Mind Tools - Sports Psychology

Helping you to think your way to an excellent life!

Goal Setting

Goal setting is a hugely powerful technique that can yield strong returns in all areas of your life.

At its simplest level the process of setting goals and targets allows you to choose where you want to go in life. By knowing what you want to achieve, you know what you have to concentrate on and improve, and what is merely a distraction. Goal setting gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation.

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals. You can see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind.

By setting goals you can:

Achieve more
Improve performance
Improve the quality of your training
Increase your motivation to achieve
Increases your pride and satisfaction in your performance
Improve your self-confidence

Research (Damon Burton, 1983) has shown that people who use goal-setting effectively:

suffer less from stress and anxiety
concentrate better
show more self-confidence
perform better
are happier with their performances

Goal Setting Helps Self-Confidence

By setting goals, and measuring their achievement, you are able to see what you have done and what you are capable of. The process of achieving goals and seeing their achievement gives you the confidence and self-belief that you need that you will be able to achieve higher and more difficult goals.

Providing that you have the self-discipline to carry it through, goal setting is also relatively easy. The following section on goal setting will give you effective guidelines to help you to use this technique effectively.

Links

References

LifePlan - LifePlan - Goal Setting Shareware

Introduction to Sports Psychology

Deciding Goals

Return to Sports Psychology page

Return to Mind Tools home page

Hits on this page since 10 January 1998:

Hits on Mind Tools site since 10 January 1998: