Page 173 - Hard Goals

164 Conclusion: Starting Your HARD Goal

nique, which I call Cutting in Half, is especially useful if this is
the fi rst time you’re consciously setting a HARD Goal.

CUTTING IN HALF

The fi rst step is to take an objective long view of your HARD
Goal and approximate its end date. Some goals are more natu-
rally time-bound than others, but as accurately as you can, esti-
mate the time frame by which you’ll have completed your goal.
To keep things simple for this example, I’m going to pretend
that your HARD Goal will take you a year to accomplish (but
again, Cutting in Half works with goals of any duration).
Now, cut that time frame in half (six months in this exam-
ple) and answer this question: What must I have accomplished
at the six-month mark in order to know that I’m on track
to achieve the full HARD Goal? Let’s imagine my goal is to
run a marathon, that’s 26.2 miles, in one year (and of course,
I’ve addressed all the requisite heartfelt, animated, required,
and diffi cult aspects). What do I need to have accomplished
at six months in order to be on track for the full marathon
in one year? Let’s say I need to have reached a long run of
13 miles, be charting four runs per week, and have learned
how to fuel during a long run. (By the way, do you see how
easy it would be to abandon this goal if all I had was a
bunch of mileage numbers and I didn’t have all the underly-
ing heartfelt, animated, required, and diffi cult aspects already
in place?)
Now, cut that six-month time frame in half (three months)
and answer this question: What must I have accomplished at the