Goal Setting

Striving is part of the fabric of life. 

As humans, we’re constantly seeking something to strive towards. As athletes, setting goals is one of the most powerful ways to enhance our performance. 

But how can we begin to integrate this principle in our everyday lives and athletic endeavours? And why should we?

‘I’m going to qualify for the World Championships’

As coaches, we love nothing more than bold statements of intent. It’s refreshing to work with athletes who are driven by goals that push them to the very limits of their ability and being the ones to help them deliver an extraordinary performance in the athletic arena is at the heart of the RÁS philosophy: 

Athlete centred. Outcome driven. Process focused. 

It’s a mantra that epitomises the values we carry with us in everything we do and it lays the foundation for robust relationships between our coaches and athletes to flourish. 

It’s a philosophy that means our athletes, their health and their happiness are at the forefront of every decision we make. It means the processes we use to help them reach their goals influence their daily habits and activities. It means the goals they’re striving to achieve will define a journey that is relentlessly focused on the endpoint. 

But why is the outcome, that goal that they’re striving towards, so important?

The theory behind goal setting is simple: the goals that individuals consciously set for themselves have a direct influence on their performance. There is evidence indicating that goals which are specific and challenging lead to higher performance in comparison to goals which are easy, require you to simply ‘do your best’ or where there are no goals set. 

Appropriate goals influence performance in four distinct ways:

• Directing attention

• Mobilising effort

• Enhancing persistence 

• Deploying new learning strategies

In endurance sport, setting effective goals helps break an overall objective into more manageable milestones. It helps training to feel less repetitive and allows athletes to celebrate achievements throughout the journey, keeping them motivated and retaining their focus. 

Most of us have to learn to love the monotonous nature of endurance sport and, while we go through that process, smaller goals help us establish where and when to expend our energy on each of the components that make us into athletes; our craft, our mental endurance and our physical ability. 

There’s a number of approaches that can be used to help define our goals. We use the methodology that best compliments our coaching philosophy: Outcome, Performance and Process.

This framework allows each athlete to work towards specific short and long-term outcomes while, as coaches, we can continually profile, benchmark, plan and review their performance so that the goals continue to be attainable over the desired timeframe.  

With every theory, the reality can often look a lot different. Goal setting in performance sport is no exception. To prevent athletes’ goals being completely derailed, there are elements of fluidity and flexibility naturally engrained within the process:

• Outcome – Standards of performance that focus on the results of a competition (uncontrollable)

• Performance – Focus on the improvement relative to an athlete’s past performances (controllable)

• Process – Focus upon particular elements of the task (controllable)

At the beginning of each athletes’ journey, we sit down with them to define their overall goal. More often than not, it’s closely related to their purpose and their ‘why’. In our framework, this is the Outcome. 

This outcome then gets deconstructed to the nth degree and, with the support of our sports scientists and medical team, we begin to gain an insight into the component parts that make up the Performance and Process Goals. 

Make no mistake, this isn’t a fool proof methodology. It takes careful thought and planning. From the outset, we must consider the individual differences and environmental variations which can have a significant impact on the goals an athlete defines for themselves. 

But, perhaps more than anything else, the effectiveness of goal setting relies on the interaction between the athlete and coach. It’s why the athlete is at the heart of our philosophy and why we pride ourselves on the relationships we build throughout the journey we’re on with them.

Ultimately, your goal is your catalyst to start telling your story. 

Your goal. Your way.