William LEMOINE
Mental Trainer
FLOW-IN
GOAL SETTING
Goal setting could be described as a process of deciding what you want to accomplish and devising a plan to achieve the result you desire.
It has many benefits:
- improves the feeling of self-efficacy
- set the direction & intensity of motivation
- evaluates the improvement
- get information about abilities and difficulties
- increases the efforts in training
- helps to develop new learning strategies
In order to be efficient, a goal should respect the SMARTprinciple:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Timely
SPECIFIC:
Responding to the "5 W" questions:
- What goal do I want to reach?
- Why is it important to me?
- Who will be involved?
- Where will it be located?
- Which are my limits and resources?
MEASURABLE:
Reading the goal to reach before the start increases the intensity of the effort.
Writing down the results regularly in a notebook helps to see the evolution.
Being able to see the evolution help to stay focus and have a positive effect on self-confidence.
It also helps to identify if goals are realistic (good challenge).
ACHIEVABLE:
This refers to the control that ones have in order to reach the goal.
Also, goals are personal matters and depend only on us. Full devotion to reach a goal affects the others dimension of life, so it's important to be responsible and realize the consequences that this could cause.
REALISTIC:
A goal is set as a good challenge and regarding one's real abilities. Too easy ones won't improve skills. Too hard ones won't be often achieved and repeated failures have a negative effect on feelings of self-efficacy, self-confidence, and motivation.
TIMELY:
A goal can be divided into several steps. Long-term, middle term and short term goals help to clear the mind. If the long-term goal is based on a specific result at the end of the season, the following questions could be asked:
- What do I want to be able to do in a specific period?
- How can I divide this step into smaller monthly steps?
- How can I divide this step into smaller weekly steps?
- What can I plan for tomorrow to reach my first week's goal?
Note
In the goal-setting literature the SMART acronym could also have different meaning :
S: Simple, Sensible, Significant.
M: Meaningful, Motivating
A: Acceptable, Action-oriented, Accountable...
R: Reviewable, Rewarding, Results-oriented...
T: Timelines, Tangible, Time-based...
Rubin (2002) points out that the SMART acronym may need to take into account the importance of efficacy and feedback.
That's why, some authors have included Evaluated and Reviewed, to make our goals even SMARTER!
Example
Lionel is a promising young football player. During his first meeting with Flow-in, he expresses the needs to improve his skills, but he doesn't know where to start.
Specific
- What goal do you want to reach?
- My free-kicks skills.
- Why is it important to you?
- Because free kicks are good opportunities to score.
- Who will be involved?
- Me, and sometimes a goalkeeper.
- Where will it be located?
- In a practice field, but somewhere else is also possible.
- Which are your limits and resources?
- My limits are time and I also need a goalkeeper. My resources are my will to take that extra time to improve this exercise and the possibility to ask several goalkeepers.
Measurable
First, in order to adjust the appropriate goal, Lionel needs to make a training test where he will write down the results. Depending on his will, his goals could be a number (or %) of :
- ball inside the goal
- balls inside the goal with a fake wall
- ball scored with keeper without a wall
- ball scored with a goalkeeper with a real wall
- ball scored with a goalkeeper outside the penalty box etc...
Before the free kicks practice, Lionel can write his expected goals (in %).
Afterwards, he writes down his result sand, the expected goal for the next session.
Before the next training, he will read the goals that he had set for the present practice.
ACHIEVABLE
The time spent on this extra training needs to be organized so as not to affect the other aspects of his sport and personal life. Lionel will think about time, duration and frequency to plan this training, keeping in mind that flexibility is also important.
REALISTIC
The number of goals scored will be decided regarding his actual results.
The coach and team members could be asked for their opinions.
TIMELY
An expected evolution is defined in a specific period of time.
For example, about the goal: "ball scored with a goalkeeper outside the penalty box",
if the actual result of Lionel is 40%, and the expectation is 60% at the end of the summer training, Lionel calculates how much he wants to improve his results every week, and then, every day.
EVALUATION & REVIEW
Lionel evaluates himself at the end of every week, consulting his notebook.
After 2 weeks of training, Lionel realizes that he improved much faster than he thought, then, he decides to review his goal in order to try to reach 70%.
TIPS
Goals are set with a linear progress expectation. It means that people want to improve gradually and regularly. But as a human is not (yet) a robot, skills improvement is not linear. One's can face life situation that will prevent from having gradual performance improvements such as injury, illness, or life challenges.
Furthermore, once a high level is reached, there is a "plateau effect".
A tired runner wants to train (it is not recommended because recovery is essential to prevent injury) could set as the goal of the day, to run the same time that he does when he isn't tired. That is already challenging. But better not setting a more challenging goal on that day.
REFERENCES:
Locke, E. A., Shaw, K. N., Saari, L. M., & Latham, G. P. (1981). Goal setting and task performance: 1969–1980. Psychological Bulletin, 90(1), 125-152.
Rubin, R.S., 2002. Will the real SMART goals please stand up? The Industrial Organizational Psychologist, 39 (4), 26–27