如何跨越现实和梦想之间的鸿沟

    许多见证了这个实验的人将伯尼的话谨记于心。一家著名国际商业杂志的编辑挣扎数年，想要抽出时间来从事她真正的爱好——写小说。受此触动，她开始认真地撰写她的全新长篇小说。一位心理学教授本打算花一年时间来为他的研究“收集更多信息”，后来他放弃计划，开展了一系列研讨活动，很快便完成了这项工作。一位电脑绘图研究员曾断断续续地参与到一个音乐技术项目中，他从说：“等到有一天……”变成了说：“今天。”他撰写了一份倡议书，遇到了一家为音乐创意筹资的国际发展基金会。

    有时候，尽管有了投身于其中的决心，一项其他的重要任务却可能会让你止步，尤其是在开始阶段。迈出第一步会很困难。作家要面对空白的稿纸，教师要面对第一天开学，商务人员要面对新项目的启动。

    畅销书作家安妮•拉莫特在著名作品《一点一点来》（Bird By Bird）中讲述了一个童年故事，极好地描述了这一观点。她10岁的哥哥要写一篇关于鸟类的报告交给学校，却在截止日的前一天晚上还没开始动笔。“我们在波里那斯的家庭小木屋里度假。他坐在厨房的餐桌边，周围满是活页纸、铅笔和还没打开过的鸟类书籍。面对这一庞大的任务，他不知所措，都快要哭出来了。这时，我的父亲坐到他旁边，用胳膊搂住他的肩膀说：‘一点一点来，孩子。一点一点来就好。’”

    当面对让人望而生畏的任务时，我们都能想起这个短语“一点一点来”，有时候实际上还会大声说出来。这五个字提醒我们，不论知行差距有多大，我们都能一点一点地缩小这个差距。

    换句话说，要想实现创造性的突破，你只需迈出第一步，而不要顾虑途中可能出现的任何小挫折。首次尝试就成功不太可能，不过即使失败也没关系。正因为很难立刻做到“最好”，所以才要快速且不断地改进。这种不断尝试的混乱开局可能会让人感到不适，但实践会让我们大多数人学得更快，这几乎是成功的先决条件。否则，想要做到最好的渴望可能反而会阻碍你变得更好。（财富中文网）

    以上内容改编摘录自《创造性的信心：释放我们的创造潜力》（Creative confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All）。作者：汤姆•凯利和大卫•凯利。汤姆•凯利和大卫•凯利2013年版权所有。本书由皇冠出版集团旗下的皇冠出版社出版。皇冠出版集团是企鹅兰登书屋公司下兰登书屋有限责任公司的分支机构。

    译者：严匡正  

    Many who have witnessed Bernie's exercise took his message to heart. An editor for a prestigious international business journal who had struggled for years to find time for her true passion -- writing fiction -- was spurred to begin work in earnest on her new novel. A psychology professor planning to spend a year "gathering more information" on his research topic scrapped that plan and initiated a series of workshops to quickly prototype the final version of his work. And a computer graphics researcher who has been dabbling on and off with a music technology project switched from saying "one day ..." to saying "today." He wrote a proposal and met with an international development foundation that funds music initiatives.

    Sometimes, despite the determination to jump in, the enormity of an important task can stop you in your tracks, especially at the beginning. Getting started can be hard. The writer faces the blank page; the teacher, the first day of school; businesspeople, the launch of a new project.

    Bestselling writer Anne Lamott famously captures this idea in a childhood story from her popular book, Bird By Bird. Her 10-year-old brother had been assigned a school report about birds and hadn't started on it until the night before it was due. "We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"

    We both summon that phrase "bird by bird" when confronted by an intimidating task, sometimes actually saying it out loud. Those three words remind us that, no matter how large the chasm, we can narrow the knowing-doing gap one step at a time.

    In other words, to ultimately reach a creative breakthrough, you just need to start, regardless of small failures that may occur along the way. It's unlikely that your first try at anything will be a success. But that's okay. It's hard to be "best" right away, so commit to rapid and continuous improvements. The messiness of such trial and error may seem uncomfortable at first, but action allows most of us to learn at a faster rate; it's almost a prerequisite for success. Otherwise, the desire to be best can get in the way of getting better.

    The following adapted excerpt comes from the book Creative confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom Kelley and David Kelley. Copyright 2013 by David Kelley and Tom Kelley. Published by Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company.