Setting Goals

The best way to improve is to know what ‘better’ looks like–we need goals. Studies have repeatedly shown that defining goals increases performance and learning. In A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance Locke and Latham presented what is arguably the single most empirically supported study demonstrating that specific, challenging goals consistently produce higher performance than vague or no goals.

Goals affect performance by keeping attention focused. If we use our goals to inform our practice, we will be spending more time working weaknesses than reinforcing strengths. This is important, because you are more likely to achieve a difficult goal than an easy one.

Types of Goals

Goal is a vague term meaning, ‘a desired outcome you commit to achieve.’ To keep it simple, we will use two types of goals:

• Performance Goals - A measurable result, such as lowering handicap by 5 or increase GIRs per round by 10%
• Learning Goals - Developing mental and/or physical mastery of a skill or process, such as change shot shape to draw or improve lag feel

Both types of goals can be classified as major goals, or supporting goals. Major goals will be best served with a set of supporting goals.

Defining Goals

You’ve likely heard of the SMART goal framework. While different terms are used for the acronym depending on the context, for golf performance we will require that goals are: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound.

Specific and Measurable

If you can’t figure out how to track against a goal, how will you know when you achieve it? Douglas Hubbard in How to Measure Anything argues that ‘immeasurable’ is almost always a myth–there’s most likely at least a trace of something to be measured. Ideally we want quantifiable metrics. Quantifiable metrics are those that are directly measurable, like your round score or putts per round. Qualitative metrics are subjective: I performed my pre-shot routine, I visualized my target. If you can’t figure out how to measure a goal, is it specific enough?

Measuring has a huge impact on us. It is crucial to staying engaged on achieving goals, so please do not wait to get in the habit of tracking your stats. As I cover in Golf Better Everyday, the act of measuring changes behavior all on its own, and baseline measurements are what let you see slow progress at all. At the risk of a tangent, this is why journaling is a tool that works well for so many–it is a brain dump of topical information.

Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound

Realistically consider the practicality and level of effort associated with your goals and where you are currently at. The purpose of goals is to keep us on track and motivated. If you’ve been golfing for six months, a goal of playing scratch golf in one year is probably not realistic. Similarly, removing the time-bound element from that goal doesn’t make a good goal as it’s too far away to be motivating us today.

Putting it Together

Major, generally long term, goals will be used to define a set of supporting goals, generally shorter term goals in the 3-6 month range. To achieve goals, we perform specific tasks. Our goals should directly inform our training plan, which is a collection of tasks.

For complex skills, like the golf swing, learning goals (developing mastery of process) outperform performance goals (hitting a number). (For why skill development responds to variety, feedback, and rest, see Learning to Learn.) But, performance goals are generally perceived as the more desirable outcome. Performance goals can often be broken down into a set of learning goals.

We also want a healthy balance of learning and performance goals to keep us intrinsically motivated. Learning goals are generally completely within your control. Performance goals often have external factors. The balance lets us more objectively review our progress, instead of keeping us locked onto one aspect of our game.

For example, if we have a performance goal of ‘reduce handicap by five strokes,’ by itself that is a rather vague goal even though we know what that looks like. If we take that goal and look at what we need to achieve it we start asking questions like, ‘what is costing me the most strokes?’ and ‘what are my biggest weaknesses?’ The answer to these questions will pave the way for a set of learning goals that directly support our performance goal.

• Performance Goal: Reduce handicap by five strokes (6 months), track score
  • Performance Goal: Reduce 3-putts (2 month), track 3-putts per round
    • Learning Goal: Improve green reading (1 month), track misreads per round
    • Learning Goal: Improve lag putting (1 month)
      • Task: Ladder drill (1 month), 2 sessions per week
      • Task: Lag putting drill (3/6/9), (1 month), track make rate
  • Learning Goal: Approach shot accuracy (1 month)
  • Learning Goal: Improve chipping dispersion pattern (1 month)

Conclusion

Pretty easy to be successful when you know what that looks like, and what you need to do to get there.

It’s ok to change your goals and data points. Goals are a tool. You must hold yourself accountable — Self-coaching covers how to stay objective while you do it — but that doesn’t mean the target can’t change over time. As you progress, and test your goals through tracking, you may realize that your initial metric isn’t reflecting the root cause nor the outcome accurately. It’s better to change it to fit where you are than waste time on something that isn’t best serving you.