To Goal or Not to Goal

If we focus too much on performance goals–targeting a result to measure progress–our risk appetite changes which can lead to compromised reasoning and misplaced focus. Though it comes from management research, not sports science–Ordóñez, Schweitzer, Galinsky, and Bazerman found that having specific targets measurably distorted risk-taking and narrowed attention (Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting). There’s no reason to think our golfer brains work differently than our worker brains here.

The risk of many performance goals is that they can adversely impact your game. Raymond Prior addresses this in Golf Beneath the Surface (another book every golfer should read)–holding tightly to a result you need to happen gets processed by your threat-detection wiring. Standing over a shot thinking about your handicap goal instead of the shot itself is functionally the same problem as a bad lie triggering your amygdala–your attention just left the target. This is playing scared, and it’s the goal doing it to you. Now instead of pulling off a shot that we think we need, we are tense which usually achieves the opposite.

“Reduce handicap index by five” is likely a bad goal by itself. If you use that goal to guide supporting learning goals–addressing those technical weaknesses–it can be a constructive goal. That breakdown, from a major goal to the supporting goals and tasks underneath it, is the process in Setting Goals. You are giving yourself a long term goal to inform shorter term goals that will help get us there. But you need to wait for it to happen, not keep it as a focal point. While we generally want our goals to be time-bound, to hold ourselves accountable, that’s a riskier proposition with many performance goals.

Another thing to consider is that hitting a number once shows you something (you have the skills to perform at the desired level). But repeatedly hitting a number better demonstrates improvement. Sometimes we need that first time just to boost our confidence. Even if that is the case, it doesn’t mean we need to formalize it as a goal.

Use your goals to primarily guide your training plan. Monitor your playing over time to ensure that your goals are helping your game–the goals that keep you practicing are the ones worth keeping, which is the argument in Choosing the Right Goals. As with things learning-related, experiment to see what works best for you.