Page 175 - Hard Goals

166 Conclusion: Starting Your HARD Goal

CALL A FRIEND

Once you know what your fi rst steps need to be, and specifi cally
what you need to do today, there’s one more technique that can
help keep you on track.
A few years ago I was leading a retreat for a group of eight
CEOs to help them create HARD Goals. You probably know a
few of them, but all are high-powered leaders who get together
a few times a year to think, share, brainstorm, and push each
other. And so, with the justifi cation of needing uninterrupted
thinking space, they decided to hold this retreat in Anguilla.
(I’m not going to lie; sometimes travel is tough, and sometimes
it’s not.)
After a particularly intense day of goal setting and strategiz-
ing and challenging each other, one member of the group (I’ll
call him Pat) says, “I’m bought-in. I desperately need this goal,
it will change my life. But I also feel like an alcoholic. What if I
get back to civilization and all the seemingly urgent stuff starts
to crowd out the really important stuff like this HARD Goal?
What if I can’t stop myself from taking that drink or attending
that stupid meeting or checking my e-mails all day?”
Well, that was a showstopper. Honestly, at that point, all
I wanted to do was end the session and catch an hour on the
beach with a stiff drink. But then, before I could even respond,
one of the other group members (let’s call him Chris) said some-
thing that totally changed my thinking. Chris said, “Pat, if you
feel like an alcoholic, I’ll be your sponsor. I’ll call you for fi ve
minutes every single day and check in on you. And since I have
the same fears as you, you can check in on me too.”