Page 61 - Hard Goals

52 HARD Goals

her goal than just “reading is fun” to push herself through the
tough times of the doctoral program, to achieve her Ph.D. and
ultimately become a professor of literature? Seriously, which
path do you think offers her the greatest objective accomplish-
ment (doing real things) and subjective accomplishment (feeling
a deep sense of fulfi llment)?
I am not intrinsically motivated to do any of the following:
eat more vegetables, not smoke, exercise, save money, run, or
grow a company (while simultaneously trying to eat healthy,
exercise, and not smoke). In fact, it’s only because I am so emo-
tionally connected to the extrinsic “payoffs” from those activi-
ties that I do them at all. For example, eating healthy foods,
exercising, and not smoking will give me a longer life with my
wife and kids.
So what would I do if I were truly left to my own devices?
Here’s a list I made:

• Make love to my wife.
• Try to fi nd a way to clone my wife to make item 1 even
more fun.
• Play with my kids. (See? Item 1 wasn’t frivolous, it was
totally necessary to get me my kids. But yes, item 2 is
just frivolous.)
• Eat Buffalo-style pizza. (Everyone thinks of Buffalo’s
wings, but for those of us who grew up there, the pizza
is just as good.)
• Sit on the beach. (Trust me, if you grew up in Buffalo,
you too would have an intrinsic drive for warmth and
sand.)
• A whole bunch of other stuff that’s completely unre-
lated to work.