只是遵循最新颖的路径，你不就成了一个漫无目的的流浪者吗？

新颖性可能听起来过于简单，但它实际上在三个层面上具有难以置信的力量。

#1: Novelty is a great shortcut for detecting great stepping stones | 新奇的东西是检测伟大的垫脚石的一个伟大的捷径

When you’re a beginner at something, you can get novelty easily via simple trial & error. For examples, let’s say you’ve never read a book on habits before. As a result, it’s likely that the first book you read on it is going to be mind-blowing even if it is mediocre.

As you become more expert on habits though, novelty becomes harder to find. Trial and error is no longer enough. You need to change how you think. You need a more complex model. For example, after you’ve read 10 books on habits, rather than picking up an 11th book on habit change, you may need to search in another discipline you know nothing about and then see if it provides creative ideas you can apply back to habits.

This may explain why the founders of the five largest companies in the world are all polymaths. With the stepping stone model, one pursues novelty, which very quickly leads to learning across domains. With the goals model alone, being a polymath doesn’t make sense as it is unpredictable and indirect to achieving goals. Elon Musk expands on this:

“A lot of people who spend a long time trying to figure out how to solve tough problems in one industry don’t ask, ‘Well, is there some way we could apply that solution to a different industry? And that can be really, really powerful.” — Elon Musk

Put more succinctly: as you pursue novelty, it gets harder and harder to find. This difficulty forces you to adopt new and more complex ways of thinking in order to find novelty. This more complex thinking leads to breakthroughs.

Stanley and Lehman explain:

The important point is that novelty (and interestingness) can compound over time by continually making new things possible. So instead of seeking a final objective, by looking for novelty the reward is an endless chain of stepping stones branching out into the future as novelty leads to further novelty. Rather than thinking of the future as a destination, it becomes a road, a path of undefined potential.

当你是一个初学者的时候，你可以通过简单的试验和错误轻松获得新奇感。例如，假设你之前从未读过一本关于习惯的书。因此，你读的第一本关于它的书很可能会让人心动，即使它是平庸的。

不过，随着你成为更多关于习惯的专家，新奇的东西变得更难找到。试错已经不够了。你需要改变你的思考方式。你需要一个更复杂的模型。例如，在你读了10本关于习惯的书之后，与其拿起第11本关于习惯改变的书，你可能需要在另一门你一无所知的学科中搜索，然后看看它是否提供了可以应用回习惯的创造性想法。

这也许可以解释为什么世界上最大的五家公司的创始人都是多面手。在垫脚石模式下，人们追求新奇，这很快就会导致跨领域的学习。仅仅用目标模式，做一个多面手是没有意义的，因为它是不可预测的，对实现目标是间接的。埃隆 · 马斯克对此进行了阐述

"很多人花了很长时间试图找出如何解决一个行业的棘手问题，却没有问：'那么，我们是否有办法将这个解决方案应用到不同的行业？而这可能是非常、非常强大的。" —— 埃隆 · 马斯克

更简洁地说：当你追求新奇的东西时，它变得越来越难找到。这种困难迫使你采用新的和更复杂的思维方式，以便找到新奇的东西。这种更复杂的思维方式导致了突破。

斯坦利和雷曼解释说。

重要的一点是，新颖性（和趣味性）可以通过不断地使新事物成为可能而随着时间的推移而复合。因此，与其寻求一个最终目标，不如通过寻找新奇的东西，奖励是一个无尽的垫脚石链，当新奇的东西导致进一步的新奇时，就会向未来发展。与其把未来想成一个目的地，不如把它变成一条路，一条未定义的潜力之路。

#2: Humans are uniquely good at perceiving novelty | 人类在感知新奇事物方面有独特的优势

“Behind any serendipitous discovery there’s nearly always an open-minded thinker with a strong gut feeling for what plan will yield the most interesting results.”— Kenneth Stanley and Joel Lehman

We often take it for granted, but humans have an almost magical ability to detect interestingness. We don’t need logic and analysis to detect that something is fascinating to us. We can almost immediately find it without even knowing why.

Furthermore, Stanley and Lehman have found that replicating this natural human ability to identify paths that are interesting is currently impossible with artificial intelligence. They add:

Often we feel the urge to explore a particular path or idea despite being unsure where it might lead. Our intuitions and hunches often prod us in directions that might not be justified objectively but still lead to something different or interesting. So it’s no coincidence that the concept of interestingness comes up naturally when discussing novelty. When an idea feels genuinely novel, that’s often enough to make us curious. The idea interests us even if its ultimate purpose is unclear… We understand that if we take the interesting path, it may yet lead somewhere important, even though we might not know where.

"在任何偶然发现的背后，几乎总是有一个思想开放的思考者，对什么计划会产生最有趣的结果有着强烈的直觉。" —— 肯尼斯-斯坦利和乔尔 · 雷曼

我们常常认为这是理所当然的，但人类有一种几乎神奇的能力来检测*有趣的东西。我们不需要逻辑和分析就能发现某样东西对我们有吸引力。我们几乎可以立即发现它，甚至不知道为什么。

此外，斯坦利和雷曼发现，用人工智能复制这种人类识别有趣的路径的自然能力目前是不可能的。他们补充说。

尽管我们不确定某条道路或某个想法可能通往何处，但我们常常感到有探索的冲动。我们的直觉和预感经常促使我们走向可能没有客观理由的方向，但仍会导致一些不同或有趣的东西。因此，在讨论新颖性时，有趣的概念会自然而然地出现，这并不是巧合。当一个想法感觉到真正的新奇时，这往往足以让我们产生好奇心。这个想法让我们感兴趣，即使它的最终目的并不明确......我们明白，如果我们走这条有趣的路，它可能会通往某个重要的地方，尽管我们可能不知道在哪里。

#3: Humans are wired to love and be motivated by curiosity | 人类有爱的基因，并受到好奇心的驱使

To be motivated, we do NOT need huge goals. Curiosity is an innate and incredibly powerful drive. And, it can be cultivated.

One of my favorite examples of our innate curiosity is this four-hour time-lapse video (compressed into 2 minutes) of a baby playing with toys.

Think about how amazing this video is. Staying focused for four hours is hard for anyone to do, but this baby is able to do it naturally without even trying.

This is how babies go from zero knowledge of the world to incredible amounts of learning — simply by following their curiosity.

The research, case studies, and examples that I presented in this article have an obvious and easy conclusion…

If you want to accomplish huge creative feats, embrace your inner curiosity. Goal setting is powerful, but best used for short-term goals where the path between where you are and where you want to be is clear.

The less obvious and more important question, though is, how?

要有动力，我们不需要巨大的目标。好奇心是一种与生俱来的、令人难以置信的强大动力。而且，它是可以培养的。

我最喜欢的说明我们天生好奇心的例子之一是这个婴儿玩玩具的四小时延时视频（被压缩成2分钟）。

想一想这段视频是多么令人惊讶。对任何人来说，保持四个小时的专注是很难做到的，但这个婴儿甚至不需要尝试就能自然地做到。

这就是婴儿如何从对世界的零知识到令人难以置信的学习量的过程--仅仅通过跟随他们的好奇心。

我在这篇文章中提出的研究、案例分析和例子有一个明显而简单的结论......

如果你想完成巨大的创造性壮举，请拥抱你内心的好奇心。目标设定是强大的，但最好用于短期目标，即你现在的位置和你想要的位置之间的路径是明确的。

不过，不太明显但更重要的问题是，如何实现？

A Simple Way To Incorporate Curiosity Into Your Life | 将好奇心融入生活的简单方法

How do we embrace the serendipity of curiosity while handling the predictability of our bills?

How do we productively channel our curiosity? In other words, how do we avoid neomania — getting constantly distracted by the latest tech gadgets, the newest articles, the newest social media posts, and the newest books — for no other reason than they trigger our innate curiosity?

For me the answer to these questions comes down to what I call the curiosity filter.

Many of us, especially the most ambitious, have a goal filter that we take through life. When we come across books, people, and opportunities, we ask ourselves whether it will help us accomplish our goals.

我们如何在处理账单的可预测性时拥抱好奇心的偶然性？

我们如何有效地引导我们的好奇心？换句话说，我们如何避免新狂热症 —— 不断分心，被最新的科技小玩意、最新的文章、最新的社交媒体帖子和最新的书籍所吸引--原因无非是它们触发了我们天生的好奇心？

对我来说，这些问题的答案可以归结为我所说的好奇心过滤器。

我们中的许多人，尤其是最有野心的人，都有一个目标过滤器，我们在生活中带着它。当我们遇到书籍、人物和机会时，我们会问自己，它是否能帮助我们完成目标。

As an experiment, try adding a curiosity filter. When you come across books, people, or opportunities, ask yourself:

Am I so fascinated by this that I’d be willing to spend serious effort learning more?

If the answer is NOT hell yeah, then let it go. If it is a hell yeah, then make time for it within your schedule with the 5-Hour Rule. Use the level of your fascination as a compass.

作为一个实验，尝试添加一个好奇心过滤器。当你遇到书籍、人或机会时，问问自己。

我是否对这个问题如此着迷，以至于我愿意花大力气去了解更多？

如果答案不是hell yeah，那么就让它过去。如果答案是 "是的"，那就用5小时法则在你的日程表中为它安排时间。把你的着迷程度作为一个指南针。

This filter is powerful on two levels:

How much you’re willing to sacrifice your time for a fascination is a good proxy for how fascinated you actually are. This proxy helps protect against shallow curiosity where you’re pulled in by clickbait titles, notifications, and subject lines that feel interesting in the moment, but don’t actually matter.

Having a high bar for fascination prevents information overwhelm. The more you get in touch with your innate curiosity, the more and deeper curiosities you will have. The “hell yeah” filter prevents you going int too many directions at once.

这个过滤器在两个层面上是强大的。

你愿意为某件事情牺牲多少时间，是你实际着迷程度的一个很好的代表。这个代表有助于防止浅薄的好奇心，即你被点击率很高的标题、通知和主题句所吸引，在这一刻感觉很有趣，但实际上并不重要。

有一个高标准的吸引力可以防止信息海啸。你越是接触你天生的好奇心，你的好奇心就越多，越深。地狱式 "的过滤器可以防止你一下子进入太多方向。

And, ultimately, four things will happen the more you say ‘hell yeah’:

1)You will ignite an inner fire and access a whole new system of motivation beyond will-power. Famous Hollywood producer Brian Grazer summarizes this motivation source in his book A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life:

“Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will; indeed, it has led many people into dangers which mere physical courage would shudder away from.”

2)That fire will turn into an inferno. As Einstein eloquently said:

“Curiosity is a delicate little plant which, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom. It turns out that like many delicate plants, in order to flourish, curiosity needs to be cultivated.”

3)You will channel your curiosity into a reservoir of knowledge. Every diverse skill and idea you learn is ultimately fodder for future creative breakthroughs. (We go deeper into how to learn faster and better in this free webinar.)

4)You will enjoy your life way more!

Ironically, the fact that I’m even writing this article is an example of the power of the stepping stone model. I started writing seriously in 2013 when I became a contributor to Forbes. I was running my old business full-time and feeling burned out. So I decided to use the writing opportunity to explore my curiosity — to give myself permission to do something that wasn’t connected to an immediate outcome. In other words, I used the curiosity filter.

For each article I wrote, I read 3–4 books and spent 80 hours. From a typical productivity perspective, my approach made no sense. From a curiosity filter perspective, I very rapidly went from burned out to on fire.

That curiosity took me on a meandering path from articles on work-life balance, to articles on relationship building, to learning how to learn — all topics not at all related to our business at the time.

It made no economic sense. But, it made sense to my soul. It made sense in the stepping stone model. And now, in retrospect, it makes sense in the goal model — because now, I am writing and teaching full-time about learning how to learn.

The only way that I could write this article is by having written the previous ones. The only reason why the book Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned resonated so deeply with me is because I had been unconsciously following the stepping stone model.

I pursued my previous business with the traditional goal-setting model. It left me burnt out. I’ve built my current business by following my curiosity and by following short-term goals, and I’ve never been more successful or happier. Over the past few years, I have:

Contributed to Time, Fortune, Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, and the Harvard Business Review.

I have earned more money than I ever have.

My writing has been read tens of millions of times.

Built a 200,000+ person email list.

And none of this was planned when I started writing for Forbes.

而且，最终，你越是说'hell yeah'，就会发生四件事。

你将点燃内心的火焰，进入一个超越意志力的全新动力系统。著名的好莱坞制片人Brian Grazer在他的书好奇心：更伟大的人生的秘密中总结了这种动力来源。

好奇心甚至比勇敢更能战胜恐惧；事实上，好奇心已经把许多人带入了单纯的身体勇气会颤抖的危险之中"。

那把火会燃烧。正如爱因斯坦雄辩地指出的那样。

好奇心是一种脆弱的小植物，除了刺激之外，它主要需要自由。事实证明，像许多脆弱的植物一样，为了蓬勃发展，好奇心需要被培养。

你将把你的好奇心引导到知识库中。你学到的每一个不同的技能和想法最终都是未来创造性突破的素材。(我们在这个免费网络研讨会中更深入地探讨如何更快更好地学习。)

你会更享受你的生活！

具有讽刺意味的是，我甚至在写这篇文章的事实就是踏脚石模式的力量的一个例子。我是在2013年开始认真写作的，当时我成为了福布斯的撰稿人。当时我正在全职经营我的旧生意，感到很疲惫。所以我决定利用写作的机会来探索我的好奇心 —— 允许自己做一些与即时结果无关的事情。换句话说，我使用了好奇心过滤器。

我每写一篇文章，就读3-4本书，花80小时。从典型的生产力角度来看，我的方法毫无意义。从好奇心过滤器的角度来看，我很快就从焦头烂额变成了如火如荼。

这种好奇心使我走上了一条蜿蜒的道路，从关于工作与生活的平衡的文章，到关于关系建设的文章，再到学习如何学习--所有的主题都与我们当时的业务完全无关。

这没有经济意义。但是，它对我的灵魂是有意义的。它在垫脚石模式中是有意义的。而现在，回过头来看，它在目标模式中是有意义的 —— 因为现在，我正在全职撰写和教授关于如何学习。

我能够写这篇文章的唯一方法就是写过以前的文章。为什么伟大不能被计划这本书让我产生了如此深刻的共鸣，唯一的原因是我一直在无意识地遵循垫脚石模式。

我以传统的目标设定模式来追求我以前的事业。这让我感到很疲惫。我通过遵循我的好奇心和短期目标建立了我目前的事业，我从未如此成功和快乐。在过去的几年里，我已经。

为《时代》、《财富》、《福布斯》、《公司》、《企业家》和《哈佛商业评论》投稿。

我赚到了比以往更多的钱。

我的文章被阅读了数千万次。

建立了一个200,000多人的电子邮件名单。

而这些都不是我开始为福布斯写作时计划的。