Tips for Setting Goals

Now is a time when a lot of us are setting goals for 2022, and that’s great! Sure, it’s a completely arbitrary line in the calendar, but if it’s an arbitrary line that's helpful for framing your training and life goals, then use it!

Good goal setting is an important part of training, and of life. The simple reason is, if you can set and track their progress, you'll make achieve them quicker and easier. Spending a bit of time thinking about your goals helps to both get a long-term view of where you want to go, and keep up motivation in the short term.

Goal setting should never be about hating the person you are. No matter what goals you pursue make sure they aren't tearing down the person you are. Cause lets face it, you're great! Goals should be about adding notches to your belt, achievements that can be unlocked, learning new things and enjoying the people and environments around you that help along the way.

Make sure you know and always remember why you want to achieve your goal. If it’s doing a pull-up, your reason isn’t actually just to do a pull up (usually). It’s might be to open up more options for your parkour training, or improve a strength imbalance in your back that's causing problems, or because you value functional movement and strength. If you do have an arbitrary goal without a ‘why’, it’ll be harder to stick to your plan when it gets difficult. Be sure to frame your ‘why’ positively. If you’re framing your goals around ‘fixing’ things you don’t like about yourself, you’re already making it harder to engage with and stick to your goal. Find the joy and fun in what you’re doing and focus on that.

Here are a few things to remember about goal setting:

KEEP IT SIMPLE

It can be very tempting to make a giant spreadsheet with 700 goals. But it's not the best way to take action in the short term, and can be confusing. So, even if you've got several (hundred) goals, always limit your focus.

Aim to focus on a single goal for each area, and only up to 5 at a time. So for example, within training you could have a Strength goal, a Cardio/ endurance goal, a Skill goal.

(and we know training isn't the only thing in your life! You could have reading/ language learning/ dancing/ writing/ professional/ family goals as well. The key is to make sure you're managing your focus, and prioritising what's most important to you)

A person balancing along several round rails, with a person standing on the ground offering assistance. The sun in setting behind them

KEEP IT SMART

You might have encountered the SMART goal setting system before, but just in case you haven't:

SPECIFIC

If your goals are vague and ill-defined, how will you know if you have achieved them? So, rather than "Get good at push ups", have a goal like "Do a full push up." In this case, you'd specific about form: Elbows in, straight line from shoulders to ankles, chest close to the floor, etc.'

MEASURABLE

Some goals will be measurable in the binary sense: Did I do a pushup? If yes, success! Others will be measurable using numbers: Can I do 10 pushups? Can I run 2km in 10 minutes?