Page 89 - Hard Goals

80 HARD Goals

or in the rain or snow. If your goal is to night ski at Chamonix,
you’re wasting your time if you envision yourself riding the lift
at daybreak.
• Emotions: What are you feeling? And if there are other
people in the picture, what are they feeling? And how do you
know? What facial expressions, body language, or other indi-
cations do you see? When Mary, a breast cancer survivor, saw
herself once again well and running in her fi rst Race for the
Cure, she pictured her husband and daughter cheering her on
from the sidelines. She could also imagine exactly how amazing
it would feel at that moment when she crossed the fi nish line.
But she also focused on how it would feel knowing she had
helped raise money for other women like her, and that maybe
her efforts would make a difference in someone else’s life.
• Movement: Are you or any other people doing things?
Not a tough question if yours is an action goal like learning
to ski or to master French cooking. But what about more sed-
entary goals? What kind of movement will you fi nd in a goal
to be smarter with your money, get more sleep, or have more
patience? It’s there, you just may have to look a little harder to
see it.

I’m not asking you to think about all these various aspects
because I want you to get hung up on great art. Rather, I’m
doing it to maximize your neuroanatomy: your nervous sys-
tem. We humans are evolutionarily wired for visual, not textual,
stimuli. We’re only in existence today because we got suffi ciently
adept at visually recognizing dangers like saber-toothed tigers
hiding on top of rocks or in the grass—and then using those
same visual abilities to invent protection in the way of spears,
arrows, and the like.