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.

　　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。

　　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:

　　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：