Goal Setting

By Yvonne Brett

bretty@usq.edu.au

Ever had those days. When you just didn’t want to get out of bed, didn’t want to go to work or school/uni, and the last thing you wanted to do was go to training. Or maybe you have found yourself going through the same old training session doing the same old thing and confused as to where it is all taking you. Or maybe you have found yourself wondering what it is that you want to achieve in your life, what it is that you want to achieve in your weightlifting?

These feelings are very familiar for many athletes. At times it can get so frustrating that you may decide to take the quick option. You may choose not to work through your confusion, leaving many questions unanswered and possibly making a decision that you may later regret - such as leaving the sport that you love, weightlifting.

The above feelings may be experienced when you are just not motivated, or you are unsure about what you want to do with your life and your sport. One way of working through all of the confusion is to sit down and work out what it is that you want to do -

* what do you want to achieve with your weightlifting?

* what do you want to achieve with your education?

* what do you want to achieve with your work?

* what do you want to do for yourself?

By working out what it is that you want to achieve, you can bring direction back into your training and into your life. What you may also find is that your motivation levels will increase because you have identified some goals in your life that you want to achieve. Having these goals will give you something to aim for and something to work towards.

When setting goals for yourself, you need to firstly identify what your main goal is (eg. lift a particular weight, make it on to a particular team). You then need to decide what you have to do to help you achieve your main goal - these being stepping stones to your main goal. For example, you want to lift a particular weight by the end of the year, so the stepping stones would be looking at what you have to do in training and how you would have to look after yourself.

There are some important points that need to be remembered when setting goals:

1. make them specific - such as you want to lift 80kg in the snatch, rather than I want to do my best snatch
2. set short-term goals with deadlines - you will more likely achieve your long term-goals if you break them down into a series of short-term goals
3. make your goals challenging but achievable - a goal which is challenging or difficult will lead to the best performance rather than a goal that is moderate or easy
4. be flexible - a goal will become more important to you if it is interesting, challenging and it gives you direction
5. set goals together - discuss your goals with your coach as this will allow you both to work towards the same goals.
6. write goals and set priorities - record you goals in your training diaries as will allow you to watch your progress and write them in order of importance.
7. identify how you may sabotage your goals - sometimes you may avoid trying to achieve your goals, so it is important that you have an action plan to prevent this from occurring.

Goal setting can be seen as another way of planning. What is that old saying "Those who fail to plan, plan to fail."