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By
Charles Staley, B.Sc, MSS
Director, Staley Training Systems |
Author’s note: I know that
goal setting is viewed as a bit cliche, but it’s hard to argue
against once you consider it carefully. My first exposure to the
con cept of conscientious, aggressive goal setting occurred in the
early 80’s when I tool a course from Success Motivation Institute
based in Waco, Texas. It made a huge impact on me, and I wanted
to see if I could present a con vincing argument for the idea. I’m
quite happy with this article— I think it expresses the concepts
very simply.
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Paradoxically, everyone agrees
that goals are important, yet less than 5% of the population
has one...
Someone recently asked me if
I’d ever like to be able to bench press 500 pounds. I
replied that, no, not really, because obviously, if I had
really wanted a 500 pound bench, I would have taken the steps
necessary to get it, which I obviously haven’t. Now of
course, it might be the case that even if I applied maximum
effort and resources to the goal of bench pressing 500 pounds,
it might not be in the cards for me anyway.
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But my
point is that selfactualized people make things happen, rather than
hoping they will happen. (Incidentally, I’m also philosophically
against playing the lottery, because it takes you away from making
it happen and toward hoping it happens.).
Where Are You Going?
We all have desires, things we hope
to achieve in life. The question is, what exactly do you want? And
how badly do you want it? How serious are you really? Have you really
considered what you’ll have to give up to get what you want?
Anatomy of a Goal
A goal is a written expression of
intent to accomplish a specific, personally meaningful objective
within a predetermined time-frame.
Based on this definition, I’d
guess that fewer than 5% of all people have even a single goal at
any one point in time. Sad, isn’t it? If you’re in the
95% club, this article will show you how to cross over. As a starting
point, let’s examine the above definition point by point:
1) A goal must be stated in writing:
If it isn’t written, it isn’t a goal. Period. It may be
a wish, or a vague desire, or a fantasy, but it isn’t a goal,
and you’re not likely to achieve it.
2) A goal must be specific and
measurable: Your desire to become "as big as a house"
isn’t a goal. It isn’t specific enough. We need to talk
pounds at a certain bodyfat percentage, not real estate.
In order to be specific, your goal must be quantifiable. This is
a very significant for bodybuilders, who’s sport is by definition
qualitative and subjective.
Why Are You Going?
3) A goal must be personally meaningful:
Your goal must be worthy of your unconditional resolve and personal
sacrifice (defined as giving up something in order to gain something
greater as a result) for the allotted time-frame, or you won’t
bother to pursue it. It must have real value and undeniable potential
to improve your life. The desire to get down to 7% bodyfat by May
1st so that you’ll look great at the beach this summer is specific,
challenging, and has a completion date, but other than soothing
your ego, what meaning does it really have?
Now of course, if this goal (getting
down to 7% bodyfat by May 1st) is part of your long-range objective
to become a champion bodybuilder or fitness competitor, we now have
a more meaningful context for your objective, since your competitive
aspirations will have rewards above and beyond ego-gratification,
such as career possibilities, character development, and so on.
Once you can see the complete range of benefits that accomplishing
the goal has for you, you’ll be ready to commit enormous personal
resources to achieve it.
Now think back to your original motivation—
looking great at the beach. Is this goal really worth the considerable
time and effort that it’ll take to achieve? If so, proceed.
If not, explore other goals which will significantly impact your
life when you accomplish them.
Additionally, goals must be framed
in such a way that they push your emotional "hot buttons."
For example, it may be that you have a goal to parallel squat 400
pounds by your 30th birthday which is in eleven months. Your current
PR is 355. This is a specific, challenging, and presumably meaningful
goal for you. However, step back for a second and consider which
sounds more attractive: 400 pounds (a nice even number), or, 405
pounds, which is (4) 45 pound plates on each side of the bar. Or,
if you happen to weigh 205 pounds, perhaps the concept of lifting
410— double your bodyweight— has the most appeal.
There is no right or wrong answer
here— the point of the exercise is to see how slightly different
ways of framing an objective can effect your emotional reserves.
Which option seems most appealing to you?
4) A goal must be challenging:
If your goal isn’t challenging, you’re not likely
to mobilize significant resources to attain it. For example, using
the previous example of the 400 pound squat, some would argue for
a more "realistic" goal of 365 pounds. However, while
certainly realistic, a 15 pound improvement in 11 months is hardly
the stuff of dreams, is it? In fact, it’s such a small increment
that you might be likely to forget about it before the day is over!
Better to aim for the stars and fall on the mountain peaks, as they
say.
How Long Will it Take?
5) A goal must have a specific
date of completion: Time-frames are what create pressure to
get the job done. Your time frame must be aggressive, but realistic.
If you’re not sure if your goal can be accomplished within
a certain time frame, you’ll have to either base your time-frame
on personal past experience, or you may have to do a bit of intelligence
work in order to find out.
6) Your goal must be stated in
the positive: Remember the old story where the football coach
says to his star receiver "Whatever you do, don’t drop
the ball!"? Guess what he ended up doing? You can’t plan
to not accomplish something.
A Few Essential Items to Pack for the Trip
The following collection of strategies
and skills are like a psychological "toolbox" which will
properly arm you while in pursuit of your objectives.These tools
are found in the blueprints of all champions, not only in sport,
but in life as well.
Visualization and Imagery: If
you can’t genuinely picture yourself achieving your goal, it’s
very unlikely, probably impossible that you will achieve it. The
old, overused, cliche axiom "conceive, believe, achieve"
is packed with truth. Let me relate a story from my martial arts
background. When I taught martial arts professionally, I always
had very successful kid’s classes.
Occasionally, during a quiet moment
either before or after class, or simply when the moment seemed right,
I would take a kid from a beginner’s class, and I’d remove
my black belt and tie it around his waist. Words simply cannot express
the wonder and complete change of "state" that would instantly
overcome that child— you could literally see the gears turning
as that child imagined what it would be like the day he achieved
the rank in the future.
You know the old expression "I’ll
believe it when I see it"? Long before I ever squatted
400 pounds, I saw it clearly in my mind. I actually practiced by
loading the bar on the power rack and just pondering the day when
that bar would be mine. I’d even perform "walk outs"
with the weight in preparation for the big day. I also frequently
used Olympic bumper plates, which are much thicker than iron plates
for their weight— using bumpers, a bar loaded to 176 pounds
occupies about the same space as 405 pounds of iron plates. This
way, I was really able to see myself squatting 405.
Funny thing was, the day I actually
lifted 405, it wasn’t particularly a big deal for me—
I’d felt as though I’d already done it, and this was simply
the physical expression of a capability I already knew I had. The
moral of this story is, I could give you 50 ways of becoming more
successful, but if I could remove your self-doubt, those 50 things
would improve all on their own!
Affirmations: An affirmation
is a statement of belief. It can be regularly recited, or written
and posted at a place that you’re likely to see it often during
the course of a normal day. The concept of affirmations is to overload
your psyche with positive belief statements until there is no longer
any room for preexisting negative self-perceptions— much like
taking a jar filled with water (which represents old, limiting beliefs),
and filling it with pebbles (representing the positive affirmations)
until all the water has been forced out of the container.
Although the concept of affirmations
is often the butt of late night TV humor (e.g., Saturday Night Live’s
Stuart Smalley), in truth, they are very powerful tools for the
acquisition of goals. The mind is immensely powerful— if you
can control it, that is. Ever notice how women will tell you that
they gained too much muscle after 2-3 weight training sessions?
Or have you ever heard lifters (usually guys) extol the virtues
of XYZ supplement, even though science has proven it completely
useless? This is the power of belief, my friends. If you can harness
that power to a well-designed plan, the battle is already half-won.
Sample affirmations:
"Because I expect to succeed,
I find it easy to take daily action on achieving my goal."
"I am responsible for my own future. I expect to succeed. I
control my own destiny."
"I dream big dreams, believe in them, set goals to achieve
them, and take action to make them become reality."
Create your own affirmations to support
your goal, as well as the habits and attitudes necessary for achieving
your goal. Write them on note cards and choose
a consistent time to read them at least once a day.
Modeling: A very useful concept,
popularized by Anthony Robbins (if your only exposure to Robbins
are his info-mercials, don’t rush to judgment— his concepts
and teachings have very real merit), implements what I call the
"don’t reinvent the wheel" principle: find other
people, similar to yourself, who have accomplished similar goals.
Then, find out what they did to accomplish the task(s), and repeat
those steps. Since all humans share essentially the same biology
and physiology, you should get the same result, or at least very
similar results.
For example, if your hectic, 6 day
a week work schedule is a severe obstacle to accomplishing your
goal, find a talented lifter who has succeeded with a similar schedule.
Find out how he managed to do this, and then implement the same
strategy. Chances are very strong that it’ll work for you as
well.
Cognitive dissonance: The mind
can’t maintain two contradictory beliefs simultaneously. When
you’re trying to extinguish a negative or limiting thought
process, or emotion, cognitive dissonance can be your best friend.
Let me provide an example from my competitive fighting career: When
you step into the ring with a skilled opponent your own size or
bigger, and you don’t have Don King on your side, it’s
natural to be afraid. After all, you can get hurt doing this stuff!
While fear is not entirely a bad thing (it’s a self-protective
mechanism), it does tend to make you doubt your abilities, and your
skills erode accordingly.
Over my own fighting career, I learned
little trick that helped me enormously: I learned to act. I would
put on an air of total disregard, joking with my opponent, yawning,
goofing off, and so on. It’s called "acting as if..."
What I learned is that you can’t be scared and act like you’re
bored simultaneously— something has to give. Incidentally,
this can also be called the "fake it ‘till you make it"
principle.
How does one apply this principle
toward the acquisition of challenging goals? Going back to my personal
experience with the 405 pound squat, I remember that I thought,
acted, and presented myself as a 400 pound squatter long before
I could actually do it. I would look for any and every opportunity
to demonstrate this, for example, squatting 315 completely cold
(i.e., no warmup) when someone asked me to demonstrate something
about the lift.
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Although inwardly, it was
quite a challenge for me to squat this weight cold, outwardly
I’d act completely nonchalant about it, talking through
the lift and acting as if I could squat that weight all
day long.
The idea behind all of this
is that I was gradually convincing my unconscious self that
I was a 400 pound squatter. With a bit of creativity and
imagination, you’ll come up with various ways to employ
the "fake it ‘till ‘ya make it" principle
in your own training. And if it’s not obvious by now,
yes, it IS dangerous to squat big weights without a warm-up.
In Part 2 (coming next week)
- Avoiding Collisions
Along the Way
- Fear of Failure
- Monitoring Status and
Adjusting for Errors
- PR’s: Your
Own World Records
- You’ve Arrived
at Your Destination! Now What?
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About The Author
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His colleagues call him an iconoclast,
a visionary, a rule-breaker. His clients call him “The
Secret Weapon” for his ability to see what other coaches
miss. Charles calls himself a “geek” who struggled
in Phys Ed throughout school. Whatever you call him, Charles’
methods are ahead of their time and quickly produce serious
results. His counter-intuitive approach and self-effacing
demeanor have lead to appearances on NBC’s The TODAY
Show and The CBS Early Show.
Currently, Charles competes
in Olympic-style weightlifting on the master’s circuit,
with a 3-year goal of qualifying for the 2009 Master’s
World Championships.
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