Page 43 - Hard Goals

34 HARD Goals

ever, were that the case, this would be nothing more than a
schmaltzy collection of tearjerker stories—which it isn’t.
Not everyone involved in or directly affected by your goal
is going to be a personal favorite of yours, or even someone
you actually know. But you can still develop a deep connec-
tion to almost any goal by becoming emotionally connected
to the benefi ciaries of that goal. The following techniques will
work whether you’re trying to lose weight because you want
to live longer for your kids or because you want to impress an
old high school squeeze at your upcoming reunion. If you want
to accumulate more wealth for the fi nancial security of your
spouse or start an orphanage in Haiti. And also if you’re CEO
of Apple or Google and you want everyone in the world to be
better off because they’re using your products or you want to
inspire employees to jump on a new sales initiative. They’re all
personal connections that can help you get where you want
to go.

Individualize

The fi rst insight you need comes from my list of great women
in history: Mother Teresa. Prefi guring a wealth of psychologi-
cal and neurological research she said, “If I look at the mass
I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” The genius in her
statement is this: if you want to build a personal emotional con-
nection to a goal, and give yourself that enormous motivational
boost, individualize and personalize your goal.
One of the great psychologists of our time, the late Amos
Tversky, conducted a study with Donald Redelmeier to see if
physicians would recommend different treatments to patients if