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Goal setting for peak performance - by Dave Gould

Goal setting for Peak Sports Performance

By setting goals, you will be able to focus on areas you wish to improve, while continuing to perform in strong areas of your game. Goal setting helps to motivate during practise. Goals, in this sense, provide a motivational focus; a purpose if you like. If you set goals appropriately you will find that you gain access to feelings of satisfaction, confidence and calm.
Your goals also represent a means of evaluating your performance and represent core values and beliefs about sport and success. In short, criteria that focus on self-improvement or effort are considered to be more positive than a focus on performance against others.
According to sport psychologist Terry Orlick (2000) there are four prerequisites for successful goal-setting.

• First, you need to decide what you want – develop a vision ( ask yourself the following questions Where do you want to be? Which parts of your game need most attention? What specific measures will you take to succeed?

• Secondly, you must be committed, so your goals must be worth striving for.

• Thirdly, you have to believe that the goals you set are achievable. Goals that are too easy to achieve provide little motivation; but, on the other hand, unrealistically difficult goals can lead to loss of confidence and eventual rejection of the goal. To avoid these kinds of problems, coaches and athletes should work together to reach an agreement on goals and should not be afraid of adjusting goals to optimise their potential effect.

• The fourth pre-requisite for successful goal-setting specified by Orlick is to focus on one step at a time.

Goal setting is a simple, yet often misused motivational technique which can provide some structure for your training and competition program. There is a great deal of literature on the market that includes goal setting, and a popular way of expressing the principles of goal setting is the use of two well known acronyms to guide goal setting. (SMART or SMARTER)

• S – Specific not vague

• M – Measurable have a standard to measure against

• A – Accepted agreed by both coach and performer

• R – Realistic possible to achieve

• T – Time related reach each target in a specific time

• E – Exciting motivating and interesting

• R – Recorded write down what you have achieved

Here is my top 10 Hints, Advice and Guidance for Goal Setting.

Short-term goals are the key to success:  These are most important because they provide a focus for your training in each and every session. For every week and each training session you should decide what you need to do in order to take another small step towards your long term or dream goal.

2. Focus on Performance Goals rather than Outcome Goals (result ie: win/lose): ‘Process goals’ are to do with the actions or techniques that are required to achieve success.  Remember to focus on the process of training or skill development rather than competition. These goals can consist of: Technical goals, Tactical goals, Physical goals, and Psychological goals. By focusing on mastering your skills this will encourage you to develop a high internal intrinsic self satisfaction frame of mind? It also encourages you to identify the positives rather than the negatives. This is essential and research on highly successful athletes has indicated that they are in general highly positive in their outlook.

3. Make goals as specific as possible: it is critical for you to fully understand the requirements for your sport or physical activity. You need to understand the Physical, Psychological, Technical and Tactical requirements which underpin the successful performance for your activity. Once you have this knowledge and understanding, it enables you to set very clear and specific goals or targets to enable increased performance in all the areas identified above. 

4. Make goals challenging but achievable: your goals must be challenging but achievable as this encourages and increases motivation by increasing our confidence and expectations of ourselves (Self Efficacy). However goals set too high can de-motivate rather than motivate.

5. Understand yourself by spending some time on personal reflection: Ask yourself some of the following. Why do we do things? ( is it because we want to, need to, have to, just do). This will inform you of what motivates you. Remember that Intrinsic motivators i.e.: Want to are much more powerful than extrinsic motivators i.e.: Have to

6. Set measurable goals (they can be physically recorded or measured): This will enable you to be objective by allowing you to evaluate your progress or development against a set criterion. It will allow you to review, anaylse and evaluate how you are progressing. It will also allow for the opportunity to set further goals or targets.  Furthermore as your goals are objective (are measured) you can also identify whether you have been successful.

7. Be Flexible: With your measurable goals, that provide stepping stones to your ultimate goal, you will be able to see how well you are progressing. But take time out to re-evaluate your goals. This is essential as training and performance priorities can change over time. What you feel is important today may not be important tomorrow. Do not be afraid to change your goals as they are specific to you and you alone. Also remember that goals are not the be-all-and-end-all of motivation. For instance only setting goals as a source of motivation can shut off many potentially important sources of inspiration and creativity. Sometimes do the unexpected as this will regenerate your enthusiasm for your sport or activity.

8. Document your Goal. The process of writing down or recording your progress towards your goal does appear to increase the level of success you may achieve.  The process of documenting your goal does a number of very positive things for you.

   - It ensures you focus on exactly what your goal is, not just a general feeling of what it is.

   - Having a documented goal is a permanent record of your goal so that (You are consistently pursing the one goal and you have a future record against which to measure your progress). Keeping a training or competition diary is a good tool to allow you to reflect on your process goals.

   - The process of converting your goal from thought to words engages more of your brain and clarifies the instructions you give to your unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is an all too often ignored part of performance development.

9. Identify and remove any blockages: Planning is everything in goal setting. Think about what practical factors (time, transport, facilities, finance, family or work commitments) might interfere with you achieving goals. Think about how you may overcome some of these barriers and put a plan in place.

   Expect setbacks and get support: remember that improvement and development in your chosen sport is not a steady linear process. Expect set backs such as injuries or external pressures that will impact on your time. Sports performance itself is not a continual process of improvement. Expect periods of rapid improvement followed by times of plateau (No improvement or even negative development). Having set your goal and having people to support you can provide you with the motivation to keep at your goal during those flat developmental periods.

References
1. Orlick, T. (2000) In Pursuit of Excellence. 4th edition. USA: Human Kinetics.