【原文很长，我们将拆分为3篇推送】

The Most Important Skill to Learn in the Next 10 Years

未来十年最需要掌握的技能

Author: Dan Koe

作者：丹·科伊

Most skills will be irrelevant in 10–20 years.

未来十到二十年，绝大多数单一技能都会失去价值。

That is, unless you completely change how you think about success.

除非你彻底重塑对 “成功” 的认知。

Because if you are a high agency individual, that doesn’t matter. Why? Because you aren’t dependent on a specific skill for your success. You aren’t a specialist. You didn’t focus your mind — preventing you from learning outside of that focus — on the status of a high paying job or degree. You have a vision, and you understand that in today’s world, you can acquire any skill or any knowledge to achieve the life you want.

拥有主观能动性的人，对此全然无惧。因为他们的成功从不依附某一项具体技能，也不会把思维局限在单一领域。他们不会为了高薪工作或一纸文凭，将自己禁锢在狭窄的专业赛道里。他们拥有清晰的人生愿景，并且深知：在当下这个时代，只要愿意，就能习得任何技能、掌握任何知识，从而过上理想的生活。

Unfortunately, if your parents did not cultivate the skill of agency in themselves, they probably did not pass it off to you. And unless you have deliberately (and painfully) gone through the process of relearning, you have some work to do before you feel in control of your future.

遗憾的是，如果你的父母本身就缺乏主观能动性，那他们大概率也没能将这份能力传授给你。除非你主动历经一番磨砺、重新学习，否则始终难以掌控自己的人生走向。

With that said: The most important skill to learn that will be relevant now, in 10 years, and until you die is agency. Because if you can set your own life direction, do what is required to achieve it, and avoid the infinite number of temptations and distractions in today’s world, you will never be at risk of replacement (and if you do get replaced, it doesn’t matter, because you can quickly adapt).

言归正传： 当下、未来十年，乃至一生都受用的终极能力，就是主观能动性。只要你能自主规划人生方向、主动付出行动达成目标，并且抵御世间无尽的诱惑与干扰，你就永远不会被淘汰。即便一时失去现有的工作或机会也无妨，因为你拥有快速适应、重新出发的能力。

I want to share 5 ideas on what agency is, why it matters more than ever, and how to practice it so you can get what you want in life.

接下来我将从五个维度，解读何为主观能动性、它为何在当下愈发重要，以及如何刻意练习，帮你一步步收获想要的人生。

I - Agency is the ability to iterate without permission

一、主观能动性：无需他人许可，持续试错迭代

"It is only those who are in constant revolt that discover what is true, not the man who conforms, who follows some tradition." — Krishnamurti“唯有不断挣脱固有束缚的人，才能探寻真相；一味盲从、恪守传统的人，永远做不到这一点。” —— 克里希那穆提

To understand what a high agency individual is, it is helpful to consider what it is not. 

想要理解什么是高主观能动性，不妨先厘清它的反面。

Conformity is when your mind is still connected by an umbilical cord to society.Conformity is a stage of cognitive development where your mind operates entirely through cultural programming, judging truth based on popularity and acceptance by others rather than through your own direct experience or independent investigation.If you really think about that, you understand that this is the greatest threat to living a good life.

主观能动性，绝非随波逐流、一味顺从盲从者的思想，始终与世俗社会紧紧捆绑。这是一种认知层面的局限：这类人完全被固有观念左右，判断对错、衡量价值的标准，从来都是大众喜好与他人认可，而非亲身实践、独立思考。细想便知，这正是阻碍我们活出自我的最大障碍。

When you are born, your mind is like a new computer. There is a base operating system, but the hard drive has nothing on it. For the first 20 years of your life, you do not think independently. And that’s okay. Nobody does, no matter how independent you think you are, because most of the time that’s just another form of conformity.

人刚出生时，大脑就像一台全新的电脑，拥有基础系统，却一片空白。人生最初的二十年，我们几乎都无法做到独立思考。这是常态，很多人看似特立独行，本质上也只是另一种形式的盲从。

In the Spiral Dynamics and 9 stages of ego development models, they show that around 50% of the population is at the conformist stage of development.Meaning half the population lacks the cognitive development for genuine agency.

根据螺旋动力理论与自我发展九阶段模型的统计，全球约半数人都停留在 “盲从迎合” 的认知阶段，这也就意味着，有一半的人并不具备真正的主观能动性。

Conformity stems from survival. Humans don’t only survive on the physical level like animals (reproducing genes), but on the psychological level (reproducing beliefs, ideas, and information).

盲从源于人类的生存本能。人类不仅要在生理层面延续基因，也会在思想层面传承观念、认知与信息。

If you work a job, you have a low degree of agency in that domain of life because if that job were to go away, your survival is at stake. So you must conform.

如果你从事一份工作，那么在职业领域里你的主观能动性必然受限。一旦这份工作消失，生存就会受到威胁，你不得不选择顺从。

If you have hard-set beliefs that bind your identity to a specific religion or political party, you do not have a high degree of agency, because your ideas of good and bad originate from your culture, rather than personal scrutiny and discovery.

如果你的认知、身份牢牢绑定在某一种信仰、某个阵营里，你同样难以拥有强大的主观能动性。因为你判断是非善恶的标准，来自外界灌输，而非自我审视与探索。

Everyone in the tech and business space loves to talk about being “high agency,” yet that too is a form of conformity to what is popular in the tech and business space.

如今科技圈、商界人人都在追捧 “高主观能动性”，可盲目追逐这个概念本身，也是一种从众。

That said, this letter has a degree of conformity. We are all conformists in some way.

当然，包括本文在内，世间万物都或多或少存在从众的成分，没有人能完全脱离群体。

Now, what does true agency look like? And how can we start to develop it in ourselves so our emotions, finances, and opportunities in life are not dictated by someone else?

那么，真正的主观能动性究竟是什么？我们又该如何培养它，不再让情绪、收入和人生机遇被他人左右？

1) High agency people iterate without permission

1. 主观能动性强的人，从不等待许可，只管试错前行

“To have agency is to be the subject of a sentence, rather than its direct object. It is the tendency to act, rather than wait to be acted upon.”— Devon Eriksen“拥有主观能动性，意味着你是人生的主导者，而非被动承受者；是主动行动，而非坐以待毙。”—— 德文・埃里克森

Agency literally means “the condition of being in action or operation.”When used to describe a person, it means “the tendency to initiate action towards a goal without outside prompting, instruction, or permission.”

从字面释义来看，主观能动性代表着 “主动行动、自主运作的状态”。放到人身上，就是无需他人督促、指令或许可，主动朝着目标付诸行动的特质。

But when we look at what actually makes people successful, it isn’t just acting toward a goal. Anyone can start a business, but that doesn’t mean they will reach any form of success. Most of them don’t, in fact, because they’re missing one critical piece of the puzzle:If something doesn’t work, you reflect on the situation, make an adjustment, and try again, over and over until you reach your end destination.

但纵观那些真正获得成功的人，他们不只是单纯行动。任何人都可以创业、做事，可绝大多数人都无法收获理想结果，核心就在于缺少关键的一环：当方法行不通时，及时复盘、调整方案，反复尝试，直至抵达终点。

Agency, then, in my opinion, is not only action, but an undying commitment to iteration. Learning and doing in unison. Making mistakes and correcting mistakes without being seduced back into a comforting conformity because “it’s not working.”Yes, I’m talking to you, people who start writing and quit after 2 weeks.

在我看来，主观能动性不止是行动，更是坚持不懈地迭代优化。边学习、边实践，犯错、修正，哪怕屡屡碰壁，也不会因为 “进展不顺” 就退回安逸的舒适区，继续随波逐流。这句话送给那些提笔写作，却坚持不到两周就放弃的人。

2) High agency people treat life as one giant experiment.

2. 高主观能动性的人，把人生当作一场大型实验

Low agency people can be characterized by the “employee mindset.”They are assigned a task, often with some form of status or credential that triggers the part of their brain that craves acceptance by the tribe, and their decision-making is immediately compromised. They can no longer think outside of the confines placed upon them.

缺乏主观能动性的人，大多带着 “打工者思维”。他们习惯被动接受任务，被头衔、证书、他人认可所束缚，思维也随之被框定，再也跳不出既定规则。

High agency people are scientists of their own lives.

而拥有强大主观能动性的人，会把自己的人生当成一场科学实验。

• They have an idea. 萌生想法• They set their own goal.自主设定目标• They create a hypothesis (an educated guess) on how to achieve it. 推演实现目标的可行方案• They test, tinker, research, and make an attempt toward the goal. 动手尝试、不断打磨、查阅资料、落地实践• They fail. A lot. 坦然接受失败

But since this is an experiment, that’s a part of the process. They expect to fail, because how else are they going to narrow down what doesn’t work until they find what does?

他们会经历无数次失败，但在实验思维里，失败本就是过程的一部分。他们早有预料：唯有不断排除错误路径，才能最终找到正确答案。

This is a significant issue with how people perceive success today. They are promised something by someone else, like a job that pays a lot of money or a business that can be built quickly to make millions of dollars.They do exactly what they are supposed to do, but when they inevitably fail, they deem it impossible and blame anyone but themselves.

当下很多人对成功存在误解：总轻信他人描绘的捷径，比如 “高薪工作”“轻松暴富的生意”。他们照搬照做，一旦遭遇失败，就认定这件事本身行不通，转而抱怨外界，唯独不从自身找原因。

3) High agency people believe in the difficult

3. 高主观能动性的人，敢于直面难题

You want to become high agency because you believe those actions will make a positive difference in your life. You’re trying to achieve a goal. Goals come in three forms:

想要培养主观能动性，本质是相信行动能改变现状、助力自己达成目标。人生目标大致分为三类：

•Easy goals — things we do every day, or things we can achieve with the skills or resources we already have. 

•简单目标：日常就能完成，依靠现有能力和资源便可实现。

•Difficult goals — things we can’t do right now, but that we can eventually do if we acquire the right skills and resources.a

•挑战型目标：当下暂时无法完成，但只要补足能力、整合资源，终有实现的可能。

• 极致目标：现阶段看似遥不可及，需要先攻克一个个挑战型目标，积累实力后，才有机会触及。

Low agency people suffer from a belief system that skews their perception of difficult goals.If you take Seligman’s dog experiment, you can see how society does just this to most people. In this experiment, dogs were exposed to unavoidable electric shocks, making them feel as if they had no control over their environment. Later, when they were placed in a situation where they could simply jump over a small wall to escape the shocks, the dogs did not attempt to do so. They whined and bore the shocks even when escaping was easily available.

缺乏主观能动性的人，看待挑战的眼光早已出现偏差。经典的习得性无助实验就能很好解释这一点：实验中，狗狗反复遭受无法躲避的电击，久而久之便认定自己无力改变现状。后来哪怕只需跳过一道矮墙就能逃离痛苦，它们也不再尝试，只是默默承受。

So, the goal of reaching the life you want may be difficult, but you were trained to believe that there is no way to achieve it, so you don’t even try. So much so that your mind won’t even let you consider it as an option. You bear the shocks of the default path.

现实中，大多数人也被外界慢慢塑造成了这样。明明理想生活并非遥不可及，可长期的负面暗示，让你从心底认定 “不可能”，连尝试的念头都彻底消失，只能被动忍受当下不如意的生活。

There is a way to practice agency, however.But the practical steps to do so won’t matter unless you have a deep awareness of how this applies to today’s world.

不过，主观能动性完全可以后天练习。但在此之前，我们先要认清当下这个时代的大环境。