Reaching Your Goals

December 31, 2009

Interview with Karen Salmansohn, author of the book The 8 Minute Guts Builder: A Portable Coach to Pump Up Your Courage

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Mike Carruthers:
You want to go in and ask for that raise or you want to make that important phone call but you can't quite get up the nerve.

Karen Salmansohn:
So the first thing I suggest is that you do some sit-ups and that is when you really sit up and you take notice of why you want your goal.
 

Karen Salmansohn, author of the book The 8 Minute Guts Builder…

So the first thing I suggest is that you come up with ten reasons why you really, really want this thing. You link it to your favorite things, feelings, people or events, and then after you do your sit-ups you have to do your sit-downs. And that's when you sit down and you think about what you won't stand for - thinking about if you don't get your goal, why you'll be really angry. And know that actually the negative emotions can inspire you more than positive emotions.

A lot of Karen's suggestions to help you get the guts to help you go after your goal sound like physical exercises - another is butt kick.

I ask, "Are you sitting on a big butt?" And people are, " Oh, but, I'm too old, but I'm too young, but I'm a woman, but I've never done this before." Well, you have to kick them out of the way.

And just how you think and speak about your goal can build up your guts.

"I'm going to be a good musician, or I'm going to be the best accountant" - no, you're going to be a world class accountant; find the word that psyches you up the most and link it to your goal. They say the enemy of the great is the good. So instead of just telling yourself "I'm going to do well at this", you have to link it up to really, really hyperbolic adjectives so you get yourself into this pumped-up state.