Happy New Year 2020! Your goal setting 2020!
Our Matthew Young ran towards his first finish line in IRONMAN 70.3 Xiamen 2019
What’s your goal in Triathlon? No matter you want to finish your first triathlon, or you want to smash the IRONMAN course, or even qualify for the World Championship, that’s all could be defined as your goal, and always make SMART Goal! Let’s walk the talk!
In our sports, we always hear people say “I want to finish an IRONMAN…” “I want to finish the first Triathlon….” as an Outcome Goal.
You may also hear some experience triathlete say “I want finish an sub-5 IRONMAN 70.3” “I want to run a sub-3 marathon…” as a Performance Goal.
S.M.A.R.T is the goal setting technique that widely adopted in corporate world, leadership coaching and sports psychology. This is the first guidance to start your new year revolution! Someone said 80% of new year revolution failed, let’s be that 20%!
SMART stands for…
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Achievable / Actionable
R - Realistic / Relevant
T - Time-bond
Let’s dive into each of them….
S - Specific
First of all we need to define our goal specific enough. Write down what do you want to achieve? Why do you want to achieve? What is your driving force? Do you have rapport for this path? Which of the following are specific enough?
”I want to finish the first triathlon…”
”I want to finish an IRONMAN…..”
“I want to improve …”
“I want to be fast!…..”
Think of the difference between “I want to….” and “I need to….”
M - Measurable
How are you going to track and measure the progress to your goal? What tools or resources can help? Would you able to identify your coach as your consultant? Have you been using any training log that can easily trace back and compare the workout? You should also set yourself a time frame in short term and mid term review and making benchmark.
“I will maintain at least 10 hours of average weekly training volume in order to prepare for IRONMAN 70.3”
A - Achievable / Actionable
Then you need to ask yourself if the goal you define is achievable or actionable? Can you manage that training volume in your daily life? Do you have resources to re-arrange your family and work duty in order to support the training load?
R - Realistic / Relevant
“ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE” is true, however, be realistic, yet challenging. Build yourself up with a realistic progression, start with setting small and achievable goal in order to reach an ultimate goal in your mind. Your confident will be built along the same path.
T - Time-bond
At the end, sports is a sciences, everything we do can be measured and should be time-bond. Without a timeline to yourself it may just fall into a talk without action.
“I will get 5% faster overall finish time by the end of June 2020.“
“I want to finish the first olympic distance triathlon in 3hours by end of June then I will step up the longer distance race by the end of 2020.”
These are all SMART Outcome and Performance goals if they are Realistic and Achievable in your case.
“I want to finish 3x IRONMAN 70.3 and rank top 5% of my age-group, to do that I need to finish each of the race within 5:45hrs - 5:30hrs by the end of 2020 race season.”
“I want to qualify an IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship NZ in 2020, to do that I need to make myself finish one of the IRONMAN 70.3 by the middle of August and have my overall finish time within 4:30hrs, that I will target my swim in 30mins, bike in 2:20hrs, run in 1:30hrs and limit my T1/T2 in 5mins. “
If the above pace are all realistic for your case, it would be achievable and it would be a good Performance and Outcome goals.
At the end, employing the SMART technique help defining the Outcome or Performance Goals most of us will set. I will talk about Process Goals in the next write up that equally important as this is what driving you to elevate your performance and achieve the outcome.
A sharp goal in your mind will drive you though all the obstacles and emotional challenge during the long journey of sports training. This is also applicable in difference aspect of life.