How to Set Goals Like an Elite Athlete
September is the New January
Historically, magazines have considered September issues the most significant fashion moment of the year. “The issue acts as a big reset moment for people,” Glamour Editor-in-Chief Samantha Barry tells Fashionista. “It marks the end of summer and ushers in a return to life and routine for people. It forecasts what’s to come in the rest of the year.”
Regardless of our life stage, September marks the end of summer and the beginning of the fall season.
As summer ends, we find ourselves craving a return to routine and finding the balance that summer may have hijacked.
With a changing routine, many will find momentum in bringing about new habits. This forward swing is an ideal time for starting some healthy new rituals. Having said that, it’s crucial to have a plan to see our new habits through once they aren’t shiny & new anymore.
Part of the plan involves learning to enjoy the process and taking imperfect action. Perfectionism or self-sabotage often gets in the way of starting a routine or remaining consistent as we meet the inevitable bumps in the road along the way.
The other part of the plan involves setting the right kind of goals & taking the right kind of action for what we want to accomplish or change.
Step 1: Set Your Goals
Goal-setting is more than just defining what you want to accomplish.
It’s about creating a structured approach that keeps you motivated, adaptable, and resilient.
I encourage my athletes to explore four key types of goals: Process, Performance, Outcome, and Experiential Goals. Each of these goals plays a vital role in your journey toward success.
Process Goals: These goals focus on aspects like your composure, attitude, and strategy. They emphasize actions that you have complete control over and can consistently achieve.
Performance Goals: These goals are specific objectives that are usually measurable. Performance Goals are about achieving certain levels of performance, independent of others. They are often based on comparisons with your previous performances.
Outcome Goals: These goals are results-driven, plain, and simple. They are about the outcomes of your performances and what you’d like to see happen if you give your best effort.
Experiential Goals: Reflect on what you would experience if you successfully met your process, performance, and outcome goals. How would you feel? This feeling is a vital part of your motivation and can serve as an anchor goal, driving you to achieve your other objectives. By consciously cultivating and experiencing this emotion throughout your journey, you can use it as a powerful force to propel you toward success.
Working towards your goals should be a marathon rather than a sprint.
Keep the big picture in mind and understand that success is the accumulation of many small steps toward your goal.
Have compassion and gentleness as you guide yourself through this process.
Step 2: Ditch the S.M.A.R.T. goals & start small
I’m sure you’ve heard of setting “smart” goals blah blah specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely.
To put it bluntly, prepare to throw that out the window!
S.M.A.R.T. goals are an excellent template for setting outcome-based goals, but they are terrible for lifestyle behavioural changes. These kinds of adaptations need to be subtle, small, and almost so insignificant that you would barely notice them.
So small that if you promised to do it every day, you would laugh and say, “HAHAHA! No problem, Crystal, I could easily do that”.
PERFECT! That’s the MOXIE I’m talking about!
Keeping small promises to yourself creates life-changing results and cultivates self-worth, self-trust, self-reliance and resilience. When we set BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOALS that are exclusively outcome-focused, we set ourselves up for repeated failures. If we lack resilience and self-worth and are self-critical, this is a breeding ground for self-hatred (been there, done that - not worth it).
When we set small, achievable promises to ourselves (that we keep) daily, we get real-time reinforcement and validation that we matter to ourselves.
When you can trust what you say you will do, you’re supporting the belief that you’re worth fulfilling this promise - which is 10000000% true! You’re outstanding and worth doing the small stuff for.
Remember, how do we eat an elephant?! ONE BITE at a time. Unless you don’t want to eat an elephant, which I understand is just one of those analogy thingys that the writing people say helps drive home a point - did it work?
I know, small steps aren’t sexy, and they aren’t magical. Small steps are NOT big audacious goals that we can spew all over the interwebs and say, “look at my insane goal and how flashy it is!!!”
The truth is, the small steps work.
The small steps create long-lasting change, the change you have been searching for. This is why I am telling you right from the beginning it’s not sexy, cute or instagramable - but it works.
Did you put on pants today? Did you hydrate yourself? (You wonderful Cutecumber - you need water!) Give yourself credit and hype for any win, no matter how “small” it might seem. Those victories are more crucial than they seem. (Trust me on this one!)
STEP 3: Set Your Attitude to Achieve Success
That’s right. Your attitude probably sucks, especially if you have been looking for the next hack, gimmick, or trick to get you to where you want to go. Those HACKS are precisely that; a hack: A cheap, mediocre, or second-rate solution. It would be best to leave that attitude behind as you embark on your new routine.
Like it or not, your thoughts and self-talk will shape your attitudes and beliefs about anything. Adopting a self-compassionate attitude is the best way to create a sustainable change in your behaviour and routine. When we create sustainable changes, we make alterations that don’t lead to burnout and overwhelm.
Self-compassion is honesty WITH kindness.
Honesty without kindness is what most of us are taught, and this type of honesty is harmful. Picture “brutal” honesty - no one benefits from this type of honesty - even the Karens or Chads. Their sadness lies a little deeper beneath their hard, angry surface.
Kindness without honesty is a common teaching theme as well. Unfortunately, this is harmful by enabling and featuring self-destructive behaviours. Kindness without honesty teaches us to sacrifice ourselves and our needs to be kind to another person. This behaviour leads to long-term resentment and destructive ways of coping (0/10 - do not recommend).
Moment of truth:
Are you trying to start a new routine while telling yourself, “this is too hard,” “I can’t do it,” or, my favourite, “I don’t have time”?
Are you trying to start a new routine while telling yourself, “I’m not flexible enough to do that stretch,” or “I can’t meditate.—that’s for Monks,” or “I need to lose 20 lbs before I can go to the gym and workout in front of other people or hit up that local yoga class”?
Our longstanding habits, beliefs and values are buried deep within our subconscious minds. Even the slightest change can create stress internally because our nervous system is wired for safety (or false safety, which is familiarity.)
Even if our conscious mind wants to change, our subconscious is where most of our unintentional resistance lies.
THIS IS WHY WE NEED TO START SMALL.
By starting small, we gain access to changing these longstanding habits, beliefs and values but with a “back door access,” if you will. An attitude of self-compassion is like greasing the hinges, making it easier and easier to open the door as we go.
Statements like:
“I am a beginner, and that is ok.”
“I can celebrate my progress, even if I’m not perfect” are great places to start.
STEP 4: Feel As You Go - Don’t Suppress Your Emotions
Regardless of the change being for the better, fear or grief may be associated with uprooting old habits. Our familiar routines are part of what gives us a false sense of safety.
Please know that any emotional reaction to any life change is normal and expected.
Change is stressful, which is why I have repeatedly and redundantly recommended you start slowly and take small steps. Resist the urge to alter your entire life immediately - healthy minds and bodies are not built in a day!
Please remember to be gentle with yourself and allow space to feel whatever feelings and sensations come up as you make these small shifts. Tuning into your body and observing without judgment is BY FAR one of the most nourishing skills you can learn.
Often, our emotions are shortlived as long as we don’t interrupt them with thoughts or feed them with “meanings .” Adding meaning to a feeling can cause it to become “stuck” and stored in the body.
If we allow them, emotions will come and go like the wind, releasing as they are felt. If that sounds like a sure way of healing, I encourage you to trust me and try feeling your feelings!
STEP 5: Check out The MVMNT Goal Setting Workbook
Of course, I’ve created something to help you plan & follow through with your September Goals.
The MVMNT Goal Setting Workbook includes:
A step-by-step walkthrough of how to create Process, Performance, Outcome, and Experiential Goals in a variety of different areas of your life
A Daily Game-Changer reflection journal helping you stick to your small changes & celebrate them daily
Journaling prompts to help you feel clear about what success & resistance look and feel like for you.
