Page 154 - Hard Goals

Difficult 145

I remember one woman I spoke to who had had a pretty
rough start to life. Despite a rather abusive and chaotic home
life, she made it through high school (though only on a song
and a prayer). Not surprisingly, she then made it her business
to run into every wrong person she could possibly fi nd in life
and got into all kinds of trouble—went looking for it, really.
Then one day, via a series of circumstances, she found herself
in a community college classroom and the teacher was telling
her she had potential, putting books in her hands, encourag-
ing her to pick herself up and do something that merited her
intelligence. And so she became something, she now fi nds value
in her life. And you know what she told me? “Every so often
I send that teacher a postcard. I tell him, ‘Look at me, I’m
doing this that or the other great thing, and truly, I have you
to thank for so much of it.’” It’s a touching story, especially if
you’re an educator, but it’s not unique. And great teachers don’t
always appear in a classroom setting. They’re everywhere; you
just have to keep an eye out for them. And sometimes we’re our
own best teachers.

LEARNING VERSUS PERFORMANCE GOALS

I do have to mention one caveat to setting diffi cult goals, and
it occurs if you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing. For
example, let’s imagine that you’ve never played piano. (Obvi-
ously, if you really have never played piano, no imagination is
necessary.) Now, let’s say I give you a goal of playing an inter-
mediate piece, like Beethoven’s “Für Elise.” (If you don’t know