Importance of goal setting process
Setting goals is the key to accomplishing a wide range of ambitions, such as learning a new skill, completing your education, or taking a new step in your life. No matter what the activity is, setting a clear and precise objective helps you to concentrate your efforts and gets you heading in the right direction. Without having a process in place to keep you focused on achieving your goals, very often goals are forgotten, time runs out to achieve them or the goal becomes irrelevant.
Research has shown that having a goal setting process can affect behaviour, increasing overall and persistent effort, leading to productivity raise and an increased individual performance. Setting goals help us develop strategies; accomplishing them can lead to satisfaction and further motivation; not accomplishing them can lead to frustration and lower motivation.
However, goal setting is not an easy task. These are the essential skills required for successful goal setting and achievement:
Planning and organisational skills: are integral to the goal achievement process.
Self-motivation: without the desire to achieve, our attempts at goal setting are doomed to fail.
Time management: if we do not properly consider the timescale required to attain a goal, we will inevitably fail.
Flexibility: having the flexibility to adapt to barriers, the perseverance to sustain your efforts and to carry on in the face of adversity.
Self-regulation: you will be your own boss and evaluator.
The good news is that, all these skills can be learned and developed. If you cannot achieve your goals, it is possible that the problem lies in one or more of these areas. If that’s the case, identify the areas and train them.
Type of goals
You can set goals for almost everything. The best is to divide them by time slots:
Season goals (Short-Term)
Your short-term goals, or seasonal goals, should help you achieve your career goals. For example, to play for your National Team you may need to be the best defensive player of the season, improve your shooting percentages, etc. Create a 1-year plan, 6-month plan, 1-month plan, and even 1-week plan to progressively achieving smaller goals. It might be useful to create a daily To-Do List of things that you should do today to improve and reach that season goal.
Career goals (Mid-Term)
These could include your whole career, or a shorter period (e.g. 5 years). It could be things such as playing for your National Team, for a certain club or league, being the best shooter, or becoming the player with most 3-pointers in the history. Whatever career goal you set, make sure to work towards it.
Lifetime goals (Long-Term)
What would you like to achieve in life? Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.
Consider the following categories:
Career (post basketball): what would you like to be after playing basketball? Would you need to have educational background to achieve it? What steps should you take today to achieve that job tomorrow?
Financial: how much do you want to earn and by what stage? Try to relate it to “Career”.
Education: is there any knowledge that you would like to acquire in life?
Family: do you want to be a parent? By which age? How do you want to be seen by your children?
Physical: how do you want to look like at age 60? How can you achieve that goal?
The process of goal setting
Defining your goals
Before determining how you are going to achieve your goals, you must start by defining the goals themselves. These goals can be linked to any aspect in your life – career, financial, family, education, etc. Keep them few in number: focus on 2-3 goals at a time. After mastering the technique and succeeding, you might be able to control 5-7 goals at the same time.
Make them SMART For your goals to be effective, they should be designed to be SMART:
• Specific (or Significant) – goals must be clear, well defined and identify exactly what you want to accomplish. • Measurable (or Meaningful) –assessable at each stage of the goal setting process, including when the goal has been achieved. • Achievable (or Action-Oriented) – a good goal should stretch you, but not be impossible to attain. • Relevant (or Rewarding) – goals should be relevant to the direction you want your life and career to take. • Time-bound (or Trackable) – goals should be set within a specific amount of time - enough time to achieve the goal, but not so much time that can affect or delay performance.
Write them down
Writing down your goals is critical to achieving them, even if you never develop an action plan or do anything else. When you write something down, you are stating your intention and setting things in motion.
Plan the steps
If your goal is a broad long-term goal, it helps to break it down to smaller, short-term goals. This will help you to see the big picture and understand where you stand regarding the bigger goal. Achieving each step will produce self-satisfaction and pride, which will also generate an additional boost of motivation to reach the next step.
Share your goals
Telling selected people about your goals will give you a support system while you are working towards achieving your goals. Additionally, sharing your goals creates personal accountability. Others will know that you are working towards achieving your goal and will be invested in helping you to get there. However, make sure to only share your goals with people who are committed to helping you achieve them.
Start working to achieve your goals
Achieving goals will require commitment and sacrifice. Plan moments in your day to work on specific goals. When you reserve timeslots in your calendar to do an activity, it is more likely to be done than simply letting it happen.
Review your goals
Every time you review your goals, ask yourself: what’s the next step I need to take to move toward this goal? You can review them daily, weekly, or monthly. The key is to let them inspire and populate your daily task list. Cross off each as you work through them.
Setting goals is key to any form of success – professional, financial, personal, etc. – With clear objectives in mind, you can map out your future and stay on course for success.
Goal setting pitfalls and how to avoid them
Goal setting is a powerful practice that can ignite enthusiasm and provide clear direction. However, goal setting is not easy, and many people fail to set and achieve their goals. The main reason is that they have fallen into one of the many pitfalls of the goal setting process.
Goal setting becomes about the plan, not the execution
A potential downside of goal setting can occur when the amount of time, energy and creativity that goes into creating your goals outweighs the actual management of those goals. While the act of making a plan is important, the follow-up is even more critical. Constant progress and regular review is what makes any plan a reality.
Too many goals make nothing a priority Keeping your goals to a manageable number is important – 5 to 7 is advised. With too many goals it becomes difficult to determine which goals are most important to accomplish next. Signs of having fallen into this goal setting trap include:
• Never feeling as if you complete a task • Experiencing difficulty tying your goal to a reward system that recognises your accomplishments • Not knowing what goal takes top priority • Checking tasks off a list without integrating those actions into a long-term plan
Keeping the total goals manageable, yet covering all of the foundational elements of your life, allows you to prioritise what is important without feeling overwhelmed.
Personal goals take a back seat
Personal goals are likely to be affected by procrastination as there are no deadlines and no coach telling you to get it done. Your future beyond basketball depends on setting and achieving personal goals – which are up to you to set and accomplish. Procrastinate long enough and you risk to never go back to the personal goals you have set for yourself.
Final tips for setting your goals
Set goals that motivate you
State each goal as a positive statement
Be precise
Write goals down
Put a plan into action and set priorities
Review your plan and your progress regularly
Keep operational goals small
Set performance goals, not outcome goals: goals over which you have as much control as possible
Set realistic goals
Use visualisation techniques
Share your goals
Reward yourself for your successes, but don’t punish yourself for failure