Achieving your goal is important but the pathway to achieving your goal is even more so.
Being able to set a goal but detach the outcome is an idea that many people find conflicting.
Listen to most sports coaches and they will talk about winners - athletes and teams that won’t allow themselves to lose - and the fierce will to win. What they rarely talk about is the process.
From the get go, this puts the emphasis in completely the wrong place. It allows the mind to succumb to pressure, pressure that is already there but that doesn’t require a further boost.
Most athletes already have the will to win, so it’s the process that requires belief, concentration and finesse. Preparation to win is king not the outcome.
Words like desire, knowledge, learning, graft and enjoyment is what breeds success not focusing on the W.
This concept transfers itself wholeheartedly into every walk of life. Take some time to consider what you do best and then think about the attributes involved in that success.
If you want to achieve a goal, my advice would be the following:
Set your mind to what you want.
Dream it.
Prioritise it.
Study, Learn, Practice (Repeat)
Work on it daily.
Enjoy it.
To use a sporting analogy, if you want to become a scratch golfer you are better off practicing for an hour a day each week than for 3 hours twice a week.
This way the body and its muscles develop memory and become more effective and efficient. The mind creates neuropathways in exactly the same way and we also don’t overload our learning capacity.
The key to a successful goal is to enjoy the process. If you are not doing that, then you are flawed. When we start out playing sports as kids, firstly we are learning our technical skills, more latterly our mental skills but importantly we are also having FUN.
Watch professional athletes or teams closely over a period of time. In terms of their success and achievements, you will notice that it happens when all is good in their world. There is a smile on their face and they are at peace with all around them. Subsequently they are succeeding.
In all my years playing sports, watching athletes participate in sports and now working with them, I am yet to either experience or witness goals and successes being achieved when people are unhappy or dissatisfied.
A Game Changer says...
While it might seem like it, setting goals and being able to detach yourself from their outcomes are not in conflict with one another.
The secret is to rationalise the outcome once it has been set and to ‘chunk’ it down in size.
For a swimmer looking to knock 2 seconds off their best time, it is about working in tenths on say a weekly or fortnightly basis. 2 seconds might not seem like much but if focused upon incorrectly, it is what causes extra pressure, malcontent etc.
In summary, your goals and ambitions can absolutely be achieved, just ensure to go about them in the right way. The means are certainly more valuable than the end!
Golfing great, Walter Hagen, once delivered the famous quote, “You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry and be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”
Whilst all of that is great advice, the second half of the last sentence is the one to stay concentrated on.