Page 125 - Hard Goals

116 HARD Goals

challenge with a sense of empowerment and deepened commit-
ment to your bigger goals. For example, when I forgo the cake,
I’m learning all sorts of new skills. I’m learning to estimate
calories, I’m learning to read my body’s signals to distinguish
between mental feelings of hunger and an actual physical need
for calories, I’m learning to make my body more effi cient, I’m
learning to control my thoughts and desires (like a Jedi mas-
ter), I’m learning clever ways to satiate my sweet tooth through
lower-calorie alternatives like fruit, and lots more.
On the career path to management jobs, it’s generally accepted
that there are some stepping-stones that make the career path a
little easier. Doing strategy consulting, turnaround restructuring
(where I began my career), or venture capital, just to name a few,
are all seen as pretty good places to launch a management career.
Why? Because the learning curve is intense, and every company
wants to hire people that have a track record of learning a lot,
very quickly, and under intense pressure. In a way, the costs you’re
incurring with these goals aren’t really costs; they’re more like
investments in building a better, faster, smarter, tougher you.
When Quinn Taylor decided to fi nally get organized, it
seemed like the hardest goal she had ever set for herself. “Work,
personal life, my kids, the house, it’s all a mess,” she admitted.
“But I knew if I kept on going this way I’d self-destruct. I’ve had
too many narrow misses where my mess has almost gotten me
in a lot trouble.”
Sticking to her goal wasn’t easy. From the very start Quinn
had a mad desire to drop it all and run. “I kept trying to tell
myself it was just a little chaos, nothing that was going to kill
me,” she said. “So I had to fi nd a way to stay plugged in to my
goal, so every day I would take on a piece of my mess and make
it better.”