“Ever felt like you weren’t reaching your goals as fast as you would like? HARD GoalsK shows you how to change your thinking and get on the path to tremendous achievement!” -- Marshall Goldsmith, world-renowned executive coach and author of the New York Times bestsellers MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
“ Hard Goals is full of fascinating insights regarding how to get yourself to achieve things you never thought possible, and Murphy’s key ideas have strong research support. . . . If you want to achieve something great or important in your life, this is the book for you.” ―Edwin A. Locke, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland
“If you want a mediocre life, set ho-hum goals. If you want a life filled with excellence and meaning, set HARD Goals. This book shows you how to set HARD Goals and love every minute of achieving them. The end result? Winning in life and unparalleled fulfillment.” Lyle Nelson, four-time Olympian and author of Spirit of Champions
“Every company has goals these days. So why do most goals fall short? Why do leaders keep setting the same failed goals year after year? HARD Goals gives you the cutting-edge science to engage every employee in pursuing and achieving extraordinary goals. No more procrastination, foot-dragging, or giving up. With HARD Goals , your organization will achieve astonishing results. Every CEO, manager, and employee needs to read this book!” Kevin M. Andrews, President, SmartBen
Want to increase sales? Get promoted? Change the world? There’s a goal for that . . .
Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, the school teacher next door who amassed a million-dollar fortune . . . Did these people succeed because they were more motivated or because they were more disciplined? The answer to both questions is yes―but not in the ways you might think. Anyone can achieve extraordinary things. The secret is setting goals that test the very limits of your abilities.
In Hard Goals , Mark Murphy, the acclaimed author of Hundred Percenters , explains the science behind getting from where you are to where you want to be in your career, business, and life.
Leadership IQ, Murphy’s top-rated leadership training consultancy, studied nearly 5,000 workers from virtually every field and found that extraordinary goals―the kind that got America to the moon and back, developed the iPod, created nanotechnology, and helped individuals overcome tremendous personal adversity―stimulate and engage the brain in ways that are profoundly different from the goals most people set.
Research conducted for this book revealed that people who set Hard goals are up to 75 percent more fulfilled than people with easy goals. In these pages, Mark Murphy explains how success, and the satisfaction it brings, comes from knowing how to set goals that are:
Heartfelt―have an emotional attachment, “scratch an existential itch.”
Animated―motivated by a vision, that movie that plays over and over in your mind.
Required―imbued with such a sense of urgency that you have no other choice but to start acting on them right here, right now.
Difficult―the greatest achievements come from the toughest challenges―but they also leave you feeling stronger, smarter, and more fulfilled.
People set goals all the time, but the majority end up unfulfilled or abandoned. With all the challenges facing us today, we could use a little more achievement. Hard Goals can help us get there by offering the hard science and practical techniques to conquer procrastination and unlock your brain’s potential for realizing your goals.
From the Publisher
Mark Murphy is founder and CEO of Leadership IQ, a top-rated provider of leadership training for Microsoft, IBM, MasterCard, Merck, and other companies. He is the author of Hundred Percenters and has been featured in Fortune , Forbes , Bloomberg Businessweek , The Washington Post , and other publications.
About the Author
Mark Murphy is founder and CEO of Leadership IQ, a top-rated provider of leadership training for Microsoft, IBM, MasterCard, Merck, and other companies. He is the author of Hundred Percenters and has been featured in Fortune , Forbes , Bloomberg Businessweek , The Washington Post , and other publications.
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: HARD Goals—The Science of Achieving Big Things1 Heartfelt2 Animated3 Required4 DifficultConclusion: Starting Your HARD GoalNotesIndex
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Heartfelt
Whenever I talk to somebody about his or her goals—whether that person istrying to change the world, grow a company, or lose a few pounds—one ofthe first questions I ask is, "Why do you care about this goal?" (Don't worry,I'm not without some social graces; we actually have a conversation first.)
Some people look me right in the eye and say, "It doesn't mean anything to me.It's my boss/spouse/doctor and so forth who cares." I've lost count of thenumber of CEOs who've answered with, "Well, it's our Chairman who really feelsthis goal is important...." And how many kids, when asked the same question,would answer, "It has nothing to do with me. I'm only doing it because myparents are making me"?
"Why do you care about this goal?" It's a simple question, and a frighteninglyaccurate way to predict whether or not somebody will abandon his or her goals atthe slightest roadblock. The people who will pursue their goals regardless ofthe challenges will answer with something like, "This goal is my passion, it'swhat I'm here to do," or, "I love my children too much to not accomplish this,"or even, "What I really care about is the finish line; I'm totally pumped to getto the payoff."
But when people say, "My boss/spouse/doctor/chairman is the one who really caresabout this goal," or, "I'm doing it only because I have to," all signs point tothe negative. It's right there in their words: these people lack any realemotional connection to their goals; the goals are not heartfelt. In fact,emotionally, such a goal is not even really that person's goal; it belongs tosomebody else.
When you ask someone this question (and I encourage you to test it out foryourself), listen to the proper nouns and pronouns you get in response. Ifownership of the goal is taken with a me, mine, my , or I , eventhough the goal may have originated with someone else, it's a strong sign thatperson will see that goal through to the end, no matter what gets thrown in theway.
But if the person mentally assigns ownership of the goal to a boss, spouse,doctor, chairman, or whomever, which you'll hear in words like his, hers,the company's, my teacher , or the boss , then you know the person isjust not feeling connected to the goal. You can also listen for the emotionalwords that are said (for example, pumped, excited, can't wait, fired up ,and so forth). Expressing intense feelings usually portends better results thanemotional detachment does. Just remember, nobody ever washed a rental car (whichmeans that if you don't own it, you're not going to put much effort into it).
You'd do just about anything for the people you love—your kids, spouse,best friend, family, significant other, and so forth—because you have aheartfelt connection to them. You don't just know these folks; you know youreally care for them. But what if you were asked to do something for a passingacquaintance or even a total stranger? Most likely you'd exert some effortbecause you're a nice person, but most people would risk and sacrifice much morefor a loved one than they would for an acquaintance or stranger. Doctors givemore comprehensive care to people they feel more connected to. People give moremoney to charities when they feel a heartfelt connection to the recipients.Research has even shown that sales generated at Tupperware parties can besignificantly explained by analyzing the strength of the personal connectionbetween the host and the guests.
With all due respect to Sting, if you love somebody (and thus have a heartfeltconnection to them), you're probably not going to set them free. Because of thatheartfelt connection, you're going to follow them to the far corners of theglobe, dripping blood, sweat, and tears to help them in any way you can. Andthat's precisely the kind of heartfelt connection you want to feel toward yourgoals. You want to love, need, and be deeply connected to your goals; you wantto feel like you'd chase a goal to the very ends of the earth in order tofulfill it.
Just to be clear, it's not all about emotions. You absolutely need theanalytical part of your brain to create and achieve a HARD Goal (as you'llclearly see in the "Required" and "Difficult" chapters). Certainly you shouldcalculate the precise amount of weight you need to lose, the dollar amount bywhich your sales should grow, what mile mark you need to hit to be marathonready, and how many classes you need to attend to experience the optimal levelof challenge. But while you can create the most analytically sound goal in theworld (with just the right degree of difficulty and so on), if it's notheartfelt, if you're not emotionally connected to it, if you aren't ready tochase this goal to the far corners of the globe, then you're more likely toabandon it than you are to accomplish it. Goal-setting processes often get sohung up on the analytical and tactical parts that they often neglect the mostfundamental question: why do you care about this goal?
In the early days of my career, I advised seriously troubled organizations (theones teetering on the edge of bankruptcy). And believe me when I say they neededsome seriously HARD Goals to fight their way back. I could always tell if thecompany had a sufficient foundation from which to launch a successful turnaroundjust by walking around and asking employees, "Why do you care if this companysucceeds or fails?" If I heard a lot of people say, "Because I'll lose my job,"or "I need a paycheck," or something similar, I knew the company probablywouldn't make it. But if I heard something more heartfelt like, "I've poured myheart and soul into this place, and I'm not gonna let it fail now," or "Too manypeople are counting on us," or "Our customers need us to survive," then I knewwe had a great shot at a comeback.
By the way, every politician that wants to survive knows that caring, emotionalintensity, and heartfelt connection all mean the same thing: voter turnout. Whenpeople are emotionally connected to an issue or leader, when they feel heartfeltenthusiasm, they'll move heaven and earth to guarantee its success. But whenthey're apathetic—that's very bad news indeed!
If your goals are important enough, if they're HARD, then at some point you'regoing to hit a stumbling block, because every goal worth doing is going to testyour resolve and ask you to decide if you really want to keep going. And at thatmoment, if your commitment to that goal is sufficiently heart-felt, you'llsaddle up and plow right through. But if it's not, if there's no heartfeltconnection, well, that's why your local gym is overcrowded with resolutionmakers in January and empty by March.
In the past few years there's been a spate of books on how to be happy. Notdeeply fulfilled, emotionally resilient, high achieving, or doing somethingtruly meaningful and significant with your life, but rather, happy. (Doingreally easy stuff like gorging on pizza while drinking beer and watching Blade Runner would make me happy, but that's not exactly a recipe forself-respect or a life well-lived.) In one of these happiness books, the authortells a story about a woman who loved reading literature so much that shedecided to pursue her doctorate in the field. According to the story, the womangot into a good program and started taking classes. However, she quicklydiscovered that it was hard. There were grades, deadlines, papers, rewards,punishments, and so on. She eventually said, "I don't look forward to readinganymore."
Now, the author of the book was making a totally different point in telling thisstory, but here's what I took away from it: that woman didn't have a deep enoughemotional connection to her goal; her connection wasn't truly heartfelt. Listen,just about every goal worth doing is going to take work. You don't just roll outof bed and get a Ph.D. because you enjoy reading Shakespeare. Were that thecase, I'd win the Tour de France because I recently took a wine-drinking (er, Imean tasting) bike tour through Napa Valley. And maybe a Nobel Prize too becauseI love talking to smart people.
Once again, every goal worth doing will test your limits; there's simply nogetting around it. And, at some point, even the things you love doing might stopbeing "fun" while you push yourself to hang on, keep going, to continue pushingand striving for a higher level of greatness. If the woman in that story trulycares about achieving her Ph.D. and becoming a professor ofliterature—which is a significant and meaningful accomplishment that willstay with her for the rest of her life—she's going to need a much deepercommitment than just, "Reading Shakespeare on the couch is fun."
So what do you do if you're not feeling as intensely plugged in as you'd liketoward your goals? How do you build that emotional connection so that nothingshort of death or disaster will get in your way of seeing those goals though?
There are three ways to build a heartfelt connection to your goals:
• Intrinsic: Develop a heartfelt connection to the goal itself.
• Personal: Develop a heartfelt connection to the person you're doing agoal for.
• Extrinsic: Develop a heartfelt connection to the payoff.
Let's look at each of these in more detail.
INTRINSIC CONNECTION
You'll likely be more motivated to do something you really love doing. This isan insight that probably falls in the category of "well, duh" for most people.It's also, in a nutshell, the definition of intrinsic motivation. Consider whatyou do in your free time, when nobody's pressuring or rewarding you one way oranother. Whatever it is, if it's something you love doing, it's probably anexample of intrinsic motivation.
Steve Jobs has an intrinsic emotional connection to what he does. If you've everlistened to him launch a new product, the intrinsic connection positively oozesout of him. You can hear his heartfelt connection in statements like "This is anawesome computer," or "This is the coolest thing we've ever done with video," or"This is an incredible way to have fun." Jobs's passionate connection to thebetter world he truly believes he is creating with his products is what keepsall those great new ideas coming. It's also part of the package that turns Applecustomers and employees into Apple evangelists.
Intrinsic motivation comes from the inside, not in response to external rewards.Not to say Jobs, or anyone playing off of intrinsic motivation, can't also seekexternal rewards. But the factor that drives the goal forward, the primarymotivation, comes from doing what you love to do.
Coach, lecturer, and author Lyle Nelson is a four-time Olympian. In 1988 he wasunanimously elected to serve as team captain of the United States Olympic Team.Pretty awesome stuff, though if you met him, you'd see only modesty andgenerosity. Lyle's always got a moment for anyone who asks, and since he's aterrific problem solver, he gets asked a lot.
When asked to describe how emotions played a part in his Olympic success, here'swhat Lyle had to say: "There I was in Innsbruck, Austria, the morning of myfirst race. The weather was perfect for skiing, cold and crisp, yet bright andsunny. I can still see the cross-country ski trails as they wandered along thelakeshore past a church spire and out of sight over the hill. That's when itdawned on me that I was about to live a dream."
"I thought back to when I was 15. I knew I'd get to the Olympics then, but Ididn't know it would take 12 years to happen. Four of those years I was at WestPoint, and during my junior and senior years I lifted weights six nights a weekfrom 11 p.m. to one in the morning. It was easy; it didn't take any Herculeandiscipline. I was powered by the thought of one day standing in the startinggate at the Olympics."
Guided by a heartfelt intrinsic connection to his goal, Lyle made an unwaveringcommitment to becoming an Olympian when he was just a kid. That was a prettyheady ambition, but as Lyle goes on to say, it's not just about gigantic goalslike becoming an Olympian. "As I stood in that gate, I realized that for thefirst time in my life I was going to try for a true 100 percent; no excuse forholding back would ever matter. It was one of those moments in life where we getto say to ourselves, 'When I step over this line I'm going to give it everythingI have.' But that line could just as easily be a project at work, arelationship, or the resolve to change an attitude." Lyle's right, and giving100 percent definitely comes easier when you have an intrinsic connection toyour goal.
So how do you create an intrinsic heartfelt connection to your goals? Byunderstanding your Shoves and Tugs.
Everybody has Shoves and Tugs. Shoves are those issues that demotivate you,drain your energy, stop you from giving 100 percent, and make you want to quitpursuing your goals (they "shove" you out the metaphorical door). Tugs are thoseissues that motivate and fulfill you, that you inherently love, that make youwant to give 100 percent, and that keep you coming back no matter how hardthings get. (They "tug" at you to keep pursuing your goal.)
This seems simple enough. But here's the twist: Shoves and Tugs are not flip sides of the same coin. Just because people are feeling serious Tugs towardtheir goals does not mean they don't have any Shoves. And before you spend allday trying to figure out how to get more Tugs into your goals, you've got to atleast acknowledge (and ideally mitigate) the Shoves.
Let me begin with an analogy that's a little "out there," but it might helpclarify this issue. Much like Shoves and Tugs are not opposites of each other,so too pain and pleasure are not opposites of each other. The flip side ofpleasure isn't pain; it's just the absence of pleasure. Similarly, theantithesis of pain isn't pleasure; it's just the absence of pain. If somebody ishitting my foot with a hammer, that's pain. And when he or she stops, that's notpleasure, that's just no more pain. If I'm getting the world's greatest backrub,that's pleasure. When it stops, that's not pain, that's just no more pleasure.
Here's the lesson: If I'm getting a great backrub, it does not preclude somebodyfrom starting to hit my foot with a hammer. And if that happens, the pain in myfoot will totally detract from the pleasure I'm getting from the backrub. Here'sa corollary lesson: If you walk past me one day and see that my foot is beinghit with a hammer, you cannot fix the pain in my foot by giving me a backrub.The only way to stop the pain in my foot is to stop the hammer from hitting myfoot.
I warned you that this is a weird analogy, but here's why it's relevant. Everyday as people pursue their goals, their feet are being hit by hammers (Shoves).This quite effectively destroys any intrinsic attachment these folks might feeltoward their goals. Worse yet, many people haven't consciously analyzed theirShoves and Tugs, so when they hit those Shoves they're not sure exactly whytheir heartfelt connection is waning, and they're even less sure how to addressthe problem.
So the first thing you have to do is diagnose your own Shoves and Tugs. And todo that, you just need to answer two simple questions:
• Describe a time recently (in the past few weeks or months, or even a year)when you felt really frustrated or emotionally burned out or like you wanted tochuck it all and give up.
• Describe a time recently (in the past few weeks or months, or even a year)when you felt really motivated or excited or like you were totally fired up andunstoppable.
You'll notice that these questions are not asked in the abstract. That's becauseI'm not looking for things that might derail my goals. I'm looking forthe things that actually are derailing my goals (and the more recentyour examples, the better). If I ask for a hypothetical list of what I "imagine"will derail my goals, I'll get a hypothetical list, and that's not exactly awhole lot of help. It's not typical behavior to abandon a goal because of aShove that hasn't yet happened and might not ever happen. But lots of peoplewill quit their goals because of a Shove they're experiencing this week.
Once you've discovered the kinds of factors and situations that add to ordetract from your heartfelt connection to your goals, you can choose goals moresuited to your intrinsic drives. People who are always looking for that nextadrenaline rush might be Shoved by goals that aren't exciting or unique enough.People who love solving really tough problems might be getting Tugs fromattempting a goal that their friends told them couldn't be achieved.
But what about the situations where you don't get to choose your goals? What ifyour goal has Shoves and you can't avoid them? In those cases you're going toneed another level of motivation; you're going to need a Personal or Extrinsicconnection to your goal.
Harvard economist Roland Fryer Jr. is doing something extraordinary—he'sstudying how to get inner-city kids more connected to the goal of succeeding inschool. You may have heard of his latest study. One of the largest studiesregarding education policy ever undertaken, it involved using mostly privatemoney to pay 18,000 kids a total of $6.3 million in various financial incentivesin the classroom. The financial motivators used varied in amount and includedpayments for positive behaviors such as good grades, reading books, or notfighting.
It's a political hot potato, to say the least, but it underscores one criticalissue: When you're having trouble building an intrinsic connection between aperson and a goal, what else can you try? Sure, we all want kids to learn forthe love of learning (in other words, to be intrinsically connected to the goalof academic success). But as Fryer says, "I could walk into a completely failingschool, with crack vials on the ground outside, and say, 'Hey, I went to aschool like this, and I want to help.' And people would just browbeat me about'the love of learning,' and I would be like, 'But I just stepped on crack vialsout there! There are fights in the hallways! We're beyond that."
PERSONAL CONNECTION
When I was a teenager, my great aunt Norma was diagnosed with terminal cancer.She was in her eighties at the time and had a warmth and charm that belied herunderlying "mama bear" ferocity. Just after she was told she had a few months tolive, her daughter (who was then in her sixties) was also diagnosed with cancer,but with a life expectancy closer to a few years. Of course, you know what I'mgoing to say next. Aunt Norma didn't pass right away; she lived for five moreyears. Her doctors were left scratching their heads with a combination ofamazement and incredulity. Norma dealt with constant pain. But she foughtthrough it every day so that she could care for her daughter.
We all know an Aunt Norma, someone who loves another person so much, is soemotionally connected to that person, that he or she can endure anypain—overcome any challenge—in order to help that person through achallenge or crisis. After you get past all the horror stories on your localnews, you may find examples there. Like Nick Harris, the man from Ottawa,Kansas, who saw his six-year-old neighbor get run over by a car.
The little girl was walking down her street on her way to school when someonebacked out of a driveway and hit her, pushing her out into the street androlling the car on top of her. Nick, who had just dropped his own daughter offat school, saw the accident and ran over to help. When he got there, this5-foot-7, 185-pound guy lifted the car (a Mercury sedan) right off the littlegirl. And about her injuries? Some scrapes and bruises and road rash, butotherwise she's fine. Smiling, she told a local news team, "I didn't even breaka bone."
“Ever felt like you weren’t reaching your goals as fast as you would like? HARD GoalsK shows you how to change your thinking and get on the path to tremendous achievement!”
-- Marshall Goldsmith, world-renowned executive coach and author of the New York Times bestsellers MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
“ Hard Goals is full of fascinating insights regarding how to get yourself to achieve things you never thought possible, and Murphy’s key ideas have strong research support. . . . If you want to achieve something great or important in your life, this is the book for you.”
―Edwin A. Locke, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland
“If you want a mediocre life, set ho-hum goals. If you want a life filled with excellence and meaning, set HARD Goals. This book shows you how to set HARD Goals and love every minute of achieving them. The end result? Winning in life and unparalleled fulfillment.”
Lyle Nelson, four-time Olympian and author of Spirit of Champions
“Every company has goals these days. So why do most goals fall short? Why do leaders keep setting the same failed goals year after year? HARD Goals gives you the cutting-edge science to engage every employee in pursuing and achieving extraordinary goals. No more procrastination, foot-dragging, or giving up. With HARD Goals , your organization will achieve astonishing results. Every CEO, manager, and employee needs to read this book!”
Kevin M. Andrews, President, SmartBen
Want to increase sales? Get promoted? Change the world? There’s a goal for that . . .
Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, the school teacher next door who amassed a million-dollar fortune . . . Did these people succeed because they were more motivated or because they were more disciplined? The answer to both questions is yes―but not in the ways you might think. Anyone can achieve extraordinary things. The secret is setting goals that test the very limits of your abilities.
In Hard Goals , Mark Murphy, the acclaimed author of Hundred Percenters , explains the science behind getting from where you are to where you want to be in your career, business, and life.
Leadership IQ, Murphy’s top-rated leadership training consultancy, studied nearly 5,000 workers from virtually every field and found that extraordinary goals―the kind that got America to the moon and back, developed the iPod, created nanotechnology, and helped individuals overcome tremendous personal adversity―stimulate and engage the brain in ways that are profoundly different from the goals most people set.
Research conducted for this book revealed that people who set Hard goals are up to 75 percent more fulfilled than people with easy goals. In these pages, Mark Murphy explains how success, and the satisfaction it brings, comes from knowing how to set goals that are:
People set goals all the time, but the majority end up unfulfilled or abandoned. With all the challenges facing us today, we could use a little more achievement. Hard Goals can help us get there by offering the hard science and practical techniques to conquer procrastination and unlock your brain’s potential for realizing your goals.
From the Publisher
Mark Murphy is founder and CEO of Leadership IQ, a top-rated provider of leadership training for Microsoft, IBM, MasterCard, Merck, and other companies. He is the author of Hundred Percenters and has been featured in Fortune , Forbes , Bloomberg Businessweek , The Washington Post , and other publications.
About the Author
Mark Murphy is founder and CEO of Leadership IQ, a top-rated provider of leadership training for Microsoft, IBM, MasterCard, Merck, and other companies. He is the author of Hundred Percenters and has been featured in Fortune , Forbes , Bloomberg Businessweek , The Washington Post , and other publications.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
HARD GOALS
THE SECRET TO GETTING FROM WHERE YOU ARE TO WHERE YOU WANT TO BE
By MARK MURPHY
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 Mark Murphy
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-07-175346-3
Contents
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: HARD Goals—The Science of Achieving Big Things1 Heartfelt2 Animated3 Required4 DifficultConclusion: Starting Your HARD GoalNotesIndex
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Heartfelt
Whenever I talk to somebody about his or her goals—whether that person istrying to change the world, grow a company, or lose a few pounds—one ofthe first questions I ask is, "Why do you care about this goal?" (Don't worry,I'm not without some social graces; we actually have a conversation first.)
Some people look me right in the eye and say, "It doesn't mean anything to me.It's my boss/spouse/doctor and so forth who cares." I've lost count of thenumber of CEOs who've answered with, "Well, it's our Chairman who really feelsthis goal is important...." And how many kids, when asked the same question,would answer, "It has nothing to do with me. I'm only doing it because myparents are making me"?
"Why do you care about this goal?" It's a simple question, and a frighteninglyaccurate way to predict whether or not somebody will abandon his or her goals atthe slightest roadblock. The people who will pursue their goals regardless ofthe challenges will answer with something like, "This goal is my passion, it'swhat I'm here to do," or, "I love my children too much to not accomplish this,"or even, "What I really care about is the finish line; I'm totally pumped to getto the payoff."
But when people say, "My boss/spouse/doctor/chairman is the one who really caresabout this goal," or, "I'm doing it only because I have to," all signs point tothe negative. It's right there in their words: these people lack any realemotional connection to their goals; the goals are not heartfelt. In fact,emotionally, such a goal is not even really that person's goal; it belongs tosomebody else.
When you ask someone this question (and I encourage you to test it out foryourself), listen to the proper nouns and pronouns you get in response. Ifownership of the goal is taken with a me, mine, my , or I , eventhough the goal may have originated with someone else, it's a strong sign thatperson will see that goal through to the end, no matter what gets thrown in theway.
But if the person mentally assigns ownership of the goal to a boss, spouse,doctor, chairman, or whomever, which you'll hear in words like his, hers,the company's, my teacher , or the boss , then you know the person isjust not feeling connected to the goal. You can also listen for the emotionalwords that are said (for example, pumped, excited, can't wait, fired up ,and so forth). Expressing intense feelings usually portends better results thanemotional detachment does. Just remember, nobody ever washed a rental car (whichmeans that if you don't own it, you're not going to put much effort into it).
You'd do just about anything for the people you love—your kids, spouse,best friend, family, significant other, and so forth—because you have aheartfelt connection to them. You don't just know these folks; you know youreally care for them. But what if you were asked to do something for a passingacquaintance or even a total stranger? Most likely you'd exert some effortbecause you're a nice person, but most people would risk and sacrifice much morefor a loved one than they would for an acquaintance or stranger. Doctors givemore comprehensive care to people they feel more connected to. People give moremoney to charities when they feel a heartfelt connection to the recipients.Research has even shown that sales generated at Tupperware parties can besignificantly explained by analyzing the strength of the personal connectionbetween the host and the guests.
With all due respect to Sting, if you love somebody (and thus have a heartfeltconnection to them), you're probably not going to set them free. Because of thatheartfelt connection, you're going to follow them to the far corners of theglobe, dripping blood, sweat, and tears to help them in any way you can. Andthat's precisely the kind of heartfelt connection you want to feel toward yourgoals. You want to love, need, and be deeply connected to your goals; you wantto feel like you'd chase a goal to the very ends of the earth in order tofulfill it.
Just to be clear, it's not all about emotions. You absolutely need theanalytical part of your brain to create and achieve a HARD Goal (as you'llclearly see in the "Required" and "Difficult" chapters). Certainly you shouldcalculate the precise amount of weight you need to lose, the dollar amount bywhich your sales should grow, what mile mark you need to hit to be marathonready, and how many classes you need to attend to experience the optimal levelof challenge. But while you can create the most analytically sound goal in theworld (with just the right degree of difficulty and so on), if it's notheartfelt, if you're not emotionally connected to it, if you aren't ready tochase this goal to the far corners of the globe, then you're more likely toabandon it than you are to accomplish it. Goal-setting processes often get sohung up on the analytical and tactical parts that they often neglect the mostfundamental question: why do you care about this goal?
In the early days of my career, I advised seriously troubled organizations (theones teetering on the edge of bankruptcy). And believe me when I say they neededsome seriously HARD Goals to fight their way back. I could always tell if thecompany had a sufficient foundation from which to launch a successful turnaroundjust by walking around and asking employees, "Why do you care if this companysucceeds or fails?" If I heard a lot of people say, "Because I'll lose my job,"or "I need a paycheck," or something similar, I knew the company probablywouldn't make it. But if I heard something more heartfelt like, "I've poured myheart and soul into this place, and I'm not gonna let it fail now," or "Too manypeople are counting on us," or "Our customers need us to survive," then I knewwe had a great shot at a comeback.
By the way, every politician that wants to survive knows that caring, emotionalintensity, and heartfelt connection all mean the same thing: voter turnout. Whenpeople are emotionally connected to an issue or leader, when they feel heartfeltenthusiasm, they'll move heaven and earth to guarantee its success. But whenthey're apathetic—that's very bad news indeed!
If your goals are important enough, if they're HARD, then at some point you'regoing to hit a stumbling block, because every goal worth doing is going to testyour resolve and ask you to decide if you really want to keep going. And at thatmoment, if your commitment to that goal is sufficiently heart-felt, you'llsaddle up and plow right through. But if it's not, if there's no heartfeltconnection, well, that's why your local gym is overcrowded with resolutionmakers in January and empty by March.
In the past few years there's been a spate of books on how to be happy. Notdeeply fulfilled, emotionally resilient, high achieving, or doing somethingtruly meaningful and significant with your life, but rather, happy. (Doingreally easy stuff like gorging on pizza while drinking beer and watching Blade Runner would make me happy, but that's not exactly a recipe forself-respect or a life well-lived.) In one of these happiness books, the authortells a story about a woman who loved reading literature so much that shedecided to pursue her doctorate in the field. According to the story, the womangot into a good program and started taking classes. However, she quicklydiscovered that it was hard. There were grades, deadlines, papers, rewards,punishments, and so on. She eventually said, "I don't look forward to readinganymore."
Now, the author of the book was making a totally different point in telling thisstory, but here's what I took away from it: that woman didn't have a deep enoughemotional connection to her goal; her connection wasn't truly heartfelt. Listen,just about every goal worth doing is going to take work. You don't just roll outof bed and get a Ph.D. because you enjoy reading Shakespeare. Were that thecase, I'd win the Tour de France because I recently took a wine-drinking (er, Imean tasting) bike tour through Napa Valley. And maybe a Nobel Prize too becauseI love talking to smart people.
Once again, every goal worth doing will test your limits; there's simply nogetting around it. And, at some point, even the things you love doing might stopbeing "fun" while you push yourself to hang on, keep going, to continue pushingand striving for a higher level of greatness. If the woman in that story trulycares about achieving her Ph.D. and becoming a professor ofliterature—which is a significant and meaningful accomplishment that willstay with her for the rest of her life—she's going to need a much deepercommitment than just, "Reading Shakespeare on the couch is fun."
So what do you do if you're not feeling as intensely plugged in as you'd liketoward your goals? How do you build that emotional connection so that nothingshort of death or disaster will get in your way of seeing those goals though?
There are three ways to build a heartfelt connection to your goals:
• Intrinsic: Develop a heartfelt connection to the goal itself.
• Personal: Develop a heartfelt connection to the person you're doing agoal for.
• Extrinsic: Develop a heartfelt connection to the payoff.
Let's look at each of these in more detail.
INTRINSIC CONNECTION
You'll likely be more motivated to do something you really love doing. This isan insight that probably falls in the category of "well, duh" for most people.It's also, in a nutshell, the definition of intrinsic motivation. Consider whatyou do in your free time, when nobody's pressuring or rewarding you one way oranother. Whatever it is, if it's something you love doing, it's probably anexample of intrinsic motivation.
Steve Jobs has an intrinsic emotional connection to what he does. If you've everlistened to him launch a new product, the intrinsic connection positively oozesout of him. You can hear his heartfelt connection in statements like "This is anawesome computer," or "This is the coolest thing we've ever done with video," or"This is an incredible way to have fun." Jobs's passionate connection to thebetter world he truly believes he is creating with his products is what keepsall those great new ideas coming. It's also part of the package that turns Applecustomers and employees into Apple evangelists.
Intrinsic motivation comes from the inside, not in response to external rewards.Not to say Jobs, or anyone playing off of intrinsic motivation, can't also seekexternal rewards. But the factor that drives the goal forward, the primarymotivation, comes from doing what you love to do.
Coach, lecturer, and author Lyle Nelson is a four-time Olympian. In 1988 he wasunanimously elected to serve as team captain of the United States Olympic Team.Pretty awesome stuff, though if you met him, you'd see only modesty andgenerosity. Lyle's always got a moment for anyone who asks, and since he's aterrific problem solver, he gets asked a lot.
When asked to describe how emotions played a part in his Olympic success, here'swhat Lyle had to say: "There I was in Innsbruck, Austria, the morning of myfirst race. The weather was perfect for skiing, cold and crisp, yet bright andsunny. I can still see the cross-country ski trails as they wandered along thelakeshore past a church spire and out of sight over the hill. That's when itdawned on me that I was about to live a dream."
"I thought back to when I was 15. I knew I'd get to the Olympics then, but Ididn't know it would take 12 years to happen. Four of those years I was at WestPoint, and during my junior and senior years I lifted weights six nights a weekfrom 11 p.m. to one in the morning. It was easy; it didn't take any Herculeandiscipline. I was powered by the thought of one day standing in the startinggate at the Olympics."
Guided by a heartfelt intrinsic connection to his goal, Lyle made an unwaveringcommitment to becoming an Olympian when he was just a kid. That was a prettyheady ambition, but as Lyle goes on to say, it's not just about gigantic goalslike becoming an Olympian. "As I stood in that gate, I realized that for thefirst time in my life I was going to try for a true 100 percent; no excuse forholding back would ever matter. It was one of those moments in life where we getto say to ourselves, 'When I step over this line I'm going to give it everythingI have.' But that line could just as easily be a project at work, arelationship, or the resolve to change an attitude." Lyle's right, and giving100 percent definitely comes easier when you have an intrinsic connection toyour goal.
So how do you create an intrinsic heartfelt connection to your goals? Byunderstanding your Shoves and Tugs.
Everybody has Shoves and Tugs. Shoves are those issues that demotivate you,drain your energy, stop you from giving 100 percent, and make you want to quitpursuing your goals (they "shove" you out the metaphorical door). Tugs are thoseissues that motivate and fulfill you, that you inherently love, that make youwant to give 100 percent, and that keep you coming back no matter how hardthings get. (They "tug" at you to keep pursuing your goal.)
This seems simple enough. But here's the twist: Shoves and Tugs are not flip sides of the same coin. Just because people are feeling serious Tugs towardtheir goals does not mean they don't have any Shoves. And before you spend allday trying to figure out how to get more Tugs into your goals, you've got to atleast acknowledge (and ideally mitigate) the Shoves.
Let me begin with an analogy that's a little "out there," but it might helpclarify this issue. Much like Shoves and Tugs are not opposites of each other,so too pain and pleasure are not opposites of each other. The flip side ofpleasure isn't pain; it's just the absence of pleasure. Similarly, theantithesis of pain isn't pleasure; it's just the absence of pain. If somebody ishitting my foot with a hammer, that's pain. And when he or she stops, that's notpleasure, that's just no more pain. If I'm getting the world's greatest backrub,that's pleasure. When it stops, that's not pain, that's just no more pleasure.
Here's the lesson: If I'm getting a great backrub, it does not preclude somebodyfrom starting to hit my foot with a hammer. And if that happens, the pain in myfoot will totally detract from the pleasure I'm getting from the backrub. Here'sa corollary lesson: If you walk past me one day and see that my foot is beinghit with a hammer, you cannot fix the pain in my foot by giving me a backrub.The only way to stop the pain in my foot is to stop the hammer from hitting myfoot.
I warned you that this is a weird analogy, but here's why it's relevant. Everyday as people pursue their goals, their feet are being hit by hammers (Shoves).This quite effectively destroys any intrinsic attachment these folks might feeltoward their goals. Worse yet, many people haven't consciously analyzed theirShoves and Tugs, so when they hit those Shoves they're not sure exactly whytheir heartfelt connection is waning, and they're even less sure how to addressthe problem.
So the first thing you have to do is diagnose your own Shoves and Tugs. And todo that, you just need to answer two simple questions:
• Describe a time recently (in the past few weeks or months, or even a year)when you felt really frustrated or emotionally burned out or like you wanted tochuck it all and give up.
• Describe a time recently (in the past few weeks or months, or even a year)when you felt really motivated or excited or like you were totally fired up andunstoppable.
You'll notice that these questions are not asked in the abstract. That's becauseI'm not looking for things that might derail my goals. I'm looking forthe things that actually are derailing my goals (and the more recentyour examples, the better). If I ask for a hypothetical list of what I "imagine"will derail my goals, I'll get a hypothetical list, and that's not exactly awhole lot of help. It's not typical behavior to abandon a goal because of aShove that hasn't yet happened and might not ever happen. But lots of peoplewill quit their goals because of a Shove they're experiencing this week.
Once you've discovered the kinds of factors and situations that add to ordetract from your heartfelt connection to your goals, you can choose goals moresuited to your intrinsic drives. People who are always looking for that nextadrenaline rush might be Shoved by goals that aren't exciting or unique enough.People who love solving really tough problems might be getting Tugs fromattempting a goal that their friends told them couldn't be achieved.
But what about the situations where you don't get to choose your goals? What ifyour goal has Shoves and you can't avoid them? In those cases you're going toneed another level of motivation; you're going to need a Personal or Extrinsicconnection to your goal.
Harvard economist Roland Fryer Jr. is doing something extraordinary—he'sstudying how to get inner-city kids more connected to the goal of succeeding inschool. You may have heard of his latest study. One of the largest studiesregarding education policy ever undertaken, it involved using mostly privatemoney to pay 18,000 kids a total of $6.3 million in various financial incentivesin the classroom. The financial motivators used varied in amount and includedpayments for positive behaviors such as good grades, reading books, or notfighting.
It's a political hot potato, to say the least, but it underscores one criticalissue: When you're having trouble building an intrinsic connection between aperson and a goal, what else can you try? Sure, we all want kids to learn forthe love of learning (in other words, to be intrinsically connected to the goalof academic success). But as Fryer says, "I could walk into a completely failingschool, with crack vials on the ground outside, and say, 'Hey, I went to aschool like this, and I want to help.' And people would just browbeat me about'the love of learning,' and I would be like, 'But I just stepped on crack vialsout there! There are fights in the hallways! We're beyond that."
PERSONAL CONNECTION
When I was a teenager, my great aunt Norma was diagnosed with terminal cancer.She was in her eighties at the time and had a warmth and charm that belied herunderlying "mama bear" ferocity. Just after she was told she had a few months tolive, her daughter (who was then in her sixties) was also diagnosed with cancer,but with a life expectancy closer to a few years. Of course, you know what I'mgoing to say next. Aunt Norma didn't pass right away; she lived for five moreyears. Her doctors were left scratching their heads with a combination ofamazement and incredulity. Norma dealt with constant pain. But she foughtthrough it every day so that she could care for her daughter.
We all know an Aunt Norma, someone who loves another person so much, is soemotionally connected to that person, that he or she can endure anypain—overcome any challenge—in order to help that person through achallenge or crisis. After you get past all the horror stories on your localnews, you may find examples there. Like Nick Harris, the man from Ottawa,Kansas, who saw his six-year-old neighbor get run over by a car.
The little girl was walking down her street on her way to school when someonebacked out of a driveway and hit her, pushing her out into the street androlling the car on top of her. Nick, who had just dropped his own daughter offat school, saw the accident and ran over to help. When he got there, this5-foot-7, 185-pound guy lifted the car (a Mercury sedan) right off the littlegirl. And about her injuries? Some scrapes and bruises and road rash, butotherwise she's fine. Smiling, she told a local news team, "I didn't even breaka bone."
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(Continues...) Excerpted from HARD GOALS by MARK MURPHY. Copyright © 2011 by Mark Murphy. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
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