A couple of months ago, I asked you not to fear failure, saying that embracing failure — or at least the possibility of failure — was essential to success. But, of course, in the end the goal is to succeed, and fear of failing isn’t the only thing that keeps us from succeeding.

I speak from experience here. Six or seven years ago, I was the picture of success — a straight-A graduate student, top of my class, a job I loved, a relationship that I was happy in, the whole enchilada. And then, those successes started slipping away. Nothing obvious at first, but gradually I found myself stuck in a rut academically, my relationship dissolved, things just weren’t going my way. I wasn’t failing, per se, just losing my grip on the successes I had won.

In the last couple of years, I’ve been reassessing some aspects of my life, trying to figure out what had happened so I could rebuild. To some extent this has worked well — I have a job I love (although I need to develop it into a career, not just a job), I have a book coming out in my academic field, I’m writing quite a bit, and most importantly I have a new relationship that is going strong. To get here, I’ve had to figure out what I was doing wrong in the years in between, where I had lost my footing, and I think I’ve figured out a thing or two in doing so.

If you’re not reaching the kind of success you imagine in the areas that area important to you, one or more of the following things might well be true of you, too:

1. You don’t have a goal. A lot of time we find ourselves “spinning our wheels”, struggling through a day-to-day routine that isn’t getting us anywhere because we don’t know where we want to go. Sometimes we had goals when we set ourselves on a particular path, but we’ve changed along the way and those goals are no longer that important. Sometimes we simply did what was expected of us without ever stopping to think about what we eventually wanted to accomplish for ourselves. Whatever the case, figuring out what your goals are and, just as importantly, whether your current actions are helping to achieve them, is important.

2. You don’t have a vision. Setting goals is important but isn’t enough to drive you to the finish line; it’s important, too, to be able to imagine yourself as the achiever of your goals. How will you feel, what’s the payoff, why is it worthwhile to follow these goals and not some other ones? If goals are the end result of a journey, your vision is the fuel to get you there.

3. You don’t have a plan. If goals are your destination and a vision is your fuel, your plan is the map to get you there; without a plan, you have no idea what immediate steps to take to achieve your goals. Planning means taking stock of the resources you have, the resources you need, and the steps you have to take to put those resources into action. The world is full of people with goals they have never accomplished because they didn’t have a plan — don’t you be one of them.

4. You’re too certain. Too much certainty creates inflexibility. If you’re sure that your plan is correct, and refuse to accept the possibility of error, you may well find yourself stuck when an unexpected change comes about, or when your plan takes you in an unexpected direction. However strong your plan and however sure you are of your goals, make room for periodic reassessment.

5. You’re not certain enough. At the same time, too little certainty will paralyze you. If you refuse to take a step because you aren’t positive it will move you towards success, you won’t make any better progress than if you had no goals at all. Keep your eyes open and be willing to change, but have faith in yourself, too.

6. You don’t learn from your mistakes. A lot of people take their mistakes as signs of their unworthiness. They take setbacks as proof that they were never meant to achieve anything in the first place, and that they were stupid to even try. Mistakes are crucial to success — if we take the time to analyze them and learn from them. Even when they bar us irrevocably from attaining a goal, the lessons we learn from our mistakes help us to make new and better goals.

7. You reject outside influences. A lot of people see the influence of others as a weakness, or worse, a restriction or even “pollution” of their innate creativity. This is, in a word, hogwash. We are first and foremost social beings, none of whom has ever accomplished anything without the help of others. Welcome and accept other perspectives on your strengths and weaknesses, your successes and failures. Accept help graciously when it’s offered. This doesn’t mean you should take every piece of advice offered you, but you should listen seriously and openly and weigh carefully the input of others. And learn from their mistakes, when you can.

8. You worry about being copied. Often we close ourselves off from other people not because we’re afraid that they will influence us but that we will influence them, that our brilliant ideas will be taken up by someone else and no longer be solely ours. So we avoid sharing our passions, and spend our energy jealously guarding our “secret” rather than simply moving forward. In the end, we turn our passions into burdens that become difficult to carry instead of a joy.

9. You use up your reserves. When I’ve found myself at my lowest points, it’s always been for lack of a reserve — whether of money, of time, or most crucially of energy. In part this was the fault of inadequate planning and over-certainty — I should have reassessed my situation more realistically before exhausting my resources — but whatever the cause, it’s a dangerous place to be. A mistake that could be easily recovered from under normal circumstances becomes overwhelming when you’re too broke or too exhausted to respond adequately. Keep track of where you are financially, materially, and emotionally before you find yourself too worn down to continue.

10. You fear success. Forget fear of failure, it’s fear of success that kicks us the hardest. It’s the darnedest thing, too — the kind of thing that you don’t imagine possible, until one day you realize that you really don’t know what to do with yourself if you ever accomplish your goals. On the other side of success is the unknown, and believe it or not, the unknown is often scarier than the known world of struggle and unfulfillment this side of success. When I realized this, one night as I drifted unhappily to sleep, it jerked me straight up in my bed!

My father, an avid collector of seemingly random quotes, is fond of saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. (I’ve never had the heart to ask him why he keeps saying this….) At some point, you have to stop doing whatever you’re doing and figure out why you’re doing it, especially if it doesn’t seem to be getting you where you want to be. When you do, I think you’ll find that at least one of the above applies to you. Whatever your reasons, though, the important thing is to realize that it’s in your nature neither to be a failure, nor to be a success, that success is something we make rather than something that happens to us — and when you realize that, you can start to make the changes that move you from “insanity” to success.

几个月前，我让你《不要害怕失败》，告诉你要拥抱失败——或者至少拥抱失败的可能性——对成功来说，这是必要的。但是，当然了，我们最终的目标是要取得成功，而害怕失败也不是阻止我们成功的唯一障碍。

现在我来说说自己的经历。大概六七年前，我是很成功的——我是全优毕业生，班里的第一名，有一份自己喜欢的工作，有一段令人愉悦的爱情，就是一整个安琪拉达（意指很幸福）。然后，情况开始下滑。最初一切并不明显，但我渐渐发现自己在学术上停滞不前，我的亲密关系破裂，所有的事情都不由我掌控。就其本身而言，我并不是失败，只是在已拥有的成功上失去了掌控权。

此后的几年，我一直在反思自己生活的方方面面，试着找出哪里出了问题，好让自己能重新来过。从某种程度上来说，它很有效——我拥有一份自己喜欢的工作（虽然我得把它发展成为一个职业，而不仅仅是一份工作），我即将出版一本自己学术领域的书，已经写了不少了，最重要的是我有了一份趋向稳定的感情。说到这，我得指出自己在那两段时间中做错的事，那使我失去了成功地位，我想我已经提到过了其中的一件了。

如果你还没有在你认为重要的领域中取得成功，那么你至少符合下面的一种情况：

*你没有一个目标。很多时候，我们发现自己“转动轮子”，终日和时间赛跑，却没有去到任何地方，这是因为我们不知道自己想去哪。有时候，我们已经在前进的道路上设立了自己的目标，但一旦我们改变了自己的方向，那些目标就不再重要了。有时候，我们只是简单地去做那些自认为渴望的事，却没有停下来考虑自己真正想要的是什么。不论在哪种情况下，也不论你现在的行动对实现目标是否起作用，指出你的目标是很重要的。

*你没有一个远景。设定目标是很重要，但这还不足以使你去达到它。设想你已经在目标上取得成功同样重要。你的感觉怎么样？回报是什么？为什么值得跟随这些目标而不是其它的？如果目标是一场旅行的最终结果，你的远景就是让你达到那的燃料。

*你没有一个计划。如果目标是你的终点，远景是你的燃料，你的计划就是让你到那的地图。没有计划，你就不知道眼下要做什么去达到你的目标。计划意味着储存你所拥有的和所需要的资源，以及那些把这些资源转化为行动的步骤。这个世上有太多有目标却从未实现的人，是因为他们不曾有一个计划——别让你自己成为他们中的一员。

*你太固执。太多的肯定会造成僵化。如果你肯定你的计划是正确的，并且拒绝接受错误的可能性，当预期以外的情况发生时，或当你的计划把你带到一个你不期望的方向时，你会发现自己陷入了困境。不论你的计划多么强，也不论你对自己的目标有多肯定，都要为重新考虑预留余地。

*你不够肯定。同样的，太少肯定会让你气馁。如果你因为不确定是否能成功就拒绝向前迈一步，那你就不会比完全没有目标更有进展。保持你的双眼睁开，并且愿意改变，但同时也要对自己有信心。

*你没有从错误中吸取教训。许多人都认为错误是毫无价值的迹象。他们用挫折证明自己一开始就不打算取得成功，同时也证明他们愚蠢到要去尝试。错误是成功的关键——如果我们花些时间去分析它们并从中学习的话。即便当错误不可避免地禁止我们达到目标，我们从错误中吸取的教训也能帮助我们设定一个新的更好的目标。

*你拒绝外部的影响。许多人把其他人的影响看作是一个弱点，一种错误，一种限制，甚至是一种对他们与生具来的创造力的一种“污染”。总之就是一派胡言。我们首先是社会人，没有一个人可以完全不要他人的帮助就能获得成功。欢迎并接受他人对你优缺点和成功失败的评述。优雅地接受他人的帮助。这并不代表你要接受所有的建议，但是你要认真而公开地倾听，并仔细斟酌。可以的话，从他人的错误中学习。

*你担心被复制。经常，我们会让自己和他人保持距离，并不是因为担心他人会影响自己，而是担心自己会影响他人。我们害怕自己出色的点子被他人占有，不再仅仅属于我们。因此，我们避免分享自己的激情，并且花精力谨慎地保守我们的“秘密”，而不是简单地往前走。最后，我们把自己的激情变成一种很难被欢乐所代替的负担。

*你耗尽了储备。当我发现自己处在最低谷时，这总表示缺乏储备——无论是金钱还是时间，或者是最关键的能源。在某种程度上来说，这是计划不足和过度肯定的后果。——在耗尽我的储备以前，我要对现状重新做一次更实际的评估。——无论如何，这都是危险的情况。一个在正常情况下可以很容易被纠正的错误会在你精疲力尽不能对它作出适当反应的时候变得势不可挡。在你觉得情况太坏而不能继续以前，要在财务上、物质上和情感上保持跟踪。

*你害怕成功。忘记对失败的恐惧之后，对成功的恐惧最使我们受伤。这也是件最可恨的事。你不太可能会想到这类事，直到有一天，你真正意识到，如果你达到了所有设立的目标，你将无事可做。成功的另一面是未知，不管你相信与否，未知都比现实世界中的斗争和未达到成功更可怕。一天晚上，当我不开心地渐渐入睡时，一想到这些，我就猛地从床上坐了起来！

我的父亲，喜欢收集一些看似随机的格言。他喜欢说的一句话就是，疯狂就是总是重复相同的事却期望有不同的结果。（我从没有用心问过他为什么老是这么说……）某个时候，你得停下任何你在做的事，想一想你为什么要这样做，特别是在你做的事并没有让你达到目标的时候。一旦你这样做了，我想你将会找出至少一条上面说的情况与你相符。不论你的理由是什么，最重要的是你要明白，你的本质并不是要成为一个失败者或成功者，成功是要争取的，它不会自动发生在我们身上。一旦你意识到这些，你就能开始做出改变，这将会促使你从“愚蠢”走向成功。