If you’re an athlete, it’s likely you’re starting to get bored. Right? It’s been so long since you’ve been able to practice with your coaches and teammates, and even longer since you’ve been able to compete against opponents. Everything you likely love about your sport has been cancelled for the past few weeks, and will be cancelled indefinitely. So what do you do? Why bother practicing if you don’t have games or competitions coming up? It’s likely your motivation is dipping, and that’s OK. Many athletes and other performers are in your same boat. So what do you do about it? How do you get back that competitive drive to get better while you’re stuck at home?
That’s where setting daily or weekly process goals come in to play. Think about the goals that you typically have for yourself during your normal season: win 15 games, beat your rival, shoot 80% from the free throw line, have a .300 batting average. Sound familiar? These types of goals are outcome goals. These goals focus on the outcome of a competition or your performance. Outcome goals are great for motivation purposes when it comes to preparing to compete, but in the current state of affairs, these goals are not extremely helpful.
Process goals, in comparison, are goals that you set for yourself that focus on the specific tasks or procedures that you will engage in during performance. For example, keeping your elbow in during a free throw, rotating your hips completely during your swing, or tossing the ball a certain height on your serve. These goals can be used in both competition and practice, making them perfect to set during the current pandemic. Now is a great time to focus on specific parts of your game you want to strengthen that you normally don’t have time to work on. How often during your regular season do you get to focus solely on your shooting form until you have perfected it? Setting daily process goals for your training can be a great way to improve your motivation and desire to keep working on your game when competition is not promised, while also developing your skills so that you come back from this hiatus as a stronger athlete.
Setting process goals for yourself doesn’t have to be complicated. Take a few moments to reflect on your game. What do you want to improve on? Once you’ve narrowed down a few skills you want to refine, choose one and think about what specifically you need to do to make these improvements. Once you’ve come up with a specific procedure that you will focus on, write it down. If you have a training journal, perfect. If not, grab a notebook you have laying around and make a note of this process goal. Explain how EXACTLY you will make your improvements, including how often you will train, for how long, and how you will focus on your specific process goal. For example, a basketball player working on their shooting form might write: “I shoot 30 shots from the free throw line, twice a day, with my elbow tucked in.” Once you’ve finished your training for the day, write down any adjustments you need to make to this process goal for tomorrow’s training.
Working on your daily process goals, continuing to adjust as needed can give you that motivation and competitive drive that you may be lacking during this time away from sport. Do you need help setting your process goals? Sign up for a free 30-minute initial consultation with me where we can discuss your goals and come up with systems to achieve them. Until then, keep competing!