Set goals to get goals: sowing seeds for success in sports

Sports coaches encourage us to be active, alert, and to get things done quickly; they also advise us to relax, be patient, and do things slowly. With these changing instructions, we need a system to do things at our own pace. In sport psychology, we call this system goal setting. Goal setting means establishing a target that you want to achieve. When your goals are specific, achievable, and challenging, you feel motivated. Getting a glass of water from the kitchen might be specific and achievable but not challenging, whereas training for the nationals in 3 months’ time might challenge you, but you might not know precisely how or when to train. In this article, we introduce a goal-setting system that can help you to set and achieve the goals that matter most to you.