Have you ever been out training thinking what the hell am I doing this for? I have. All of us have reasons for competing in endurance sport whether it’s to simply stay in shape or to be a world champion. Regardless of why you are in the sport having a set of goals can help to maintain focus during the good and bad days.
When you decide it’s time to sit down and think about setting some goals the first thing you should do is grab a pen and paper. I find that whenever you write something down it becomes so much more powerful – it is like you are making a commitment to yourself. It’s all too easy to think about your goals but you can just as easily loose this focus. If you have them written down they are there staring you in the face every day. Having written goals also helps to measure your performances post season and reduce goal inflation as you come into a race – an all to common occurrence for many athletes
When setting goals I like them to be broken down in the following way:
- Short term (1 day to 3 months)
- Medium term (3 – 12 months – season goals)
- Long term (1 –3 years or longer)
- Dreams (lifetime goals)
Goals in any of the above time frames should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely). Your goals should be relevant to you. At the end of the day you cannot usually control how others perform. Therefore base your goals on your performance not that of others.
SPECIFIC
Goals should be straight forward and to the point. To help make your goals specific answer these questions. What, when and where?
MEASURABLE
This can sometimes be a little hard with endurance sports as the courses are often not accurate and weather conditions can play a major role in your finishing time.
For training though, setting measurable goals is great and can be used as stepping stones. For example set times and dates where you want to improve your 400m freestyle PB.
ATTAINABLE
When you identify the goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. This can be done by breaking the goal down into small bite size pieces to help achieve your longer term goal. In essence you are setting an action plan. If you set a long term goal without any intermediate steps it is easy to loose focus. When you achieve the medium and short term goals it will give you a feeling of success and will help to maintain motivation.
REALISTIC
It’s really important to identify whether a goal is a goal or a dream. If you finished your first sprint triathlon last season it’s probably unrealistic to aim to win your age group at the Hawaii Ironman this season. This is a dream and it’s important that this is recognised. Dreams can act as great motivators but without intermediate goals they can also be a cause of de-motivation in the tough times. Set your goals high (you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be) but identify the difference between a dream and a goal.
Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished in the given time frame.
TIMELY
Set a time frame to achieve your goals, eg next week, next month, next year……
Without a time frame goals can become vague and commitment to your goals can be easily distracted.
If your goals meet the SMART criteria above you are well on your way to success.
Some examples:
Poor goal setting
It’s important that your athletic goals fit in with your overall life goals. You (and those around you) need to have a clear understanding of the level of importance you place on you sporting career. It you live and die for training and racing that’s fine but those close to you need to know. Endurance sports are very addictive and it is often very easy to become a one dimensional and self centred, balance is important. So the moral here is to use your goal setting for your sport and life situation.
Reviewing your goals
To get the most out of your goal setting you need to analyse your performances when the time frame has elapsed. If you have achieved your goals feel good about yourself and go about setting some new benchmarks to meet next time. If you have not achieved your goals have a look at your training log and figure out why not. Was it a training issue, did outside interferences impact training, were the goals realistic….. You are not looking for excuses here but trying to find ways so you can improve as an athlete and aid your goal setting process in the future.
So there you have it. Grab yourself a pen and paper and set yourself some goals.
John Newsom
is a professional triathlon coach based in Christchurch, New
Zealand. He is the manager of the New Zealand Multisport &
Triathlon Centre (www.nzmtc.com) and also runs an online coaching
business coachjohnnewsom.com
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