Big Goals: a step-by-step
Stupid title but hear me out. This advice has had a huge influence on me, completely changing the way I think about setting big long-term goals and the necessary details for actually achieving them. Why does this matter? Because if you’re like me, you might have a tendency for these big goals to be quite specific. For instance, let's say my goal is to coach weightlifting for New Zealand at the Olympics. In order to achieve this, I would need weightlifting to remain an Olympic sport, specific qualification circumstances to favour New Zealand athletes, and to be recognized as one of the top coaches in the country. The truth is, much of this is beyond my control, making the goal more of a dream than a tangible objective that I can achieve on my own. Following this process fixes that, without discarding the original objective.
It’s got 3 parts and I’m about to share it with you, you’re welcome.
Part 1: Not what, who.
Take your your goal as the starting point and instead consider who is the type of person who tends to achieve it. In my example, this is defining the subgroup of people who coach Weightlifting at the Olympics. The Olympics is essentially a prestigious World Championships with a higher level of exclusivity. While it has unique and extra special things about it, the standard of competition remains world-class. This means the subgroup of people related to my goal are world-class weightlifting coaches; those who possess the skills and knowledge to develop elite weightlifting athletes.
In order to coach at the Olympics I need to first become to be a world-class weightlifting coach. This now gives me a target outcome more within my control and therefore attainable.
Part 2: Characterise the who
Now we want to identify the behaviours, knowledge and characteristics of the type of person you are aspiring to become. This might require research or exposure to such individuals.
In my case, here are some thoughts on what world-class weightlifting coaches do and know:
Continually reflect on their knowledge, seek challenging opportunities, question assumptions, and strive for improvement.
Possess high perceptiveness and self-awareness, forming strong working relationships with peers and athletes.
Understand and have demonstrated the ability to develop weightlifting athletes to an elite level.
Possess in-depth knowledge of competition coaching rules and tactics, capable of adapting quickly in competitive situations.
Embody the concept of "high performance" through their actions and behaviors.
These statements are broad and can be further broken down to create a detailed list. It’s also pretty likely that even if you shared my goal, your list will differ, and that's perfectly fine. The key is to create a personal definition of who this person is in order to shape the pathway that will connect you from where you are now, to where you want to be.
Part 3: The who is me
Ding dong, honest personal reflection is at the door. The final step involves deciding how you are going to bridge the gap between your current self and the person who achieves your dream. This can be challenging and overwhelming, particularly when it comes to setting priorities. Assuming you’ve got the honesty bit handled, here’s how I’d approach the prioritising; instead of trying to figure out what’s most important to do first, think about what’s most likely to derail you from acheiving your goal right now. This is your most limiting factor and a pretty decent priority number 1 in my opinion. In my case, it's the development of elite athletes (point 3 above), as I haven't (yet) accomplished this. To develop elite athletes, I need to:
Attract athletes who are motivated to improve.
Know enough about programming, monitoring, technical coaching, and motivation to provide said athletes the necessary tools to develop.
Do this for an extended period of time (years).
Yes this is might be oversimplified, but I’ve now zoned in on both the gap (develop elite athletes), and the bridge (actively coach athletes, write programmes, provide feedback, and consistently reflect on and analyze my performance and programme outcomes).
And that my dudes is it. In a nutshell, my next steps on my pathway to becoming a world-class weightlifting coach, who may one day have the opportunity to coach at the Olympics, is to be spending time actively involved in the process of coaching weightlifting. Does that sound as ridiculous and obvious to you as it does to me? Even so, the important thing here is that I understand why this is important for me right now, and how it fits within the bigger picture.
Things will obviously change over time so it is something that will need to be revisited periodically, but hopefully you can see how this process can take those big ol’ dream goals from ‘shiny and wonderful thing in a galaxy far far away’, to tangible actions working back from an ideal endpoint to right now.
Hope this is useful, see you at the Olympics xx
