Set SMART Goals
Goal setting is a key part of any high performance process. Setting goals helps us set our ship in the right direction. This doesn’t mean we will never get off course, but it helps us steer the ship when things get hard. The thing is, the goals have to be SMART, otherwise when the journey gets tough we tend to abandon ship.
Specific - Specificity of goals is important mostly because ambiguity is uninspiring. “I want to be fitter” is a decent goal but there are a million ways to pursue that, which makes choosing one path hard to pick. It also makes progress (which we’ll talk about more in a second) really challenging because “fitter” could mean a lot of things: able to lift more weights, run for longer, ride a bike faster, etc. When we dial it in more specifically, it gives us more structure and helps us figure out the next steps to take.
Measurable - Goals should be measurable for two main reasons in my opinion. One is that progress is probably the single most inspiring thing we can have. I love having workouts that we can come back to each training block to see where we’ve made progress because it shows that what we are doing is working. Most endurance races are really spread out and the training can be monotonous, but getting a workout PR, setting a new FTP, or seeing the HR to Pace/Power ratios change can give us the little wins to keep us going. The other reason is that when goals are measurable, it gives us some idea of other buttons to push and levers to pull; there isn’t just one variable that leads to success but rather a bunch of them. Think of this as establishing our dashboard: when we’re driving we want to get from A to B but along the way it’s helpful to track other things like the gas in the tank, tire pressure, oil levels, etc. That way if we hit a snag in that progress, we know what things we might want to adjust!
Attainable - This is something most people miss. They set outlandish goals and give up because they aren’t coming close. Goals need to be just barely within reach to inspire us to chase them. Depending on the sport and your history with it: 3-5% improvement in a solid timeline (see T for Timely below) is usually doable. Certainly you can leapfrog this if you are ultra-committed, but honestly that quite often leads to burnout and fatigue rather than breaking personal records.
Relevant - Do they fit into the context of your life as a whole? Do they help you become the person you would like to be? More on this below, but asking these questions is key to having the motivation and daily conviction to train for something challenging. Finding the balance between personal performance and your work/life performance is key to longevity in the sport. This balance doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t ever have to ride for 6hours or get a 20 mile run in on the weekends when there are other social events going on, it just means you need to be proactive about how you’ll “make up” for it. It also means that you need to get your tribe on board with the direction that your ship is sailing: they can either be wind behind your sails or anchors holding you back. But most often if you really share with them WHY you’re trying to do what you’re doing, they’ll do what they can to support you!
Timely - A good goal is one that has a time horizon. To some extent, we all procrastinate. If we have a week to get a task done it often takes longer than if we only have a day. This isn’t to say we need to cram all of our goals into a short time period, but having a deadline (usually a race) is often a good thing. The time horizon depends on the goal itself, but if it’s an “A” priority goal it should probably be somewhere between 18-24 weeks out. Beyond 24 weeks there is often too much “life” that happens or we simply don’t seem close enough to our goal to actively pursue it. Under 18 weeks is hard too because it takes time to see and feel some of the changes we’re looking for either mentally or physically. Again, it depends on the goal: a 5k is a little less daunting than an Ironman Triathlon for most people, and it also depends on your personal history, but 18-24 weeks is a good ball-park for an awesome achievement!
Two more things about goal setting:
One is that as important as it is, goal GETTING is even more important. Having a process goal or goals will help give your days structure and action on the journey. More on those process goals separately.
The other is that achieving a goal, while temporarily rewarding, doesn’t help us reach enlightenment. Being a World Record Holder or World Champion even doesn’t grant you an automatic pass to heaven or make the rest of your life work out perfectly. Always remember to keep your goals within the context of your life and use them as a way to become the PERSON you want to be, and that any athletic success is simply a bonus :)