Always Make Your FutureBigger Than Your Past

始终坚持让未来超越过去

A bigger future is essential for lifetime growth. The past is useful because it is rich with experiences that are worth thinking about in new ways—and all of these valuable experiences can become raw material for creating an even bigger future. Approach your past with this attitude, and you will have an insatiable desire for even better, more enjoyable experiences. Use your past to continually create a bigger future, and you will separate yourself from situations, relationships, and activities that can trap you there.

一个更大的未来对于终身成长至关重要。过去的价值在于其中蕴含了丰富的经验，值得我们用新的角度去思考——所有这些宝贵的经验都能够转化为构建更大未来的基础材料。以这样的心态对待过去，你将拥有对更好、更愉悦经历永不满足的渴望。利用过去持续创造出更大的未来，你就能把自己从可能困住你的环境、关系和活动中解脱出来。

Your future is your property. Because, by definition, it hasn’t happened yet, it exists only in your mind. This means that you can choose to make it whatever you want. The act of making your future bigger than your past is the very act of growth itself: the bigger future is the vision, and growth is what makes it real. A bigger future includes anything you want to see that’s somehow an improvement on what’s true now: greater learning, contribution, opportunities, capabilities, understanding, confidence, quality of life, compassion, connectedness. The list goes on and on, limited only by what you can imagine. Some people’s bigger futures are mostly about themselves, and others’ encompass contributions to many other people and things.

你的未来是你自己的财产。因为按照定义，未来还没有发生，它只存在于你的想象之中。这意味着你可以选择让它变成你想要的样子。让你的未来比过去更大，本身就是成长的过程：更大的未来是一种愿景，而成长则是使其变为现实的关键所在。一个更大的未来包含了你想看到的所有改进和提升，无论是更大的学习收获、更多的贡献、更多的机会、更强的能力、更深的理解、更高的自信、更优质的生活、更多的同情心、更紧密的联系等等。这个清单可以无限延伸，唯一的限制就是你的想象力。有些人关注的是自己个人层面的更大未来，而其他人的更大未来则涵盖了对许多人和事物的贡献。

Believing in a Bigger Future

相信一个更广阔的未来

In order to make your future bigger than your past, you first have to believe that it’s possible to have a bigger future, no matter what stage you’re at in life or what your circumstances are. Often, this belief alone is enough to keep you growing.

为了让你的未来超越过去，首先你需要相信无论处于人生的哪个阶段，无论身处何种环境，拥有一个更广阔的未来都是可能的。通常情况下，仅仅是这份信念就已经足以支撑你不断成长。当你坚信未来可以并且应当超越过去时，你便开始了塑造更大未来的第一步。即使目前处境艰难或看似已达上限，也要相信前方还有未发掘的可能性和潜力等待你去挖掘。有了这样的信念，你便会更有动力去拓宽眼界、提升自我，最终实现一个远超过去的精彩未来。

By anyone’s standards, Dan Schmidt is a very successful entrepreneur. He has grown and continues to run several successful companies. He has been very well rewarded financially, but he prefers to focus on what it has allowed him to create for others: giving young people opportunities that don’t exist elsewhere in his industry, and creating jobs and a positive working environment for his teams. Yet Dan knows that something doesn’t feel quite right anymore. For the last six months, he’s been trying to figure out what his bigger future looks like. Sure, he can wake up every day, do the same things, and get the same results, but he’s looking for the next big challenge—the next uncomfortable stretch that will allow him to apply his talents and build on what he’s already accomplished in more meaningful ways, so that he can create not just wealth and jobs and opportunities for others, but a legacy.

按任何标准衡量，丹·施密特都是一位非常成功的创业者。他已经成功创办并运营了几家公司，并且在经济上得到了丰厚的回报。但他更倾向于关注他为他人创造了什么：为年轻人提供了行业内别处所没有的机会，为团队成员创造了工作岗位和积极的工作环境。然而，丹也意识到，有些事情似乎不再像以前那样让他感到满足。近六个月以来，他一直在试图弄清楚自己的更大未来应该是什么样子。诚然，他可以每天都照常起床，做同样的事情，获得同样的成果，但他正在寻找下一个重大挑战——下一个能让他发挥自己才华、以前所未有的更有意义的方式建立在现有成就之上的挑战，以便他不仅能够为他人创造财富、就业机会，还能留下一份遗产。

Because of this burning need to find what’s next, Dan notices things that he might not have seen before. He hears an ad on the radio about cremation versus burial and wonders who will end up with the urn, or if there’s a more significant legacy he can leave for his family. He thinks about the volunteer work he does for an environmental group and questions whether that might somehow hold the key to what’s next. He’s trying different things and opening himself to seeing in different ways. This, in itself, is growth.

出于对探寻下一步的强烈需求，丹注意到了以前可能未曾留意的事情。他在广播中听到一则关于火化与土葬的广告，不禁思索谁将保管骨灰盒，抑或是否有种更为重要的方式可以为家人留下遗产。他还想到了自己为环保组织做的志愿者工作，并质疑这是否会成为开启未来新阶段的关键。他尝试不同的事物，敞开心扉以不同的视角看待问题。这种心态本身，就是一种成长的表现。

As he continues to run his businesses and live his life, he’s also applying his creativity and ingenuity to trying to figure out this one big question: if everything I’ve done so far is just the beginning, what’s next? Dan’s quest for what his bigger future will look like is causing him to grow in ways that go beyond what his businesses and all his accomplishments to date have done.

在经营企业、度过日常生活的同时，丹也在运用他的创造力和独创性去解答一个重要的问题：如果迄今为止我所做的还只是开端，那么接下来是什么呢？丹对更大未来形态的探索驱使他在超越当前企业和所有已取得成就的基础上不断成长。这种对更大未来的追求使得他在个人成长层面迈出了崭新的步伐，而这正是通往未知旅途的必经之路。

Well, fine, you may say. Dan’s a successful entrepreneur and he’s used to growing. He has lots of money and resources and he’s his own boss, so of course he can think about a bigger future. What if you’re poor and no one has ever told you that you can do anything better than what you’re doing now or what your parents did? Or what if, no matter what you do, you can’t seem to get ahead? Our answer is, even in those circumstances you can still have a vision of a future that’s bigger than your past, and make it real.

很好，你或许说。丹是个成功的创业者，他于不断成长。他拥有大量财富和资源，而且自己就是老板，所以他当然可以考虑更大的更大的未来。但是，如果你很，从来有人告诉你过你，你能做得比现在或父母做得话，那又该怎么办呢？或者，无论你努力，似乎都无法取得进步，这时该如何呢？我们的回答是，即使在这样的环境下，你仍然可以拥有想一个超越过去的未来愿景，并让它成为现实。

无论出身起点如何，贫穷论你目前所处的困境有多么艰难，每个人都有权利和潜力去设想一个比广阔的未来。关键是需要局限于物质条件的改善，更是是一个精神发掘价值、技能潜力发展的的过程。关键不断、坚持不懈和、抓住思维和良好的，即使有可能突破现状，实现一个过去更大的宏、充实的生活。即便是是要相信远、明确和对未来的未来的执着，这样才能不断突破自己走出舒适区，勇敢地迎接挑战，实现目标。

The Courage to Think Big

勇于大胆构想

Take the case of Hilda, Catherine’s mother. Hilda grew up in a very poor family, the third youngest of eight children. In fact, her family was so poor that her parents couldn’t afford to support their children while they finished school, once they reached legal working age. All of Hilda’s older brothers and sisters had quit school at 16 and taken whatever jobs they could get to help earn their keep. In the 1950s, the prospects of a decent future for a girl of 16 without a high school diploma were grim. Hilda was a good student and, fortunately, quite headstrong. She had a burning passion to become a teacher, but of course to do this she would have to complete her education. So Hilda made a brave decision: she decided to leave home and go it on her own, supported by scholarships that some encouraging teachers helped her to find. At 16, she left her family home forever and went to live at the YWCA. She finished high school and then university, became a teacher, and taught for more than 30 years.

以凯瑟琳的母亲希尔达为例，她在一个极其贫困的家庭长大，是家中八个孩子中排行第三小的。实际上，她的家庭经济状况极为窘迫，以至于父母无力支持子女完成学业，一旦达到法定工作年龄，孩子们就必须辍学出去打工贴补家用。希尔达所有的哥哥姐姐都在16岁就辍学，从事所能找到的任何工作以维持生计。在20世纪50年代，对于一个没有高中文凭的16岁女孩来说，要想拥有一个体面的未来几乎是不可能的。希尔达学习成绩优秀，幸运的是，她相当固执。她怀揣着成为一名教师的炽热梦想，但显然要实现这个梦想，她必须完成学业。于是，希尔达做出了一个勇敢的决定：她决定离开家独自生活，靠一些鼓励她的老师帮她申请到的奖学金支持自己。16岁那年，她永远离开了父母的家，搬到了YWCA居住。在那里，她完成了高中学业，随后进入大学深造，最终成为了教师，并且教书育人长达30多年。

The world is full of stories of people who, like Hilda, grew up without a lot of resources or encouragement but nonetheless believed that a bigger future was possible. Some of them are celebrities like Oprah, but many are ordinary people whose stories are less well known. What they all have in common is that they made a decision at some point to have a bigger future— in some cases a much bigger future.

世间充满了像希尔达那样，在缺乏丰富资源和鼓励的环境中成长，但仍坚信拥有更广阔未来的故事。其中有些人是像奥普拉一样的名人，但也有很多是故事并不广为人知的普通人。他们共同之处在于，在某个关键时刻他们都作出了追求更大未来的决定——在某些情况下，是追求一个远超出预期的大未来。他们凭借坚韧不拔的精神、非凡的决心和不懈的努力，战胜了种种困难，实现了从平凡到非凡的转变，他们的故事激励着我们每一个人，让我们认识到，只要我们勇敢地去构想和追求更大的未来，就有机会打破命运的桎梏，创造出属于自己的辉煌篇章。

Small Steps Keep You Growing

保持进步尽管是微小的一步

But what if you’re older or in poor health, and you have many great memories and experiences behind you but perhaps only a few years left? How do you make your future bigger than your past in that case? Even if you suspect that only days, weeks, or months remain after a fully lived life, you can still make your future bigger than your past. Growing can be as simple as making an effort to learn something that increases your perspective on the world, or using the time you have left to make a new kind of contribution.

即使你年纪较大、健康状况欠佳，身后已有诸多美好记忆和丰富经历，而剩下的时间可能只有几年，你仍然可以设法让自己的未来比过去更加丰富多彩。即使你认为在经历了充实的一生之后，仅剩下几天、几周或几个月的时间，你依然能让未来超越过去。成长可以很简单，比如尽力学习一些能开阔你世界观的新知识，或者利用剩余的时间做出不同以往的贡献。例如，可以通过分享经验，启发下一代，或者投身慈善事业，为社区带来积极的影响。即便身体不再年轻活力充沛，心灵与精神上的成长空间仍然是无穷无尽的。通过这些努力，你的未来将以另一种形式变得比过去更为伟大和有意义。

Antonio Pijuan is a spry 98-year-old Spaniard, living outside Toronto, who still has strong opinions and an appreciation of pretty women. Earlier in his life he was a farmer in Catalonia, and he experienced the Spanish Civil War and two world wars firsthand. Antonio remains intensely curious about the world despite having lived through almost a century of history. Because he’s not as agile as he used to be, television has become his window on much of what’s new and interesting. After seeing a feature on the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, he asked his granddaughter, Lisa, to take him there. He couldn’t believe that there could be so many shoes in one building! At the end of the day, he said to her in Spanish, “Thank you. I learned so much today.”

安东尼奥·皮胡安（Antonio Pijuan）是一位住在多伦多郊外的98岁高龄西班牙老者，虽然年事已高，但他依然有着鲜明的观点并对美丽女性保持着欣赏的眼光。早年，他曾在加泰罗尼亚务农，亲身经历了西班牙内战和两次世界大战。尽管已经历了一个世纪的历史变迁，安东尼奥对世界的探知欲依旧强烈。由于身体不如从前灵活，电视成了他了解新鲜事物的重要窗口。在观看了有关多伦多巴塔鞋类博物馆的专题报道后，他请求孙女丽莎带他前往参观。他简直不敢相信一栋建筑里竟能收藏如此众多的鞋子！参观结束后，他用西班牙语对她说：“谢谢你，我今天学到了很多东西。”尽管年迈且身体健康状况有所下降，安东尼奥依然通过参观博物馆这样的活动开拓了自己的视野，使他的未来（尽管可能是短暂的）因新的体验和学习而变得更加丰富，超越了他的过去。这个例子说明，无论年龄大小或健康状况如何，都可以通过各种方式拓展自己的视野，让未来在精神层面上超越过去。

This is an example of how a bigger future doesn’t have to be grand or flashy. It doesn’t have to involve great leaps forward. Most growth happens as a result of many small steps. The key is to keep taking them.

这是一个很好的例证，说明一个更大的未来并不一定非得宏伟壮观或引人注目，也不一定要有巨大的飞跃。大部分的成长其实是通过无数个小步伐累积而成的。关键在于持之以恒地迈出这些步伐。就像安东尼奥·皮胡安先生那样，尽管他已经98岁高龄，但通过观看电视节目了解到新的信息，并在孙女的帮助下实地参观了鞋类博物馆，这对他而言就是一个新的学习和体验过程，从而丰富了他的生活，让他的未来在精神层面超越了过去。即使是最微小的学习和体验，也能构成一个人成长路上不可或缺的部分，使人不断进步，永不停止。

Making the Most of the Future You’ve Got

充分利用你所拥有的一切

Sometimes people’s futures get cut short by events beyond their control. But a bigger future is not about how much time you have left; it’s about what you do with that time. Here’s where we pick up the story of Hilda again.

有时，人们的未来会被无法控制的事件意外中断。但一个更大的未来并不取决于你还剩下多少时间，而在于你如何利用这段有限的时间。接下来，我们将再次回到希尔达的故事。尽管希尔达在生活中遭遇了许多挑战和困难，但她并没有因为家庭贫困、教育资源匮乏而放弃自己的梦想。她选择了勇敢面对，通过自己的努力争取到了奖学金，最终完成了学业，成为了一名教师，并且在教育事业上奉献了30多年。她的故事展示了即使在有限的时间里，通过坚持不懈地追求和充分利用每一刻，也能够创造一个超越过去的更大未来。同样的道理，无论我们所面临的外部条件如何，都应该珍惜眼前的时间，积极进取，不断提升自我，勇敢追求自己的梦想和目标。正如希尔达一样，即使未来可能会受到外界因素的影响而缩短，但只要我们全力以赴，就能够使自己的未来在深度和意义上远超过去，实现真正的成长和价值。

Hilda truly loved teaching and learning. Both were intrinsic to who she was. She knew she was making a contribution to her students’ lives, and their success and appreciation were her greatest rewards. It often seemed that she learned as much from them as they did from her. Once, on a trek in Thailand, after going missing in a hill tribe village, she was located sitting outside a hut surrounded by all the local children. They were teaching her words in the Lahu language, and she was teaching them words in English. Bursts of laughter had given them away.

希尔达真心热爱教学和学习，这两者深深植根于她的本性之中。她知道她正在对学生的生活产生积极影响，而他们的成功和感激之情是她最大的回报。很多时候，她仿佛从学生身上学到的东西与他们从她那里学到的一样多。有一次，在泰国的一次徒步旅行中，她在山地部落的一个村庄失踪，后来人们发现她坐在一个小屋外，周围环绕着当地的孩子们。孩子们正在教她拉祜语词汇，而她则教他们英语单词。一阵阵笑声暴露了他们的位置。尽管希尔达晚年可能无法预见未来几十年的职业生涯，但她始终充分利用每一刻，用教学和学习来丰富自己的生活，同时也对身边的人产生了深远的影响。她从未停下成长的脚步，始终致力于扩大自己的影响力，不断积累新知识，分享给他人。在泰国的这次经历就是她对更大未来生动而具体的诠释：即使在相对有限的时间内，她仍然通过跨文化的交流和互动，拓展了自己的视野，也让那些孩子们的世界变得更宽广。

At 59, Hilda was diagnosed with a rare, untreatable form of cancer. By the time the tumor was found, she had only a few months to live. Within moments of receiving this news, she made a decision to turn her remaining time into the most significant learning and teaching contribution of her life. She resolved to handle her situation with all the grace she could muster and to be an example to others of how to deal with dying in a dignified, conscious, and thoughtful way. Her first student was a young doctor who had jumped the gun and told her the night before her official diagnosis that she didn’t have cancer. Gently but clearly, she explained to him how his misinformation had affected her, and her family and friends. It was a lesson he would surely not forget.

在59岁时，希尔达被诊断出患有罕见且无法治愈的癌症。当肿瘤被发现时，她只剩下几个月的生命。在得知这一消息后的瞬间，她决定将余下的时间转变为她一生中最重要的一次学习和教学贡献。她决心以优雅的态度来面对这一处境，并立志成为一个典范，展示如何尊严、清醒且深思熟虑地面对死亡。她的第一个“学生”是一名年轻的医生，在正式确诊之前，他曾错误地告诉她并未患上癌症。她温和而又坚定地向这位医生解释了他提供的错误信息对她本人及她的家人朋友造成了怎样的影响。这无疑是他将永远铭记的一课。尽管面临着生命的倒计时，希尔达依然坚守着对教育和学习的热爱，以身作则，教会他人如何在逆境中展现坚强和智慧。她用自己的亲身经历教导大家如何在有限的时间内，最大限度地实现个人价值，使未来即使在即将结束之际，也能够拥有比过去更深远的意义。

She went on to inspire many people over the following months with her attitude and courage. Dying is a difficult subject to educate people about because most of us don’t want to face it. Somehow, she managed to balance hope with pragmatism—not giving up, not being in denial, but realistically and calmly talking about the future and what might happen.

在接下来的几个月里，希尔达以其积极的态度和无畏的勇气鼓舞了许多人。死亡是一个很难教育大众的话题，因为我们大多数人不愿意面对它。然而，希尔达以独特的方式平衡了希望与现实主义，既不放弃，也不是消极否认，而是理智而平静地谈论未来可能发生的事情。在患病期间，她向周围的人展示了如何坦然接受现实，同时保持乐观态度。她公开讨论病情，分享自己的感受和思考，让人们看到了如何在面对生死大事时，依然可以秉持尊严、从容和爱。她通过自己的言行，教育亲朋好友乃至更多的人如何理性地对待疾病和死亡，以及如何在有限的生命时光里展现出无限的价值。她的故事让更多人在面对类似挑战时找到了力量和勇气，明白了即使在生命的最后阶段，也能让未来超越过去，留下深刻且持久的印记。

When Hilda died, five months later, the funeral home had to open an additional wing to accommodate all the unexpected visitors. More than 300 people went to pay their respects and celebrate what her life had meant to them. As bravely as Hilda had lived, starting with her big decision to leave home at 16, she died even more courageously. She had been determined to squeeze every growth opportunity out of her last few months, even though in many ways her physical quality of life had been severely diminished by the disease. No matter what your circumstances, you can always make your future bigger than your past. Use what you’ve learned and done as a foundation for something bigger—bigger questions, bigger contributions, bigger achievements, bigger learning. Allow what you know to point you toward the vastness of what you have yet to discover. All of these things will keep you growing to the very last days of your life.

希尔达去世五个月后，殡仪馆不得不开设额外的空间来接纳意想不到的众多访客。超过300人前来悼念并向她表示敬意，庆祝她的一生带给他们的意义。就像希尔达当初勇敢地在16岁离家追寻梦想一样，她在生命的最后阶段表现出了更加无畏的勇气。即使疾病在很大程度上降低了她的生活质量，她仍然决心从最后几个月的时光中榨取每一个成长的机会。无论你的境遇如何，你总能找到方法让未来超越过去。利用你已有的经验和成就作为基础，去追求更大的问题、更大的贡献、更大的成就、更大的学习。让你所知道的一切为你指向有待探索的广大领域。这一切都将助你在生命的最后时刻仍能持续成长。

Where Do I Start?

我该从何处开始

Ask yourself a future-focused question. If you’re wondering how to think about what your bigger future might look like, a question is a good place to start. It could be a question like Dan Schmidt’s: if everything I’ve done until now is just the beginning, what’s next? Or it could simply be the question, if I were sitting here three years from today, looking back on today, what would have to have happened in that time for me to be happy with my progress? In The Strategic Coach Program, we call this The R-Factor Question®, where R stands for relationship. In this case, it’s helping you to establish your relationship with your own bigger future.

要启动一个面向未来的思考，你可以先问自己一个问题。如果你想知道如何构想一个超越过去、更广阔的未来，提出问题是开启思考的良好起点。这个问题可以类似于丹·施密特所提的：“如果到现在为止我所做的一切只是个开始，那么接下来会是什么？” 或者，你可以简单地这样提问：“如果三年后的今天，我坐在这里回顾今天，为了让我满意于这段时间的进步，那时需要发生些什么？” 在《战略教练计划》中，我们称之为R因子问题®，这里的R代表“关系”，在这个情境下，它帮助你建立起与自己更大未来的关系。通过这些问题，你开始勾勒自己期待的未来景象，并为其设定切实可行的目标与计划，从而促使自己持续不断地成长与发展。

Set goals. Creating goals for yourself automatically takes you out of the past and creates a bigger future. If you’re having trouble coming up with meaningful goals, a good way to start is to write down five or ten of your accomplishments from the past year and then think about what would represent a further achievement in each area. This is really an exercise to get you answering Dan Schmidt’s question. You will begin to see what you’ve done and what’s next.

设定目标。为自身设定目标，自然而然地会把你从过去带入一个更广阔的未来。如果你在构思有意义的目标上有困难，一个好的起步方式是列出过去一年中你完成的五个或十个成就，然后思考在每个领域中什么样的进一步成绩才能代表新的突破。这是一个练习，旨在帮助你回答丹·施密特的问题。你会逐渐看清自己已经做过什么，以及接下来该做什么。例如，如果你在过去一年中升职了，那么未来的目标可能是进一步提升管理技能，带领团队实现更大的业绩；如果你在健身方面取得了进展，那么未来的目标可能是参加马拉松比赛或提高体能素质至新的水平。通过这种方式，你不仅能够巩固已有的成果，还能在此基础上设定更高的目标，持续推动自己不断成长和发展。