Page 116 - Hard Goals

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skinny in three months. Curb your impulse spending now, have
more retirement money in a year. Train now, run in the Olympics
in four years. Attend that management course now, get a promo-
tion at your next annual review. Get your employees working on
a new strategy now, generate more sales next quarter.
By itself that doesn’t seem like a big problem; it’s quite OK
that most goals require some immediate costs but don’t offer

their benefits until the future. After all, if I said to you, “Give up
$100 now and get $170 in one year,” you might take the deal.
Really challenging goals will always have some costs, but even
outstanding costs are usually outweighed by the benefi ts.
The problem isn’t that our benefi ts aren’t big enough. We
like the thought of what we stand to gain by seeing our goals
through, even when we know we’re not going to get it right
now. But we don’t stand a chance at getting it at all if our brains
tell us the future just ain’t worth it and right now is way more
important. For instance, consider the number of people who
rationalize that it’s better to save fi ve minutes of time now by
not checking their blood pressure—even in the face of life-
threatening hypertension. Even the most enticing potential ben-
efi ts (like having a long and healthy life rather than a painful
and imminent death) aren’t going to be enough to lure us into
taking action now if the future holds little to no value to us.
And the further you move into the future, the worse it gets.
If your goal is: do 500 sit-ups today and have killer washboard
abs by tomorrow, you’d probably be on it in a heartbeat. But
how many HARD Goals can deliver a return that quickly? The
fact is, you have to diet (sensibly) for several months to maybe
lose 30 pounds. If even the thought of this sets off an automatic
reaction in you that says, “Forget it, half a year of torture for
some time in the future I can’t even fathom is stupid; I’m gonna