B06. Goal Setting (1) Three types of goals

TOC

Major League baseball player Shohei Otani says, " Don't set limits on your dreams. Just think, 'I can do more!' and your future will change." On the other hand, he also says , "Instead of aiming for 'very high goals,' I just aim to grow from yesterday " (Kodama Mitsuo, 2021). Otani distinguishes between dreams and goals. When you are a child, you imagine yourself in the future, such as wanting to become a professional baseball player or a professional soccer player. On the other hand, goals are very realistic, such as a specific amount of sales in a company or a shooting target. For athletes, if the goal is too high, it is difficult to achieve and causes great stress, and if the goal is too low, it is easy to achieve and you quickly get bored or do not feel a sense of accomplishment. Goal setting is extremely important for athletes who aim for the best performance to work hard every day with high motivation. There are generally three types of goals: Outcom (result) goals, performance goals, and process goals .

Outcome (Result) goals are goals that focus on the final stage of an event, such as winning a game or winning a gold medal at the Olympics. Naturally, athletes want to win and get a gold medal. However, such results are influenced not only by the athlete's own efforts, but also by the abilities of their opponents, and may be affected by factors that are beyond their control, such as the weather, the venue, the judges, or a sudden illness.

A performance goal is a goal that targets your own performance achievement, such as breaking your personal record. With this goal, you are comparing yourself to your past self, so it is highly achievable, you are less anxious during performance, and you are more likely to perform well. And above all, it is easy to set goals and tasks to work on every day, and you feel like you can do it if you try hard.

Process goals are the goals that athletes focus on and do their best to concentrate on the points they should focus on while performing, such as maintaining rhythm or doing well on the points that they should pay attention to in their form. This goal helps athletes to focus on how to perform as usual, regardless of their stress level. When stress is high, even if you try to do things "as usual," you may not know what "as usual" is. At such times, it is said that process goals can be an indicator to return to, reduce anxiety, and help improve performance. Also, top-level athletes sometimes say that they want to enjoy themselves, and I think that is exactly what they are aiming for: enjoying the process.

Let's think about free throws in basketball. The ultimate goal for a player is to make a successful free throw, and before attempting a free throw, many players think about the result, such as “I'm going to make it” or “I can't miss”. This is called goal thinking. However, even for professional basketball players, it is extremely rare for anyone to have a success rate of over 90%. Even though there is a good chance of missing, if you actually miss, you will be disappointed and if you let that disappointment get to you, you will lose sight of the bigger picture. On the other hand, the idea of concentrating on the processes and correct form required to make a successful free throw is called process thinking. Once the final goal has been set, the player should aim to concentrate on the process of achieving the goal, rather than the result itself, and it is said that if the process is carried out correctly, the goal will be achieved. (Mike Phelps)

Ichiro, who played in the major leagues, said from the beginning of his professional career, "If you set goals that are too high, you will become frustrated when you can't achieve them. That's a mistake in goal setting. If you set goals that are within reach if you work hard, you will never give up." He also said, "I place more importance on the number of hits than the batting average. If I worry about the batting average, I get anxious that my batting average will go down, and I become afraid to step up to the plate. But the number of hits can only keep on piling up, so I look forward to stepping up to the plate." Furthermore, he doesn't aim to be the "leading hitter." He said that this is because if someone is doing really well, he is " dealing with something I can't control."

Togashi Yuki of the Chiba Jets in the B.League has said, " As I gradually overcome the challenges in front of me, I often find the path ahead and start imagining my future. I would say that my approach is to follow a path that I can clearly imagine, and then aim higher, step by step. In my life, I have never worked hard vaguely, imagining a distant dream." (Togashi Yuki, "Turning Your Dreams into Shape", Positive Thinking, 2020).