So how are we going with the journey towards your goals?
In the first part of this series (twas a very long time ago?), we touched on how to begin to correctly formulate your goals. You may have already devisee a great plan. Here are some helpful tips then, to firmly launch you upon your trajectory path towards your ambitions.
Sports psychologists have traditionally helped athletes reach top levels by setting three types of goals which are similar to the following;
1. Big dreams or long term goals
2. Process goals towards these dreams eg mid term goals
3. Performance goals (aka short term goals)
Rome wasn't built in a day-so please don't expect that you will achieve your big wins in a day either.
Lots of little steps will be more acceptable for your brain and body to surpass.
What do the experts say? Michael Johnson, discussed his successes to journalists, you would expect that he would say things came pretty easily with him, yet this would be an incorrect assumption. He said that to achieve his big dreams, he mainly focussed on taking each day at a time. He worked on his process and performance goals during each & every training session(eg-> baby steps AKA short term goals) and believe it not, pushing towards his success even as one of the worlds top athletes , was a struggle
MOTIVATION - THE KEY TO SUCCESS.
Primarily athletes use the sports psychology principles of motivation as the stepping stone to achieving their goals. Motivation is to be moved to do something (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Motivation is what will form the back bone, it will essentially give you the key to unlock your potential, whilst helping to drive you strongly forthward towards your goal achievement. This is why it is very important to choose your goals carefully, they HAVE to come from the heart, because if they don't, you run the risk of abandoning ship very quickly, due to a lack of motivation.
Recognise also that attaining the big dreams or the small ones aint necessarily going to be easy, be prepared to go through the tough stuff, knowing that you will probably come out of it, feeling like you can take on the world.
So it's OK to struggle? It is absolutely ok to struggle we humans, were all born to struggle, and we were also born to overcome obstacles out of acts of survival. What is important here, is that studies have shown that top athletes, are really good at breaking their big goals down into smaller pieces to allow them to maintain focus, motivation and success!
One of the major comparatives between human life now and back in our primal days, is the amount of choices we have these days. Back in the day, our primal ancestors didn't really have the choice of a chicken sandwich or chicken salad or giving up on their goals (e.g catching thier prey) altogether! They had to eat to survive, when they failed to catch their prey they just has to get right back up and keep at it...otherwise starve?
Whilst I do not advocate the starvation method, can we learn a lesson from our ancestors? Of course we can! Maybe we can just assume the people of the world have gone soft because of the changes in life? We could also adopt a 3D approach to our understanding, realising that in some ways because of the variety of choices we have these days, we are potentially challenged in different ways nowadays, compared to that of our ancestors. Hence we must work hard to overcome these differing struggles.
Just quickly, reminiscing on the first part to this series (yes... I know, clearly this was a long time ago) ***please note that it is important to know yourself and be honest with yourself so that you can apply the principles which are most relevant for yourself.***
Once you have established those exact ambitions of yours, the ones which put a really big fire in your belly, you can apply a specific action plan to launch you off the blocks, on to the race track so you can be assured that you hit the ground running.
ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION
Achievement Motivation is the notion of the need to achieve whilst avoiding failure. Top athletes have been found to possess high levels of achievement motivation. So how can we make ouselves even more motivated to achieve?
Most of us fall into the category of requiring tasks that are challenging yet attainable, they must have at least a 50% chance of success. Rememeber this when setting your all important smart goal plan.My fellow group fitness instructors and personal trainers please note the following: Research shows that we are likely to be more motivated by a task that pleases us out of enjoyment of doing the task itself, rather than doing a task out of external rewards such as praise, results etc (Ryan & Deci 2000, Gegne & Deci, 2005). Yet another reason why a well devised achievement plan is invaluble, and to the fit-pro's how can you use this powerful fact this to refine your coaching skills during your classes and/or PT sessions?
FIRST AND FOREMOST .......TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE
Locus of Control (LOC)
Rotter (1966, 1971) believed that the reasons (or attributions) one provides us on past successes and failures of situations or tasks reveals whether a person possesses more of an internal or external LOC. Two factors we might attribute to success or failure are;
INTERNAL LOC; such as the effort one places on a task. For Eg- one might attribute the hard work they placed on a task as a factor which influenced their success.
EXTERNAL LOC; luck or destiny. Eg one might attribute their success because they were lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
LOC influences our behaviours during future situations In very general terms, it is usually more favourable to possess a more internal LOC, because then we take ownership of mistakes and can learn from the mistakes, allowing us to become more successful the next time we participate within tasks. According to the research within this area, some of the characteristics of an individual who possesses an internal LOC dominance are the following
•Persists in the face of failure
•Welcomes new challenges
•Is proactive wants to overcome shortcomings
•Takes ownership within their lives
•Copes will with stress as less susceptible to anxiety
•Experiences success often
External LOC dominant person may possess the following characteristics
•Tends to give up in the face of failure & is less persistent at tasks
•More susceptible to anxiety and as a result does not cope well with stress
• Avoidance of new challenges
•Feels like they don't need to be proactive and doesn't take ownership of life's shortfalls (fate might lead the way...)
•Feels experience of success is rare
Can you be really honest & identify which of the above lists sounds more like you? The good news is & important to point out is that a dominance in either internal or external LOC can be interchangeable and often changes according to situations during the lifespan. Possessing either of these locus of controls will effect you emotional responses to situations. And it is these emotions which may be causing a hindrance to your success. If we can identify our emotional responses, it will help us to pin point our weaknesses and ultimately then provide us with the knowledge, of how to move forward.
For example, when Individuals with an internal locus of control experience success their emotional response to this success may render pride, confidence competence & self satisfaction. Whilst individuals with an external locus of control might feel gratitude, thankfulness or blame their success on luck.
When those with an internal locus of control experience failure they tend to feel guilt, shame, incompetence and/or depression, whilst their external counterparts experience anger surprise & astonishment in the same circumstances.
All is not lost you can change your dominant LOC with practice. Some basic recommendations are to take ownership of tasks in your life, try some new tasks which you would not normally undertake and assess the areas in your life (eg friends, work, hobbies) which are reinforcing your external LOC and try to change these situations to activities which allow you to be abundant within your internal LOC.
In relation to goal achievement, you must commit to assessing yourself so that you can see where you are sitting during different situations. For example assess yourself on your short term and mid term goals-what are the reasons you are giving for your successes and failures? and what are your emotional responses to your successes and failures? This is imperative as it will allow awareness of your current state so you can adjust where neccasary...easier said than done right? RIGHT! Practice makes perfect.Also, by applying specific principles as suggested within this article can help you to irradiate some of the stress and or anxiety you might currently be experiencing. The exercises shown will help to power you up allowing you to achieve greater wins in your life:
CONFIDENCE & PMA (Positive Mental Attitude).
Simulating the attitudes of top athletes seems to be a winning approach!
Athletes possess high levels of self confidence, this has been shown to lead to reduced anxiety during stressful situations, allowing for first class performances. Confidence is a real positive trait, & will ultimately draw other positive confident successful people around you. When confident positive people are around you, your body and mind can't help but to absorb this energy which helps you to power up your being, to an even greater you. So now we know why possessing confidence, in your ability to flourish is of paramount importance. Positiveness & Confidence is not always innate. Even if we are blessed by being born with confidence, this trait will still need to be nourished & trained. Confidence can be trained by using positive self talk, imagery techniques and relaxation. If these techniques sound a little sissy to you, then stop & think again! Athletes use these all the time to help them produce elite performances. If they use them they gotta be good. Right?
During my 3rd part to this series I will discuss applied sports psychology in a little more detail so that you have a few tools up your sleeve just incase you need them....so stay tuned and keep working hard!
