压力、阻力、动力与意志力

Pressure, Resistance, Motivation and Willpower

> By Li Xiaolai · 2009-06-27 · [Original (web archive)](https://web.archive.org/web/20111113121831/http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/6929.html) (Chinese)
> Our translation from the Chinese original.

Actually, you know without any statistics that most test takers will be disappointed with their June SAT scores (if it's an undergraduate applying to graduate school, what he took should be the GRE). In fact, in any kind of exam, most people don't get excellent scores, because excellent is defined as the top 10%.

Actually, people who don't work hard don't feel pressure, because they know clearly that they didn't work hard, so they naturally understand the fundamental reason their scores are poor. So people who didn't work hard, seeing their poor scores, can hardly be said to "feel pressure"; at most they'll regret it—only, even real remorse usually comes many years later.

Only when you have worked hard and yet not reached the score you hoped for do you feel heavy pressure. Once this pressure can't be handled correctly, it eventually becomes resistance, and moreover one of the greatest forces among all kinds of resistance (other kinds of resistance include the sense of defeat produced by comparing yourself with classmates, the earnest expectations of parents that actually have no positive effect, all sorts of filthy-messy [Translator's note: the original writes 污七八糟, with 污 ("filthy"); the usual form is 乌七八糟 ("all in a mess"); it still reads and is translated as written] yet plausible-sounding advice from every direction, and all kinds of temptations, and so on). Because this pressure makes people feel helpless.

However, at the present stage, what test takers face is not a state of helplessness in the true sense; they merely *feel* helpless. Feelings are inaccurate, and if one actually believes the present situation is true helplessness (in fact it's only an illusion), then that feeling of helplessness becomes the ultimate resistance—because the test taker may simply give up trying because of it.

First, forget the score you just got (a poor score, of course). Keep working hard as always, and go do whatever you should be doing. If you should be doing questions, do questions; if you should be reviewing, review; if you should be looking things up in the dictionary, look them up; if you should be memorizing, memorize…… As for the exam, act as if you never took it, as if nothing happened; or act as if what you just took was only a mock exam……

Second, don't set yourself a target score for the next exam. Actually, even if you set one, so what? If one really could "have whatever one wishes come true," why would we work ourselves to the bone? The dominant strategy for preparing for this kind of exam is "do as much as you can, be as good as you can," not "plan how much to do, plan how good to be."

However, it is necessary to understand exactly why the earlier embarrassment happened. Nothing more than three points:

**Overestimating yourself**
Everyone overestimates themselves (involuntarily). I mentioned before that over 90% of drivers firmly believe their driving skill is above average; a research report I saw recently said that over 90% of researchers firmly believe their research results will change the world (in fact, research results that can change the world are less than 1%—always so)—the more capable a person, the more easily they overestimate themselves. Now there's a real exam score; from this angle, it isn't necessarily a bad thing, because real motivation to learn comes from "knowing just how bad you are."
**Underestimating the workload**
Another important reason for not reaching the hoped-for score is that people often underestimate the workload needed to be excellent. They memorize a word three to five times and think that's enough, but in fact those extremely outstanding people, without being stupid, may have memorized it thirty to fifty times. They write ten-odd essays and think it's very hard work, but in fact the high scorers actually write every day (even if not necessarily on exam essay prompts), practice every day……
**Wrong methods**
Sometimes methods really do matter, even though many people who used wrong methods succeeded just the same (because they were diligent enough to make up for the wrong methods with diligence). For example, for breaking through SAT vocabulary it's best not to use any vocabulary book (no matter which one, which famous author, which famous publisher)—instead you should wipe out the words one by one through doing real past papers; memorizing only vocabulary books is the least efficient method.

Of these three reasons, the one I personally think most deserves attention is "underestimating the workload." So from now on, just increase the workload as much as possible. Another suggestion of mine is not to examine your own results for the time being. As long as you work hard, there will always be results. The key is that before the quantity has accumulated to a certain degree, results are not only hard to see, but even when seen they are easily underestimated. So students who pay special attention to "results" experience more helplessness in the course of learning, and so experience more resistance.

Everyone should actively cultivate and develop their own willpower (which is actually what I often call the mind), see things clearly, and use their willpower to prevent pressure from turning into resistance in an instant, and very easily turn pressure into motivation. Even if you can't turn pressure into motivation, at least don't let it turn into resistance. A single "go do whatever you should be doing" is actually really not very easy to do.

What else can you do? Bury your head and get to work. Every year I see many students in this situation keep their heads down, work themselves to the bone, and in the end rise above the rest. Of course more people will fail, but what I've observed is that they all lose by their own hand. Because **on the road you're on now, no one is harmed by others; those who lose are, in essence, all the result of self-harm**.

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