Updating Your Goals - By Lanny Bassham

Are you planning to make some new goals for next year? Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? How about setting some milestones or objectives? Do you have a dream or is it all just a wish? Are all of these terms about goals and goal setting the same? Let’s take a look. I am going to take a stab at defining each one.

A wish is something you set with no plan to get it and you do not change your behavior even a little bit to do anything about moving toward it. Example; you think, “I wish I could make more money!” That is a wish if you do not begin to do anything to move toward it.

A resolution is something you set that you know you need to do this year but you will abandon long before you get close to achievement. Example; you say, “This year I’m going to lose 30 pounds so I can get into the new clothes I bought last year that I was going to lose 30 pounds to get into.”

A goal is something you set that you actually have a plan to attain. You might even have it written down if you are really committed to it. A goal has a definite finish line. It is defined so well that if someone asks you if you have a goal for the year you do not hesitate to say so. For it to qualify as a real goal it must have a suspense date. Example; you write “I am a master class shooter by the end of this year.”

A dream is the kind of goal that evokes emotion in a person. It’s more than just a big goal; it is life defining and something that often requires sacrifice. Example; you dream “Within the next five years I want to wear the USA on my back competing in a World Championship.”

All goals require milestones or objectives to be reached along the way. Setting short term, mid and long term objectives makes the big task manageable. We cannot always foresee the obstacles and opportunities that lay ahead but we can get moving down the road.

I suspect that most of us have all of the above. The key is to manage them well so we move toward the things that are important to us. There is no real problem with having wishes. They make for good conversation and often spawn an actual goal but they do not do much for you in the long run. The same goes for resolutions unless they turn into goals. The real benefits come when we set goals properly by formulating a plan and then stick to it until we cross the finish line. In my work as a mental coach I am frequently asked by clients to aid them in the goal setting process. Over the years some not so obvious but important ways to deal with goals have surfaced and I would like to share those with you.

One way to look at this subject is to first determine if the goal you are setting is duplicable or unique. A duplicable goal is one that has a blueprint or a recipe to achieve it. These kinds of goals are very easy to set.

A unique goal is something totally different. For example, give me a recipe that will guarantee you that you will win the Nationals next year. You cannot because every time the nationals have been won the experience was a unique one. If you tried to duplicate the current National Champion’s year exactly, would it work for you? No way! In fact, if a champion himself tried to duplicate the previous year there would be no guarantee of success because every year is unique. So let’s look at some suggestions on how to handle unique goals.

First, I do not recommend that you goal-set to win an event. I believe that you can only set goals for what you can control. Winning is not within your control because you cannot control what others do. So, how about setting a goal to have an event winning performance? You can anticipate what kind of scoring you will need to reach this goal and train to master the elements of the sport necessary to reach them.

Unique goals make goal setting difficult because there are so many unforeseen obstacles and opportunities in your future. This is a issue but should not deter you from identifying what is known. I’ve found that difficult unique goals often require us to endure sacrifice, suffer disappointment and rarely fit within our original time forecast. The price that we expect to have to pay when we start is often undervalued. There are several reasons for this. One, you are not as clever as you think. Two, your competition is getting better faster than you think. Three, some of the things you think you have under control are about to show you that they need more work. Four, there are things you need to learn that you have not even realized exist. These things create delay and can throw you behind schedule. So what! This is life brother! It was that way for me and for every other National, World or Olympic champion I have ever met. If your life is not plagued with problems your goals are too low. Get used to it and toughen up! Overcoming obstacles builds strength.

If I asked you if you have set your goals for this year could you honestly say that you have? IF not, WHY not! The top competitors are setting goals for the year. I know because I teach a lot of them. Do you have a plan to get these goals? If not, you have wishes not goals. Are your goals written down? Could you find them right now if someone paid you $100,000 to produce them? Most competitors unfortunately could not. Having a written goal is one of those things that everyone thinks is a good idea but because it is not immediate they just don’t do it.

If you want this year to be better than last year you are going to have to change. You are going to have to get better. Competing is like riding a bicycle up hill; you have to keep pedaling. You cannot coast or you will fall back. You are getting older and that isn’t helping and your competition is getting stronger all the time. You may need to know more, train more and compete more to move up. You may need to start doing things you do not want to do or stop doing things that you keep doing. The only thing that is certain is that this year will consume the same valuable hours of your life that last year did assuming you live it out. You are choosing your sport, hobby or work instead of doing something else with this time and doesn’t it make sense to get the most out of it.

If this sound like I’m being hard on you it is just because I need to hear these things at this time of year as well. May this year strengthen you and bring you closer to the attainment of your goals.

Written by Olympic Champion and Founder of Mental Management Systems, Lanny Bassham

Lanny is the author of the books "With Winning in Mind" and "Freedom Flight - The Origins of Mental Power"