Day 342: On Doing the Best You Can With What You Have

第342天：关于倾尽全力

Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting — in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard — reaching for the highest that is in us — becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success. Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have.

成功意味着倾尽全力。

成功在于行动，而非获取；在于尝试，而非获胜。

成功是一种个人化的标准——达到我们的最高境界——成为我们所能成为的一切。

只要我们竭尽全力，我们就是成功者。

成功就是最大限度地发挥自己的能力。

—Zig Ziglar

One of the best ways to destroy your resolve is to associate success with results alone. If you fail to generate any results for a long time (as is often the case when working on difficult, long-term goals), the belief that you’re only doing well if you’re getting immediate results will discourage you from continuing.

摧毁你决心的最好方法之一，就是把成功仅仅与结果联系起来。

如果你在很长一段时间内都没有取得任何成果（在努力实现艰巨而长期的目标时往往会出现这种情况），那么只有取得立竿见影的成果才算成功的信念就会让你失去继续前进的勇气。

The proper approach is to espouse the belief that success means doing the best you can with what you have. Regardless of the outcome, as long as you’re doing your best, you’re keeping yourself to the highest standard and that’s what matters the most. The results might come today, tomorrow, six months from now, or even a decade later.

正确的做法是笃信，成功意味着倾尽全力去做到最好。

不论结果怎样，只要自己倾尽全力了，你就是在以最高标准要求自己，这才是最重要的。

结果可能会在今天、明天、六个月后，甚至十年后出现。

Obviously, it’s not like you’re pursuing your goals for the sake of pursuing them — you want to get something for your efforts. However, it will be hard to make your dreams come true if you only obsess about the end result and forget to focus on the current process. After all, ultimately it’s the journey itself that will shape you to become the person deserving the goal you’re after.

显然，你并不是为了追逐目标而追逐目标——你希望凭借自己的努力有所收获。

然而，倘若你只执着于最终的结果，却忘记关注当前的进程，那么你就很难梦想成真。

毕竟，追根溯源，正是过程本身塑造了你，让你成为一个配得上追求目标的人。

A successful businessman isn’t successful because he runs a successful business. He’s successful because he stuck to his business, despite difficulties, failures, and the seemingly hopeless situations in which he found himself. He wouldn’t have built a successful business if he had only defined himself by the results (which are rarely anything to brag about anyway, at least in the first several years of running a business).

一个成功的商人之所以成功，并不是因为他经营的生意获得成功。

他之所以成功，是因为他在艰难、挫败以及看似无望的情况下，依旧坚守自己的事业。

倘若他仅以结果来界定自己，他就不会建立起一个成功的企业（至少在经营企业的头几年，结果很少值得炫耀）。

A successful athlete isn’t successful because she has received a medal. She’s successful because she’s been training harder than her competitors and kept going despite pain, exhaustion, and discomfort. She would have failed to become a successful athlete if she had obsessed solely about the prizes, and not on the act of bettering her performance.

一个优秀的运动员并不是因为获得了奖牌而成功的。

她之所以成功，是因为她在训练中比竞争对手付出了更多的努力，并在疼痛、疲惫和不适的情况下坚持了下来。

如果她只执着于奖牌，而不是提高自己的成绩，她就无法成为一名优秀的运动员。

Embrace success as holding yourself to a high personal standard and focus on the process of consistently becoming better. As long as you do your best with what you have, the results will show up eventually.

把成功视为对自己高标准的要求，并专注于不断进步的过程。

只要你尽自己最大的努力，结果终将显现。