Page 164 - Hard Goals

Difficult 155

to make a real difference in your life (or your company or your
family or whatever). Or you’ll get bored with it and not even
bother seeing it through to fruition. And if you make your goal
too diffi cult, then it’s likely to end up on the scrap heap of
abandoned goals, like a free trial to the gym a few months after
New Year’s.

WHAT HOLDS US BACK FROM
DIFFICULT GOALS?

Notwithstanding everything we’ve covered so far, there’s still
one big issue that could hold you back and prevent you from set-
ting (and attempting) your diffi cult goals: they’re intimidating.
If you have a fear of anything—spiders, snakes, heights, open
spaces, commitment, or germs, to name a few—you know how
scary it can be to even think about trying to overcome that fear,
usually because you have to experience the fear to overcome it.
Even diffi cult goals that aren’t nearly as intimidating as these
other fears can still make the average person hesitate, and even
back off.
Listen, if advancing your career, starting a business, dou-
bling sales revenue, losing weight, running a marathon, quit-
ting smoking, going back to school, and saving more money
were easy goals, everybody would be doing them. But everybody
doesn’t do these things, and that’s why the fact that you’re even
reading this book puts you in a pretty select group of people
who share both the drive and the vision for greatness.
What makes diffi cult goals so intimidating? The short

answer is a fear of failure. In theory, the more difficult your goal