How To Set Goals Like an Olympic Champion
Virtually every Olympic athlete shares the same goal: winning
the gold medal. But the interesting finding from research by
sports psychologists is that the most motivated and successful
athletes set goals in a very specific way that is far more
precise and detailed than just setting one big goal.
The best news: we can all use the goal-setting strategies of
elite athletes to achieve more motivation, success and
self-improvement in our everyday lives.
Here's the most crucial principle: supplement the big, long-term
goal with specific, challenging, near-term goals. Then focus
more of your psychological effort and attention on those
near-term goals.
An athlete who wakes up each day to focus only the gold medal
(or the Super Bowl, or the World Series, etc.) will quickly
become overwhelmed. Their motivation will wane. He or she will
start to wonder: How can I get from here to there? Is this level
of success really possible for me? As two experts on sports
psychology, May and Veach, put it: "Repeated daily focusing on
long-term goals is often counter-productive. The focus is too
far into the future and prevents the athlete from completing the
intermediate steps essential to ultimate success."
What happens when you focus on near-term goals? According to the
research in the field of positive psychology (the scientific
study of happy, successful people), lots of good stuff,
including...
- Heightened performance, success and motivation - Greater
likelihood of accomplishing goals and making life changes - More
success in initiating and sustaining self-improvement efforts -
A stronger psychological sense of confidence and self-efficacy -
More determination and persistence, particularly after setbacks
- More enjoyment and intrinsic interest in the topic
What happens when you don't set near-term goals, or focus too
heavily on long-term goals? I call it "goal-mismatch," and
psychologically, it's a perfect recipe for low motivation,
procrastination and rumination - thinking about goals, but not
taking action toward goals. It's also a recipe for general
unhappiness, failed attempts at self-improvement, and a lack of
success. People who focus too much on their long-term goals view
those goals as more difficult, more pressure-filled, and less
enjoyable, while their near-term goals seem less motivating,
relevant and satisfying.
Who avoids the psychology of goal-mismatch, and successfully
leverages the psychology of near-term goals? Again, research in
positive psychology points to many examples, including...
- Successful and motivated athletes, as I described above
- Successful students. Research conducted at Stanford
University found that students struggling in math significantly
improved their grades, as well as their motivation and
psychological well-being, by focusing on near-term goals.
- Successful business and military leaders. Effective leaders
often "segment" or "compartmentalize" complex tasks or missions
into smaller, "bite-sized" sub-missions.
- Resolution-keepers. Less than 20% of New Year's
resolution-makers become resolution-keepers. One of their key
success strategies for maintaining their motivation and
self-improvement efforts: focusing on near-term goals.
- Happy people. Those who are most satisfied with life are
those working toward enjoyable, moderately challenging goals of
high short-term importance.
It's easy to use the power of near-term goals to achieve more
motivation, success and self-improvement in your everyday life.
Just don't go overboard by making goals "too near-term." For
example, students asked to make general monthly plans and goals
perform better than those asked to make highly specific daily
plans. They spend more time studying, study more effectively,
are more motivated, procrastinate less, and get better grades.
Monthly planners experience more flexibility in crafting
strategies for accomplishing their goals. They achieve more
success and self-improvement in part because they more easily
adjust "on the fly" and are less easily "derailed" by changes in
circumstance. A daily planner who gets a mild case of the flu
quickly finds his daily goals unattainable, resulting in
disappointment and a loss of motivation. General planners enjoy
the process of planning more, gaining a sense of designing their
lives via self-improvement, while highly specific planners get
the sense of their lives being controlled by their appointment
books and PDAs.
The bottom line: Set weekly or monthly goals, and work
aggressively toward them while giving yourself some flexibility
about how to achieve them. Do this, and you'll not only get the
maximum boost in your performance and motivation, but you'll
also enhance your success and self-improvement efforts. And
you'll be using the psychology of success to set goals like an
Olympic champion.