The Basics: Goal Setting
Setting goals is crucial to changing our behaviours. Without something to work towards, we can often be left floundering, frustrated that we are not getting to where we want to be. Before getting to the crux of it, we must decide on our ultimate why.
What do I want my life to look like?
Unless we know what we want our life to look like long term, setting goals is near pointless. You will find yourself lacking discipline in the process, or constantly changing your short-term goals because you simply don’t know where you really want to be.
This will take a large amount of self reflection on many aspects of your life, and force you to consider:
- What you want your health to look like (physically, mentally and emotionally)
- What you want your social life to look like (family, friends, community)
- What you want your work life to look like (full-time, casual, business owner)
- What you want your financial life to look like (income range, superannuation, emergency funds, lifestyle creep)
I won’t say that once these are decided, that they’ll never change. You have the right at any point to reassess these and start working in a different direction. But I can guarantee that you’ll never want to work towards a life where you’re constantly managing medical concerns, are financially stressed, emotionally exhausted and completely socially isolated. So let’s figure out how to start working in the other direction.
For today’s goal setting example, we’ll be specifically considering physical activity
The type of goal setting you choose to utilise will impact your capacity for achieving your goals. We can split goal setting into two types: Learning and Performance.
Learning Goals
These goals work on identifying strategies which will then be used to implement an activity. There is a high focus on the process of the activity, instead of giving a set end target to achieve. We want you to explore your own way of attempting the activity. Examples of this are:
- “See how well you can do the activity”
- “See how many steps you can achieve today”
- “See how far you are able to walk in 20 minutes”
- “See how many exercise-based minutes you can accumulate over this week”
These goals are inherently non-specific to alleviate any pressure from not achieving an end target. Since there is nothing to compare against, this can eliminate any stress or guilt from not achieving the specific end target. You focus will be on moving as far away from your baseline capacity as you possibly can over the time period you allocate.
In time though, you will likely move on from these type of goals. A future reference point is something you need to keep motivating you to push forward. This is where Performance Goals become useful.
Performance Goals
Individuals pursuing performance goals need to be aware of the following 5 factors:
- Do they have a basic skill set of the activity they are aiming to complete (i.e. the do not need to be taught a completely new skill)?
- Is the complexity of the activity within their scope of improvement?
- Are they intrinsically committed to the goal?
- Do they have appropriate channels to source relevant feedback where required?
- Do they have the appropriate resources to complete the activity?
These individuals have to decide to take action towards the goal on their own accord – it cannot be something that is set and enforced by another person. Their decision towards achieving the goal will define their effort levels, how persistent they will be, and whether or not they will utilise all tools at their expense to achieve the goal. Sounds complex, right?
This is why performance goals are only set for those who can confidently answer “YES” to the above 5 questions. Otherwise the cycle of low physical activity, low confidence, low performance perception and low enjoyment levels will continue.
When starting to exercise, we always mention that “something is better than nothing”. We need to determine what your baseline physical capacity and movement knowledge is before we determine what our next steps will be. You may need to start with a learning goal, or you may be ready to kick straight back into a performance goal. Your personal experiences will dictate this, which is exactly why quality health assistance is important if you’re not sure of the next steps to take.
