Goal Setting

“If you don’t know where you are going you won’t get there”

Imagine I ask you a big favor and you are more than willing to do it. I give you the keys to my car and I ask you to drive it to my mom’s house. I give you plenty of cash for gas and whatever you need to get there. And that’s it. If you know where my mom lives you won’t have any trouble getting there (unless you speed 🙂 ) but if you have never been to my mom’s house and you don’t know where she lives you may have a hard time getting there… if you get there at all. See? it doesn’t matter if you have the willingness, the equipment, the mental strength to make it happen. If you don’t know where you are going you won’t get there.

If I tell you my mom lives in Mexico you will have a better idea of where to go (just cross he border!!!) and if i give you her address it will make things easier. Now you have an objective, a finish line. If you put the address in your garmin or in mapquest it will give you a step by step plan to follow until you get to my mom’s house. It will be hard to get lost (of course since she lives in Mexico it could be tricky 😉 ) and, the best part is hat if for whatever reason you are hesitant about how far you have gone or if you are getting tired, you just need to look at the plan (directions) to realize you are almost here and you just have to keep going a little further. It will give you strength to go through to the end.

This is a silly example but it could be applied to anything in our life. Again, if you don’t know where you are going, you will never get there. That’s why it’s important to have goals. I see a lot of people going through life, complaining that they never get the results they want, but when you ask them what is it exacly that they want they have a hard time telling you. I have athletes that tell me “I want to be a good runner” but they haven’t taken the time to define what “being a good runner” really means. So when things get hard (training, weather, injury) it’s easier for them to stop. Goals help keep motivation high when things get hard.

Anything I’ve done that was ultimately worthwhile initially scared me to death

WHY DO I NEED A GOAL?

—If what I wrote  down didn’t ring a bell yet, just remember that goals are the targets you are aiming for; they are the specific, intended result of a strategy.

Goals help us to keep our motivation high, to build our confidence, to regulate our anxiety and to cope with adversity. Goals also help us to prepare mentally for competition.

Sounds great, right? the problem now resides in that while setting a goal is great, it’s more likely that we will succeed at it if we set it the right way. A lot of  people don’t know that by setting goals in the wrong way they are more likely to abandon them or o feel disappointed when they are not coming how they expect. So, What can we do about it? Since this is my last blog of 2014, I thought it would be a good idea o write down the guidelines to set a good goal.

GUIDELINES FOR GOAL SETTING

1Write them down:

—As obvious as this sounds, when you write your goals down you are actually making a commitment with yourself. It’s like signing a contract, it makes it real. Also, by writing them down you have a place to go and read them when things are getting hard and it’s also a way to assess your progress towards them. And, basically, it holds you accountable.

——I want to invite you to buy a very nice journal or a simple notebook for 2015. This can be your mental log book. Open it and start your 2015 mental training by writing down your goals.

2 Set positive goals:

—Only write positive words and avoid all the negative statements when writing your goals (like “no”, “don’t want to”, etc).The mind is  awesome but for whatever reason it doesn’t take the negative statements. And if you say “I don’t want to be tense” it will focus on “Be tense” so it’s better to change the statement to what you want (vs what you don’t want). In  this case it would be “I want to be relaxed”.

—I ran a half marathon in Tucson a year ago. I was having some plantar fasciitis issues and when I started running I focused on all the things that could go wrong in my race instead of focusing on what i could control and making positive statements. I kept thinking “I don’t want my foot to bother me” instead of thinking “I am feeling good, I know i can do this regardless of what comes my way”. Needless to say my result wasn’t as great and my experience was terrible.

3 Set challenging yet realistic goals

—I will never tell anyone they have limits and they can’t achieve whatever they set their mind into. I totally believe you need to dream high and to expand your limits. Now, I will never encourage you too go for a really high goal in a short period of time since that might no be attainable NOW and it will only demotivate you and make you doubt about your ability. So, let’s say you are running a marathon in 3 hours and 40 minutes as of today. Would it be realistic to  expect to run a marathon in 12-16 weeks in 2 hours and 40 minutes? probably not. Is it possible? I believe it is but it might take you more time to do it. So, if you set your goal as to improve one hour in the marathon in a 16 week period is more likely that you are setting yourself up to fail or not attaining it (with the consequent feelings of disappointment, unworthiness, etc). But if you keep in mind the 2hr 40 min marathon as your ultimate goal (whenever you are ready for it) and you focus on improving this cycle to break 3:30 is more attainable goal. Challenging, yet realistic.

The best way to come with a challenging yet realistic goal is to think about percentages. Think about a goal that is so high that you only have 5% chance to attain right now. Now think of a goal that is so easy that you are 90% sure you could attain with some training. Then think about something in the middle. That will be a challenging yet realistic goal for you.

4 Set your own goals:

—Sometimes we set goals based on what other people think we should do, or on what we read, or on what we think we should be doing. Set goals that mean something TO YOU even if your coach, teammates or friends tell you you should be doing something else.

A friend of mine does triathlons. She trains with a coach that has many triathletes under his wing. This coach decided to train everybody for a specific triathlon but my friend wanted to do another one. She decided to follow the program and train with everybody else because she thought it would be easier, plus her coach seemed to want her to do that triathlon instead of the one she wanted. My friend had a really hard time training for it because she wasn’t as motivated and she kept doubting if this is what she wanted to do. Somehow she committed to this goal but her head (and heart) were longing for the other one. So set your own goals. I doesn’t matter what everybody else is doing, or want you to do, or think you are capable of. What matters is what has meaning TO YOU.

5 Be specific:

—The more specific, the better. Don’t say “I want to run faster”… Faster than what?… Say instead “I intend to run a 7:45 pace per mile at the end of this cycle”. You have to be able to measure your progress so you can see how you are moving forward. I am very hard on myself and i always think I can do better. While this keep me moving forward it can also be a huge obstacle since I am never satisfied and i never think I am progressing. By setting specific goals  I can tell those nagging voices in my mind (you could have run faster, you are not doing that well, you were better a month ago…) to shut up. I can show them with facts that I am, actually, improving and getting closer to my goal.

—A couple of years ago I was working as the mental coach of Phoenix College Women’s Soccer team. here was one of the players who was really good, but was not able to see it and kept talking negative statements to herself. While working on goal setting with her she told me her only goal was “to be good”. The problem with this statement is that is very subjective. What does “being good” means?. She was able to be specific about it and determined that a good soccer player is the one who is always at practice, gives her 100%, it’s a good teammate, has an accuracy of 80% (passes, throws), etc. She made a chart that she would fill after every practice and every game (Did I give my 100% today? yes; Did I have 80% or more accuracy in my passes today? yes) and that way when she was having doubts about being a good soccer player (her goal) she could go to her chart and realize she was actually getting there.

—6 Set controllable goals:

While it is great to have Outcome Goals (time, place…) you have to  remember that this ones are out of your control. I love to win (Who doesn’t?) but that is not completely on my control. I went to Latinamerican championships (swimming) in 1999. I had set as my goal to win 5 golds and break 5 records. Everything was going great and on  my 4th event (400 free) I was out-touched at he end. I swam my fastest time (up to then) in that event. I broke the record. But the girl from Venezuela swam faster than me. Period. If this would have been my only goal I would have been terribly disappointed and would have possibly stopped swimming. I wasn’t extremely happy (let’s face it, I am not the best loser in the world) but I was happy knowing I did everything under my control. She was just faster than me.

—What if you are training well and doing everything in your power to run a 1:30 half marathon? You are ready to go, you choose a flat course, you sleep well and the day of the event the temperature is 70F and humid? The time you have set maybe at jeopardy, not because you can’t run that fast but because you can’t control the weather. So while having this outcome goal is great it’s good to also have— Process Goals (How am I going to get there? What do I need to work on?… Cadence, strength, training plans…) and —Performance Goals (How am I going to perform when it matters? Where is my focus going to be?). Both Performance and Process Goals are completely under your control so if you happen to have that 70F and humid day, you can still reach your other goals and make sure that when the weather allows you will be able  to get that outcome goal as well.

7 Set long term, medium term and short term goals

While having an ultimate goal is great (“one day I want to qualify for State/nationals/going to Olympic games/Boston/Western States) it could get in the way of our motivation. If I am thinking about running my fastest marathon in September and it’s December right now, i may wake up today, see that is freezing outside and think “I still have time to prepare, I may stay in today”. Or maybe I am on my run/swim practice/ride and I am thinking “I am tired, it’s only a day so it’s fine if I slack just for today” or “It’s ok if I don;t give my 100% today, my race is not even close” (or with eaing habits, sleeping patterms, etc). This is why it’s good to also have a medium term goal (something big in between today and your ultimate goal) and some short term goals that will help you to stay motivated and to measure your progress (or to see if there is anything you need to change in your training).

I have my athletes (and myself) setting goals for every practice and for every race/meet we have. I like to set monthly goals, weekly goals and daily goals since this helps me to be accountable and to measure my progress. It also helps me to keep my motivation high. This goals are not necessarily in terms of pace (remember, that is sometimes out of your control). I have as my weekly goal right now to stretch every day, stick to my nutritional plan, go to the chiropractor twice, drink 3 containers of water (my overall goal is to be healthy so I can train consistently). I also have written down to keep my focus on every run on positive thoughts and to make sure to “run tall”. I write the word “positive” on my hand before i go out to run so if I forget or if my mind starts to drift away I remember to think positive. I also write “Run tall” on my other hand as a reminder.
When I swim I write the things I am working on in a paper and I paste the paper to my water bottle so every time I drink water I remember to push on my back after the turn and to do 7 dolphin kicks in my underwaters.

8  Be flexible!!!

—Goals can change and readjust

—It’s important to have goals but sometimes life gets in the way. (I had a huge goal last year and I got injured. As frustrating as it was all I could do was to shake it off and set new goals according to what my life’s circumstances were. So, instead of running 85 miles a week and running “x” number of races, my goals were to train my mind while I couldn’t run, to work on my core, to remain positive and to be diligent with my physical therapy exercises in order to heal as soon as possible.

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I hope this helps and I hope 2015 brings you everything you wish and deserve. Thanks for reading! and remember you can get this blog directly to your email by clicking in “follow this blog”.

Follow me on twitter (@terezacher) for daily mental tune ups. 🙂