Page 156 - Hard Goals

Difficult 147

mance goal can backfi re. If you can read music and you know
the difference between a driver and a 3 wood, you’re probably
ready for performance goals. But if you think a key opens doors
and a driver is the guy picking you up at the airport, well then
you probably want to start with a learning goal.
Earlier in this chapter I said that most of the time, when we
have trouble achieving goals, it’s more about motivation than it
is about ability. And that’s still the case. But every so often you
might encounter a situation for which you really have no skills,
where you don’t know a single thing you need to know in order
to achieve that goal. If you have some idea what you’re doing,
even if you still need to learn more, you’re probably ready for
performance goals. If your performance goal is well designed,
you’re still going to do a lot of learning. Learning goals are bet-
ter for situations where you’re starting at the beginning—like if I
asked you to solve a differential equation, and all you heard was
Charlie Brown’s teacher saying, “Wha-wha-wha-wha-wha.”
In those cases where you’re truly starting at the beginning,
your best bet is to make your goals diffi cult, but in a learning
way. If you don’t know how to golf or play piano, don’t say, “I’ll
go break 100 or bang out a little Chopin.” Those are performance
goals, and they probably won’t work if you truly have no strategies
for accomplishing those goals. So instead say, “I’m going to master
the backswing and keeping my head down and keeping my body
centered, and I’m going to practice each aspect 100 times, while
analyzing and correcting each practice.” That’s a diffi cult learning
goal, and once you’ve accomplished it you’ll be in a much better
position to move on to tackling those big performance goals.
Keep in mind that learning goals can be every bit as dif-
fi cult as performance goals. Remember the study I cited ear-
lier that found the best violin students have more than 7,000
practice hours by age 18, average players have around 5,000,