I’m a firm believer in goal setting. Step by step. I can’t see any other way of accomplishing anything.
—MICHAEL JORDAN
It’s all about the journey, not the outcome.
—CARL LEWIS
Two university researchers spent years studying thousands of peak performers in industries of all kinds, including sports. What Edwin Locke and Gary Latham discovered is that people who succeed are goal oriented. They have a vision. They create sensory-rich dreams like those illustrated in the last section. Then they turn that vision into action through goal setting.
Goal setting is a master skill for personal growth and peak performance. I can’t stress this too much. Without goals, where will you go in life? If you don’t know where you are headed, you’re probably going to wind up somewhere other than where you want to be.
Dick Hannula, one of the most successful high school swimming coaches in the country, said, “Motivation depends in a very large part on goal setting. The coach must have goals. The team must have goals. Each individual swimmer must have goals—real, vivid, living goals. … Goals keep everyone on target.”
Goal setting is a way of bringing the future into the present so you can take action now. Goals improve performance. Goals improve the quality of practices. They clarify expectations and help increase self-confidence by seeing yourself get better. As the swimming coach points out, goals also increase the motivation to achieve.
Let’s look at some basic principles of goal setting. First, you should develop performance goals as well as outcome goals. A performance goal, or action goal, is something you can control. If you play baseball and you want to hit .300, then you are going to have to take a certain number of pitches in batting practice. I ask major league hitters to concentrate on having four quality at-bats each game. That becomes their goal rather than “I’m going to get two hits every game.” Focusing on quality at-bats is an action goal. The outcome will take care of itself.
Goals should be challenging but realistic. “Setting goals for your game is an art,” golfer Greg Norman said. “The trick is in setting them at the right level, neither too low nor too high. A good goal should be lofty enough to inspire hard work, yet realistic enough to provide solid hope of attainment.” Dick Hannula put it this way: “Goals must be high enough to excite you, yet not so high that you cannot vividly imagine them. Goals must be attainable, but just out of reach for now.”
An acronym for setting goals is SMART. The S stands for specific. Say you want to make the Little League or high school team as a third baseman. A specific goal would be to work on your fielding skills. M is for measurable. “Every day I’m going to take one hundred ground balls to my left.” The A stands for achievable. The goal is reachable and within your control. R is for realistic. It’s believable. T stands for time-bound. There is an accomplishment date. A goal is a dream with a time line. Every goal needs a target date for completion.
I encourage athletes to set daily or short-term goals. The way to achieve long-term goals is to break them down into small steps. Effective goal setting is like a staircase. Each step is an action step—an increment of progress. The old saying is “Inch by inch it’s a cinch.”
One day I received a telephone call from the general manager of an NFL team. With concern in his voice, he said the club’s young quarterback, a first-round draft pick, wasn’t sleeping well. At night, he began drinking alcohol to help him sleep, which only created other problems. So I met with the player and the team executive and we agreed to work together for a specific period of time. I was establishing a goal right there.
At our first session, the player was very open with me. He talked about his five-year contract and the size of his salary. The club expected him to take over the offense and lead his teammates to the playoffs. Management, coaches, and fans were counting on him. The responsibility felt overwhelming.
The rookie had the gottas. “I gotta do this … I gotta do that.” He was thinking about accomplishing everything at once. He worried about the future, which he had no control over. Together, we devised a five-year road map and marked it with a series of small but significant steps for him to follow. We set short-term goals. Specific goals. SMART goals.
After our meeting, the rookie seemed like a different person. He felt empowered. He had a can-do action plan and therefore felt more in control. Two of our greatest fears are the fear of being out of control and the fear of the unknown. Setting and attaining small goals provided the player with positive feedback and the motivation to get better. As he improved, his confidence grew.
When he still was in Class A ball, a young Diamond-backs pitcher called my 1-800 hotline. He was in a panic. When I asked his problem, the major-league prospect said he had started the season strong, winning four of five games. Since then he had lost three in a row. He sounded more than disappointed. This kid had never had a losing record in his life and now was questioning his future in professional baseball.
I began to quiz him. What was his earned run average during the three losses compared with the start of the season? His ERA was lower, he said. How about your first pitches? He said he was throwing more strikes. I told him that despite what he thought, he was improving. The outcomes just weren’t going his way. I helped him understand that he has no control over his record. What he can control is his ERA, his walks-per-strikeout ratio, and his hits allowed per inning. He didn’t have to be perfect. Seek progress, not perfection, I told him.
What do you want to accomplish in sports? The magic begins when you set goals. What are your goals? Make a list. Write them down. This is the first step to putting your dreams into action and turning them into a reality.
Goals are dreams with time lines. Turn your vision into action with goal setting. Seek progress rather than perfection.