Goal Setting Essentials
If you’re an athlete, you probably have goals, whether you think about them consciously or not. If you’re a coach or parent, you’re supporting others reach their goal. Let’s go over some essential components of setting goals so your hard work doesn’t go to waste.
First, I’ll link the blog article I wrote with an in-depth look at neglected, but powerful, pieces of goal setting, The Secret Ingredients to Achieving Your Goals. Click here to access the article with immediate takeaways!
Now, let’s go over some basic components of goal setting that should be known to everyone, no matter what goal you set: specificity, stages, feedback, difficulty, adjustments.
Specificity: Consider your success rate between these two goals: “I want to lose weight” and “I want to lose 20 pounds over the next 6 months.” Knowing what you need to do, when you need to do it, and how you can track your progress all become easier with specificity. In sports, athletes may have the goal to “win a championship” or “become pro.” While these are admirable, they don’t give much direction. Athletes are better off engaging in stage goals to add in specific milestones during the process.
Stage goals: Setting goals that may not be achieved for years after you set them, like making the big leagues, may leave you feeling lost and lacking motivation at times. That’s why it’s important to set stage goals throughout your journey. These are milestones necessary to achieve before you reach your ultimate goal. The ultimate progress in goal achievement happens through daily goals. These can be as simple as stretching for 10 minutes every night, practicing a sport specific skill for 30 minutes, or meditating for 10 minutes every morning.
Feedback: You need some method of tracking your progress throughout your journey. This is important for a couple reasons! First, you need to know if what you’re doing every day is actually working towards achieving your goals. If not, good thing you caught it so you can change things up. If you are happy with your progress, great! You should feel motivated to keep doing what you’re doing when you have confidence in your training. Second, you’ll be more accountable and responsible for your progress if you have a feedback system. If two athletes have the same goals, where one of them records data after completing their daily goals to track how they’re feeling, and the other does their daily goals but doesn’t engage in a feedback system, who do you think is more likely to achieve their goal?
Difficulty: Imagine what happens to motivation if the goal you set is insanely difficult, like running a mile under 5 minutes when you haven’t done it faster than 10 minutes. You’ll be quick to go “this is impossible,” and give up. On the other hand, what good is it to set a goal that’s incredibly easy to achieve? Does it make sense to set a goal for the season to score 5 times, even though you’ve scored 20 goals 3 seasons in a row? When your goal is in the sweet spot of difficult, but not impossible, motivation and training can be at your peak. As you determine the difficult of the goals you set, try and make them challenging. This assumes that your goal is something you’ll need to train for, but within reach.
Adjustments: The mentally strong athletes understand when adjustments are necessary. It’s normal for athletes to set a goal and later realize the goal is too easy or too difficult. If an athlete thinks “well, I already set the goal so I can’t change it now,” they’re cutting themselves short by missing out on goals that are more effective in facilitating motivation and skill development. The mentally strong athlete will adjust their goal to keep it as challenging as possible so they can maximize their training as they strive for their goals.
Goal setting and achievement are frequently talked about, but rarely done with science backed tools like the ones outlined above. In addition to all of the components involved in goal setting and achievement, a dependable support system will help you stay motivated and resilient to stress. Friends, teammates, parents, and coaches are all important people to lean on when necessary.
If you’re interested in discussing your goals with your own sport psychology coach, click the button below to schedule a free call.