Goal Setting Basics
There are roughly 5000 separate searches for the term ‘goal setting’ every 24 hours around the world. This is the same number of searches for the term ‘sport psychology’. This suggests that athletes, coaches, students, bored teenagers and performers have heard of goal setting, want to do some, but don’t know how.
Before we help you out with this, let’s remind ourselves of something important. It’s helpful to separate processes (methods) and their intended outcomes. In other areas of sports science, this is much easier. For example, in physical training, one of the intended outcomes is cardio fitness. I assume you could list dozens of activities (processes) that would help improve cardio fitness. Moreover, you would never confuse skipping (for example) with the outcome of cardio fitness.
The Same Applies to Mental Training
The same framework can and should be applied to mental training, but rarely is. Goal setting is the method. It’s a process, but what are the intended areas we’re trying to influence when we do some goal setting? Furthermore, just like skipping, which can be done well or poorly, not all goal setting is the same. Most of the goal setting I have seen is the skipping equivalent of doing it once a year, and hoping this will have a long-lasting impact on cardio fitness 😬 .
Many sport psychologists will tell you that goal setting is all about improving motivation. But I would argue that it’s much broader than that. If done correctly, goal setting can become the entire foundation of your personal and sporting/performance endeavours.
Goal setting the Condor Performance way is really “goal getting”. Setting long-term outcome goals is the easy bit. It’s the stuff required to get you there where the magic happens – so to speak.
Start With Your Preferences
The scientific literature mentions outcome goals, performance goals and process goals. It also suggests that ideally, you’ll have all three types as part of your “goal setting” plan. I would agree.
Preferences are a much better label than outcome goals. The complex reality of elite competitive sport is that very few will achieve their long-term goals. Preferences will soften the blow if you don’t make it without impacting your motivation. Preferences want to be long-term, between one and five years from now. They also want to be about both life and sport (performance). A simple 5 x 2 table of future preferences works well.
This is nothing revolutionary. The highly overrated S.M.A.R.T. Goals might get you to the same place as the above exercise. One of the key aspects missing from many goal-setting systems is the concept of influence. The person coming up with their long-term preferences must know this. We only have some influence on these futuristic outcomes, sometimes less.
When working with my clients on goal setting, I typically start by exploring their preferences. However, not always. If I sense that focusing on preferences will be most beneficial for the individuals in front of me (on the screen), then I do just that.
Progress – The Key To Effective Goal Setting
Let’s assume for the sake of simplicity that you have started with your long-term preferences. You have done your 5 x 2 table and have ten sporting and personal achievements clarified on paper. What next? The research calls them performance goals.
These are performance aims and indicators that we have more influence on compared with our long-term preferences. Typically, we have a lot of influence on these key performance indicators. And here is one of the secrets of many of the world’s best athletes. Due to having more influence on their KPIs compared with LTOGs, they value the former more than the latter. Most competitive athletes do the opposite and wonder why they spend so much of their time frustrated.
Examples of performance goals might be statistics from competitions. For example, you might track ‘greens in regulation’ for all rounds of golf in February and compare the results with March. Or maybe you focus on training progress instead. Perhaps you can see if all that skipping is doing anything by repeating a heart rate recovery test at the start of each month.
Processes – The Secret Mindset of The World’s Best
The final piece of the goal setting puzzle is arguably the most important. What processes (activities) are best right now for you? By ‘right now’ I mean today and this week. There are two keys to doing this effectively. First, realise (know) that you have even more influence on your processes than you do on your progress and preferences. I would say ‘a huge amount’. You have a tremendous amount of influence on how to spend your time. Secondly, focus on what you can do. Good process planning doesn’t even consider what you can’t do, or what you used to be able to do.
If you’d like some professional help to set and then achieve some goals, then get in touch. You can request a Call Back (form to the right on computers, below on smaller devices). Even better (as it gives us more background on you) is to complete one of our questionnaires, in which you can ask for info on our 1-on-1 sport psychology services.
Building on the preferences aspect of goal setting, I believe the real value lies in setting both specific goals (clear and concise) and lofty goals (challenging yet achievable). Regardless of the terminology used, research by Locke and Latham (1990) highlights that the inclusion of these elements enhances the effectiveness of goal setting and provides greater value for the client.
I also strongly agree with the emphasis on progress as a fundamental component of effective goal setting. This aligns with Self-Determination Theory, whereby athletes strengthen their sense of autonomy and competence, ultimately fostering intrinsic motivation and a greater capacity for resilience.
Furthermore, goal setting extends beyond simply enhancing motivation. It is also a powerful tool for building confidence and refining attentional focus during performance. Vealey’s model of sport confidence suggests that skill mastery is achieved when athletes perceive meaningful progress, and this perception directly contributes to increased sport confidence.
I really enjoyed reading this article, it definitely gave me a new perspective on how to address goal setting.
I particularly liked the concept of labelling outcome goals “preferences”. I’ve worked with athletes in the past who have achieved all their processes but not their outcome goal yet feel disappointed as the “main one” wasn’t achieved. By redefining it to preferences it still provides importance, just with a little less weight.
The athletes I’ve worked with have also typically created one outcome goal, so I really like the idea of the 5×2 table as it provides more scope and variety. I’m looking forward to taking this into future practice.
It would be interesting to see an example of the table in use and how it worked out.