“With my match against Grant over, I faced a problem. The Grant match was good in a way because it gave me a higher goal to work toward, but it was bad because my focus was all out of whack. Everything I did for that season was for the Grant match. I had focused on it and trained for it, and now there were just six weeks until the NCAA tournament. Preparing for it felt anticlimactic, because for ten months I had not focused on it at all. My mind had been on Grant, and now, with that victory behind me, I didn’t quite know what to do. It’s difficult to focus on a goal for ten months and peak for that match and then refocus so that you peak again in six weeks. My goal had been beating Grant, but it should have been dominating the NCAA tournament. Grant was a stepping stone along the way.”
From A Wrestling Life by Dan Gable
Goal setting has been established as one of the most potent forms of mental performance there is. There is a plethora of evidence to back it up and my own research earlier in my career backed this up. But as wrestling legend Dan Gable explains, sometimes setting goals, or at least the wrong goals, can be detrimental to performance. Gable went to the NCAAs and lost in a huge upset confessing to be in the wrong frame of mind and unprepared. As he acknowledged in the above quote, he had set the wrong goal for the season.
Coaches, athletic directors, and all leaders need to be careful to set the right goals for your team and organization as well as working with your employees and athletes to set the right individual goals. Have you been trained to do so? How many times have I seen the pyramid of goals for the season posted in the weight room or locker room where its success hinges on the performances of others? It’s a rhetorical question because the answer is far too many. So, be sure you are setting goals but be sure you are setting the right goals! Reach out to us at FSU COACH if you would like help.