Page 17 - Hard Goals

8 HARD Goals

YOU’VE DONE IT BEFORE
(AND IT WAS GREAT)

Notwithstanding the inadequacy of many goals, I do have some
good news: everyone has the capacity to set the kind of goals
that generate greatness. How do I know? Because you’ve done
it before.
Think about the most signifi cant goal you’ve ever achieved.
Maybe you ran a marathon, doubled your company’s revenue,
lost 30 pounds, or invented the coolest product in your industry.
Now ask yourself these questions:

• Did this goal challenge me and push me out of my com-
fort zone?
• Did I have a deep emotional attachment to the goal?
• Did I have to learn new skills to accomplish it?
• Was my personal investment in this goal such that it felt
absolutely necessary?
• Could I vividly picture what it would be like to hit my
goal?

I’d be willing to bet that the goal that drove your greatest achieve-
ment was an incredibly challenging, deeply emotional, highly
visual, and utterly necessary goal. I’ll bet your mind was alive and
buzzing with the thrill of it. And I’ll also put my money on how,
after you hit your goal, you were as fulfi lled as you’ve ever been.
One of the most important fi ndings from our research on
goals is that people who set HARD Goals feel up to 75 percent
more fulfi lled than people with weaker goals. While we might
silently hope that these super-high achievers are really unhappy