During my 25+ years within the sports industry, I have worked with a vast array of athletes with varying degrees of talent and personalities. Upon reflection, the key attributes that separate those who progress towards their potential as opposed to those who don't, are discipline, motivation, and a conscientious attitude towards training and competing - plus a bit of natural talent obviously doesn't hurt!

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But what helps an athlete create this mindset? Goal setting is well known and researched strategy, and the science behind it suggests that it's arguably the most effective performance enhancing psychological strategy available! Locke and Latham (1990) conducted a review of 201 studies which had looked at the effects of goal setting within a business environment, and discovered more than 90% showed goal setting had a positive effect on performance outcome.  

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Research within the sport domain has also produced strong evidence for the use of goal setting. Burton and Weiss (2008) completed a review of 88 sporting studies and found 70 of them (80%) had demonstrated significant positive goal setting effects.

 

Kingston and Hardy (1997) provide an example of such a study. They conducted a year long study involving 37 amateur golfers. 28 were educated on effective goal setting, tasked with setting goals, and also took part in review meetings throughout the year. The 11 remaining participants acted as a control group and did not take part in any goal setting. At the end of the year, participants golf handicaps (a measure of ability) were reviewed, and the golfers that had followed the goal setting process, had significantly improved their handicaps from the start of the study in comparison to the control group.

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However, despite the vast evidence supporting the benefits of goal setting, it's estimated that only around 10% of the population who take the time to set goals actually stick to them. That figure seems crazy when you consider the weight of evidence behind its effectiveness. So why the discrepancy? 

 

Perhaps, the lack of persistence and success could be explained by a failure to follow the appropriate goal setting guidelines. I have sat down with many athletes, who to be brutally honest, don't know where to start, and in my opinion make fundamental errors with their goal setting. Therefore, the aim of this module is to outline the characteristics of effective goal setting, and provide you with a practical step-by-step guide to setting your own goals, and a day-by-day guide to following them.

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How do goals help you?

 

DIRECTS your ATTENTION

Many things in life compete for your attention, e.g. the TV, internet, books, playstation, movies, hanging out with friends, family, and/or partners, etc. However, setting goals will direct your attention towards behaviours that will help you accomplish your goal, and away from the behaviours that will not. If you set a goal to improve at darts, then you will direct your attention towards strategies designed to help you, e.g. practising more, and away from activities such as watching television or the likes. Everything a world class athlete does is often based on how it may affect the obtainment of their goal.

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MOBILISIES your EFFORT

An effective goal will provide you with a clear pathway of what you need to do. As such, you will appreciate the time and effort required to achieve it, because without it you know you wont get what you want. It doesn't matter how talented you are, if you are not willing to put the effort in, then it will be extremely difficult for you to achieve any meaningful goal. A goal provides you with a purpose, and athletes get better when they are motivated to get better.

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ENHANCES your PERSISTENCE

You will gain pride, satisfaction, and confidence as you make progress towards or accomplish a goal. Achieving a goal makes you feel good, and that feeling will spur you on, and enhance your persistence to chase further success.

Singer, Korienek, Jarvis, McColskey, and Candeletti (1981) completed a study that showed how goals can increase your persistence to a task.

 

The study included 28 participants, who were randomly assigned to a goal setting group or a non-goal setting group. The participants had to complete a photoelectric mirror maze, and performance was measured in time and errors. The task was to complete the maze in the shortest time with the least amount of errors as possible. Participants could continue and complete as many attempts as they wished. The goal setting group were constantly reminded of their goal which was to complete the maze in less than 45 seconds with no more than 10 errors, as well a short-term goal which was to improve each previous attempt by 10%. The results showed that the goal setting group persisted for longer than the non goal setting group.

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Stock and Cervone (1990) showed including a short-term objective increased persistence on a task. Participants were given a modified version of the 'Missionaries and Cannibals' problem solving task. This task involves moving hypothetical figures across a river using a boat, but with certain constraints added. The instructions are shown below:

 

On one bank of a river are three missionaries and three cannibals. They all must cross a river using a boat which can carry at least two people, under the constraint that, for both banks and the boat, that the missionaries present on the bank (or the boat), cannot be outnumbered by cannibals (if they were they would get eaten). The boat cannot cross the river by itself with no people on board.

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The problem can be solved in no fewer than 12 unique moves. However, the researchers modified the task to include 4 missionaries and 4 cannibals, which made the task impossible to complete. It was possible to complete 7 stages but at that time you would become stuck, and not be able to progress any further. However, the participants were not told this and believed the problem could be solved. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups:

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• Long-Term Goal - their aim was simply to solve the problem. To remind the participants of the end goal, the researchers gave them an index card that showed all four missionaries and all four cannibals with the boat, all on the right-hand side of the river. 

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• Short-Term Achievable Goal - this group was told that they should aim for an intermediate step, which was needed to solve the problem. This would be their short-term subgoal for the task. They were shown the fourth stage of the problem on an index card, which was three cannibals and the boat on the right side of the river, and four missionaries and one cannibal on the left.

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• Short-Term Unachievable Goal - this group were also told that they should aim for an intermediate step, which was needed to solve the problem. The participants were shown a step of the problem on an index card, but it was actually not possible to obtain, e.g. all four missionaries and the boat on the right, and all the cannibals on the left of the river.

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When all participants reached the fourth step, they were told "up to this point, you are proceeding in the right direction". The Short-Term Achievable Goal group were made aware that they had achieved their subgoal, so they were the only group who had acquired 'success' at this stage. 

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The researchers then measured how much longer each group spent on trying to solve the impossible task. The Short-Term Achievable group persisted for longer (nearly 50% longer), compared to the other two groups, which suggests obtaining a short-term goal increases your persistence to go on and solve the task.

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DEVELOPS new STRATEGIES

When you set a goal, you need to think about how you are going to achieve it. Completing this process will lead you towards developing helpful new strategies. For example, a golfer who wants to improve their ball striking, may book a series of lessons with a professional golf coach, start a fitness programme to become more flexible and stronger, and/or try a new method of practising, etc. 

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Latham and Baldes (1975) completed a year long study where the task was for truck drivers to increase the total weight of their trucks, when transporting logs from woods to the mill. A company analysis had found trucks where frequently completing runs well under their legal weight, which was costing the company in productivity.

 

The truck drivers had always worked within a 'do your best' environment, but the researchers set the drivers a challenging goal of attaining 94% of the total maximum legal weight. As part of the process in trying to attain the goal, the truck drivers discovered new ways of modifying their trucks that allowed them to judge the weight of their truck more accurately, and therefore could get closer to the maximum weight without being concerned of going over the limit. The consequent improvement in performance, was equivalent to the company spending a quarter of a million dollars (i.e. the cost of buying more trucks/drivers to achieve the same outcome!). This clearly illustrates the benefit of developing new strategies that are derived from the process of goal setting. 

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Conducting a pre mortem of your goal setting can also help the development of new strategies. A pre-mortem is a task you complete during the planning stage where you imagine that you have failed in your attempt to reach your goal, and hypothetically list the reasons as to why you have failed. This process then allows you to develop additional plan/s to help overcome these future potential barriers.

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