*Here we are in July 2020 and most of my yearly goals have been cast aside or thrown out entirely. After five years of completing races to gain entry into the Western States 100 Mile Ultramarathon, I finally made it, only to have the race postponed until 2021. It was inevitable, which meant I needed all of five minutes to process and emotionally move forward. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t acquired any sense of enlightenment through any of this, just genuine appreciation for my health and relationships. If anything, with most aspects of life being put on hold, I was initially excited to maximize the extra time I’ve accrued. Setting goals has feels different now considering we have no clue when things will begin to normalize, whatever normal might look like.

Below, you’ll find an older write-up. For what it’s worth, it’s my attempt to better understand and explain strategies that can be employed in pursuit of a goal. I hope you take away something useful from it and apply to your journey (because these strategies are something that I, as much as the next person, need to revisit frequently). Cheers to working with - and not against - uncertainty because there is only so much that you or I can control.

For many in America, New Years Day symbolizes a clean slate. Somewhere between the holiday parties and indulgence of celebration, New Years – to many – represents both an end and a beginning. Thus, we have New Years Resolutions. Though, after a brief time, those who remain resolute are few.

Unfortunately, resolutions lose their luster fairly quickly. According to a survey, 48% of Americans who set New Years Resolutions report infrequent success (https://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/). Success’s definition varies, but for simplicity’s sake, “infrequent success” means sporadic where success – in this case – could implies consistency. Infrequent suggests that any bit of resolve initiated at the onset of the New Year withers away quickly. In with the old and out with the new seems apropos consider the number of folks, despite their best intentions, who deviate back to old pattern. To understand this better, one need not look further than the local gym.

Come mid-January every year, gyms across the U.S.A are noticeably more packed. In fact, the second week of January marks the busiest week of the year for most gyms (https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-new-gym-members-in-January-stop-coming-after-February). Halfway through February, it’s a different story. Only six weeks into the New Year and most gyms – or people - revert back to the way things were right before resolve reached a fever pitch. Come June, less than half of the “resolute” will still be at it.

Why is this cyclical? At my gym every January, I hear the chirping from the regulars about the beginning-of-the-year chaos, “Just give it a month” they say usually complaining about the packed parking lot. Why is this a norm? For one, it can be attributed to multitude of PR or marketing campaigns targeting new members through family discounts or end-of-the-year slashed rates. Clearly, people want to make a change and a deal doesn’t seem to be enough. People want to get better. But they stop.

This reality that more New Years Resolutions will fail than succeed become as its own cliché. Perhaps it’s the fact that long-lasting, legitimate change implies adaptation. In a society that values comfort and consumption, it’s easy to see why many fail at achieving resolutions because resolutions require the opposite: discomfort and the effort that necessary to create. To embrace this is countercultural smacks in the face of what the media shoves down our collective gullet.

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to take ranks with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

- Theodore Roosevelt

To be “resolute” means to be admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering” (O.E.D.). Why then, do we still call them resolutions? It doesn’t appear to be a problem deriving from a lack of willpower. Though, for other, the fire burns hottest on January 1 before flaming out Instead, it’s that in an outcome-oriented society, the effort – journey – necessary to achieve the result is valued, but much less than the result itself. Again, it’s not the goal that are the problem, rather, how to set them.

Research by psychology professor Gail Matthews, at Dominican University in California, found that 76% of people who wrote down their goals, made detailed plans for how to achieve them. Additionally, they sent weekly progress reports of their goals to monitor progress or achievement. This is compared to the less than half who merely composed a thought about their goals (https://moneyish.com/hoard/more-than-a-third-of-americans-have-abandoned-their-new-year-new-workout-routine-resolutions/). Actually writing goals down, keeping them, and having some form of accountability leads to better outcomes than just wishful thinking, keeping it to yourself, and trying.

If an athlete is going to set effective goals, then he or she needs to create or follow a similar formula. Structure – to varying degrees – is paramount to success. There are a variety of effective goal-setting methods. At a granular level, each look a little different, but, overall, they each create boundaries absolutely necessary for creativity to flourish. A prime example of creativity via boundaries is the “Spam-Ku”.

During the mid- 1990s, students at MIT created a website dedicated to a very unique form of Japanese poetry – the haiku – but with a twist: the subject matter had to be limited to the infamous canned meat – Spam. A haiku is made up of three phrases in a 5-7-5 (word number per line) order. It’s fair to assume that such tight boundaries would only constrain creativity, but that couldn’t be further from what resulted. According to the site, when it was created – July 14, 1995 – there were fewer than 18,000 websites in the world. By 2002, there were over 19,000 “spam-kus” posted to the website’s archive. John Cho, the Spam Haiku Archive Master (S.H.A.M.) compiled a couple hundred of the best ones into a book. Within those boundaries, you have the freedom to push against them and, also, some friction that is necessary to keep the internal fire burning. The only way to find which formula works for you is to try.

APPLICATION

Prior to setting a goal, one must consider where they would like to place their emphasis and there are three types of goals that help with that: outcome, performance, and process-based goals. An outcome goal refers to focusing on the end result. A Performance goal is specifying a personal objective to be achieved. A process goal is comprised of forms or strategies geared towards improvement. Though there names are self-explanatory, the distinguishing factor between an outcome goal with performance and process goals is control. Control results from that clarity in understanding which type of goal it is that you’re striving towards.

Choosing an outcome goal means relinquishing control because no result is entirely in your control. An example would be winning a tournament or a race as the goal. Your placing depends how others perform. You have no say in your competition trains and what they do during a performance. This depends Unfortunately, in athletics, the outcome is what garners the most attention. The irony here is that once a desired result is achieved (i.e. winning a championship or race), only then do the masses crave behind-the-scenes footage of training, hoping to discover some groundbreaking performance secrets (For example: almost every popular sports documentary about champions). Thus, the outcome must always be in the back of one’s mind, but it should never take priority over the effort needed to achieve it because effort equals energy, which is necessary for you to flourish.

A performance goal is within the control of the individual because it’s centered on achieving a specific standard. These standards are independent of other variables. An example would be improving one’s marathon time from a 3:30 to a 3:20. You have much more control of whether this happens than how you rank amongst your peers.

A process goal is also 100% within one’s control because it focuses on strategies or techniques geared towards performing well. Examples include focusing on form during strength training or landing softly on one’s feet during speed drills or tweaking one’s swimming stroke.

Another way to categorize goals is to chronologically break them down into long-term, short-term, and daily goals. Long-term goals span anywhere from six months to a year and beyond. Examples include graduating college by a certain date or conquering a distance and doing it either faster or going longer you’ve ever done before (completing a 50-mile race by a certain date). Short-term goals move the needle closer to the hear and now, ranging from days to weeks to months to years. Some examples include spending x amount of time on per week on your classes so that you can achieve a certain grade or dedicating a set amount of time each week towards agility, mobility, or core. Finally, daily goals are goals set for every day. These are the building blocks for long-lasting change. Daily goals range from morning and nightly routines to eating x amount of vegetables per day. By defining a goal and then categorizing it, it becomes more explicit, thus allowing the athlete freedom within; otherwise pie-in-the-sky hopes lead to no structure, making it difficult to track progress and maintain motivation.

“Within the boundaries, they found freedom.”

- Anson Dorrance

The third effective goal-setting strategy is referred to as SMART goals. SMART is an acronym with each letter specifying a valued element in the goal setting process:

S stands for Specific. Authors uncovered that in 91% of 200 studies conducted that ambiguous goals “do your best” were significantly inferior to specific, challenging goals (Locke & Latham, 1990). If it’s not specific, then there are no boundaries to work within. Boundaries are necessary for athletes and creative alike. For athletes, this is why coaches create specific training protocols. As evidenced earlier, constraints actually yield creativity. If athletes were encouraged to just do whatever they wanted and sport had no rules, sport would be much less interesting and inspired. Inspiration comes from widening boundaries.

M stands for Measurable; if a goal can’t be quantified, then it can’t be tracked. If it can’t be tracked, then you have no way of knowing where you’re at in relation to the goal.

A stands for Attainable, meaning that it should be realistic. If the goal exceeds your current capability by too much, then you’ll likely give up before even getting close. On the flipside, if it’s too easy, then you’ll quickly lose interest. The goal has to stretch you just beyond your capability to keep you engaged. Make it ambitious.

R stands for Relevant, meaning the goal has to align with who and where you are in relation to whom and where you want to be. If your goals don’t line up with your values or bigger, more long-term goals, it will be more likely that you’ll fold when difficulties arise.

T stands for Timely. You need an end date or at least indicators on the calendar to check in and see where you’re at. There is no greater incentive than time. It motivates and influences priorities. It’s a finite resource for all. Squandering it is of no use. This is important for forecasting as well because you have no clue what a Tuesday in three months from now might look like. Knowing where you’re at on a big-picture scale minimizes destructive thinking.

Onward.