Hello and welcome back to Brain in the Game. Brain in the Game is a podcast that's been specifically designed for athletes, coaches and parents who are out there looking to do their sport just that little bit smarter. Brain in the Game is the perspective our coaches speak of. And I'm your host, Dave Diggle.
In this episode 71, we're going to look at goal setting and the five key steps to staying on track. Now, the third Monday of every New Year is historically one of the darkest days for most people. The people who work at lifeline put more staff on during that day. Now, it's not an eclipse day, it's not a world coming to an end kind of day. What it is is most people realising that the New Year's resolutions that they put out there, the 1 January every single year, they're not sticking to. So it's a part of our human nature that we get to that point in a realisation moment and go, just goodwill or just good intention isn't good enough. So what we can look at today is sustainability of setting and goals and achieving them. Now, those of you who have listened to me before know that I don't actually talk about, per se, setting goals.
What I talk about is setting an objective and then setting goals to achieve that objective. Now, we put it in that context for a very, very specific reason, and we put it in a context that allows us to optimise the way we are as humans. We need to know exactly what the difference is between setting an objective and setting a goal. We know that an objective is emotion based. It's something that's really important to us. The objective might be, I want to be a world champion, I want to be the best in the world at what I do, I want to be selected this season. I want to be the number one player. Whatever that is, that's emotionally driven. Whatever that is for you is emotionally driven for you. It's unique to you. Other people may share your objective, but it will never seem to be exactly the same thing for them as it is to you. So making sure that your objective is something that's relevant to you, not just your coach, is critical. If an objective is an emotion and step, a destination for us, our buying process, then the goals need to be the action steps, the reward processes we go through each and every day.
So when we think about a goal, we celebrate goals. When we watch somebody score a goal, everybody jumps up and screams and shouts because it's something to recognise as a success point. When we hit that success point, we want to make sure that we reward it so it makes sense to have more success point towards our objective. If our objective is something that's a distance away, whether that be a week away, a month away, a season away or even years away, if you're preparing for Olympic championship, then often it's a four plus year process. If you had to wait four plus years before you start feeling good about what you did, then that opens up the opportunity then to fall off the conveyor belt. So let's first start by shifting our terminology around what we're doing here. We're going to set objectives and then set goals to achieve that objective. So we're setting an emotion and then we're set in intention. Having a reliable and reputable system, therefore, is critical. If we know that after three weeks every year, the vast majority of people stop adhering to that New Year's resolution that they've set with all that good intention, with all that good purpose behind them.
They're already starting to eat the cake, they're already starting to drink too much or maybe smoke or whatever it is, or not exercise. We know that athletes have just a little bit more stickability, a little bit more discipline. Now, all discipline is is a reason to do something. It's not, I have or I don't have discipline. I recognise the reason why I'm doing this. So if they do have that little bit stick ability, that's why this at the start of February, we're looking at this for athletes. We want to make sure that you set great objectives and reliable replicable goals to get there. I said we could look at five key steps of staying on track. The first one is clarity. The clearer you set your objective and your goals along the way, the more accountability you have to those. We know that ambiguity is just an opportunity to not succeed. We know that if we set a really ambiguous objective and a really ambiguous goal. Then it allows us to go either. Yeah. I got that. And fool ourselves and not be prepared. Not be ready. Not be in the right place at the right time.
Or if we're the kind of person that things are just never good enough. Then we'll never know when we've actually got that skill. Or we're waiting to feel like we've got that skill again. If you've listened to any of my previous podcasts or been along to any of my lectures, you know, I talk about the fact that our emotions will lie to us. If you're waiting to feel a certain way, if you're waiting to feel ready, then it's part of our brain to tell us that. Just in case. I don't actually know if I do feel ready. I feel nervous, so therefore I don't feel great. So therefore if I'm waiting to feel a certain way, then maybe I'm not feeling ready. We've just created doubts in our brains, so therefore we start to doubt. We're ready. Our goals and our objectives need to have more clarity. So the specificity behind setting both an objective and a goal, it allows us to stay on track. It allows us to have the accountability of yes, I've got it. Or you know what? I'm still not there yet because when I get this, I know I've got it.
So that's a surety that comes with that clarity. So we need to know our what. It needs to be clear, concise, and precise and we need to know our why because we want to increase its value. It needs to be way more valuable to us than any excuse that we can come up with because if we lower our value, then we increase our ability to compromise and say, well, yeah, I've kind of got it. I'm almost there. No one will know. Only I knew about my objective and my goal. So therefore it doesn't really matter. So we want to make sure that we understand our why. Why are we doing this? Why do we want to achieve this? What's it going to do for us? What's it going to allow us to do? How is it going to make us feel about ourselves? Now, I know I just said to you, feelings lie to us, yet there's still an integral part of who we are. We're human whether you like it or not. And I know a lot of you athletes out there reckon you're not human, but you are human. And because of that, emotion is part and parts of who we are and how we process it's just where we choose to put that emotion that is really important to us.
If we put it at the start of a process, then it clouds the process. We don't know we're taking the right step because it's not always going to feel the same way yet if we put our emotion at the end of the process and it allows us to enjoy what we've achieved. So as a human, we want to make sure that we know exactly what we're looking for, exactly what it looks like to us, sounds like, feels like to us. So we've got that clarity and then we want to know how important it is to us. So we've got that buying that purpose to overcome those hurdles, to make sure we get up every single day and push ourselves to be the best version of ourselves. So if clarity is number one, number two is we need to work out and make sure it's simple. It needs to be a process that doesn't have too many moving parts. It doesn't distract us from our purpose. It doesn't make every single day go, I've got to go through that whole thing again today. It needs to dovetail into our world. So we got to keep it simple.
The more complicated we make it, the more moving parts that it has, the more opportunity there is for us to jump off that path to make all those excuses understand, well, you know what? I just couldn't fit it in today or I was busy or I was tired. All of the opportunities you possibly can to not achieve, the more simple, the more tailored, the more bespoke he is for you, the less intrusive it is into your days. It should fit. It should be like a piece of software that just sits into your process you don't really see yet. It allows you to collect data and keep you on path. It needs to be low emission, so low output and low emotion, so low reactions. We want to make sure that we can create a process that fits. There's no one size fits all with this. It is what works for me. And again that comes back to number one, the purpose, making sure that you have such clarity, you know, how it fits. Number three is get what we focus on. So for some people we know that if we focus on excuses, we'll find excuses.
Our brain is really clever like that. If you tell it I want to find something, it will find it. Unless of course you're talking about your car keys, which nobody understands why they always get lost. But when we're thinking about performance, we're thinking about excuses or we're thinking about how we value ourselves. If we want to look for a floor in what we do, I guarantee it doesn't matter how good you are, how dedicated you are, how consistent you are. If you spend your focal currency and that's what I talk about when I'm talking about where you put your focus, is your focal currency on finding a problem, then you will find it because your brain is really diligent in making sure that, hey, there's something here that could cause us harm. There's something here that could derail us. So I'm going to go out there, I'm going to diligently find that problem, that floor. So if we get what we focus on, we want to make sure that we're focusing on something that's going to give us a really good return on investment. There's an exercise you can download here. It's actually just a template to show you about focus.
And one of the cool things about my job is I get to make up certain words and the words I've used here is for stickability in your brain and memorable memories. We talk about up bumpers versus down bumpers. Humans are very good, as I said, are looking for things that could harm us, things that are of danger to us. We look for those differences. We also look for familiarity because that's comfortable to us. So if we're looking for something to be wrong. We're going to find multiple examples of that in everything that we do because it makes us validate why we feel so bad at what we're doing. And if we constantly look at the downside of things, what our brain says, I know you want to become National Champion, but how about we lower expectations a little bit? Rather than becoming National Champion, how about we finish in the top five? Because I don't want you to feel bad. So if I lower the expectation, you're not going to feel quite so bad, and you may actually hit that, and then you go back to that same cycle or focus on things that didn't work for you, and your brain goes, look, we've gone from National Champion to finishing the top five.
How about we just finish the competition? It's Achievable goal. It's not going to make you feel so bad. Nobody's going to know. And we start to underachieve, and we do that through the choice of language we're using in how we describe what we're doing. This constant focus on things that could go wrong. This engagement of our brain to look for things that are flawed in what we do will make our brain also lower our expectations. So we want to flip that around. If we know we get what we focus on, we want to start focusing on what we want. We want to start focusing on things that have been successful so we can replicate those and what our brain does, and it kicks in and does exactly the same thing and says to you, okay, I know you want to become National Champion, but you know what? How about we break a record while we're doing that? And I know you want to become National Champion, and we're going to break a record, but you keep telling me that we're doing so great, how about we become World Champion? So already we're starting to overachieve.
We're starting to create momentum in a way more positive direction. So getting what we focus on means we need to focus on exactly what we want. If we focus on what we don't want, we will find it. If we focus on what we do want, then we're more likely to create an environment for us to perform. So setting the objective of what we want with the clarity, making sure it's got value to us, and then making sure we focus on it, is a good winning formula to create positive momentum in the right direction. Another aspect to positive momentum is the fuel that we choose to use to create that momentum and maintain that momentum. So we want to make sure that when we do achieve something and this is where the goal aspect comes in, we want to reward it. What we're looking at doing is increasing the serotonin in our brain that feel good drug, that thing that along with the dopamine goes, this is awesome. I want more of this. So recognition and reward is such a critical part of what we do. It allows us as athletes who get up every single day and go in the gym or go running or go in the pool, whatever we do, to see value and purpose in what we do, it doesn't feel so bad because we love it and we love it.
Don't love every single day. There's days that we get up and go, I don't want to be here. However, if we've got this buying, if we've got this focus on what we want, if we've got this reward system that's feeding us, it might be okay. I don't feel good today. My legs ache or my arms are sore or whatever I did yesterday has left me feeling like I've been run over by steamroller. However, I want that feeling again of success that becomes a higher grade value than the excuse. So we're more likely to buy into what we want. So recognition and reward equals positive momentum. This is why we have daily objectives. My objective today is to do X, right? I've achieved that. I've got this goal, this goal, this goal all the way there. Every time I hit one of these goals, I've recognised I've hit the goal. And so then I've hit my daily objective. So it's not just about setting objectives for your career or even your season. It's weekly, monthly, even daily objectives. The more we feed this emotional monster positivity, the more likely it is it's going to feed us success.
So we also want to start collecting replicable and relevant data. So when I say replicable and relevant data, we want to be asking ourselves the same kind of questions every single day. We want to make sure that the information coming in, the data that we collect is usable. It's also relevant. We want to make sure if I'm asking what worked today, what didn't work, what do I do different? Then tomorrow? I want to ask exactly the same question so I've got comparable data. I can look at it and go, I know what worked yesterday. You know what? It didn't work today. What's the difference? What did I or did I not do that caused the thing not to work? Now I've got something I can work on and adjust. Maybe I go back a day and go, you know what? When I focused on this, I got my outcome. Maybe I tried to improve too quickly. I didn't have that growth mindset of sustainability. I wanted to make sure that what we do each and every day allows us to move to the next day. I want to be better today than I was yesterday and I want to know tomorrow I'm going to be better than I am today.
That gives us that momentum forward and that purpose and drive. So we want to collect the right kind of data, then we want to adjust. We want to repeat. So we feed that cycle. Those of you who have been through my performance framework exercise that consolidate, construct and implement process. What you'll notice is we collect the right amount of data, we build a unique, tailored bespoke programme, and then we apply a competition. And then when we come out of that competition, we collect even better data to put back into the new system that feeds the competition. And then you've got even more data, and so on and so on. So this cycle that we go through is a growth mindset cycle, an upward trajectory. If we only focus on the things that go wrong, we get this downward trajectory. Because this didn't work. The data I've collected to things that aren't working. So my system, we get what we focus on. My system is geared to me being a failure or trying to improve the parts that didn't work. Yes, my friend of thought is the things that didn't work. And then when I come to competition, I'm looking at negativity, so therefore I'm underachieving, which impacts the quality and the relevance of my data.
So our brain will follow that system. We want to make sure the quality of the information coming in will dictate the quality of the performance. So let me just quickly run through goal setting and why we do what we do. We looked at number one, and that is having the clarity of exactly what we want. It needs to be emotional to us. It needs to be something that we really bought into, something that is of high value to us. That's our objective. Then we got to look at the goals, our daily, our weekly and monthly, our seasoned goals that feed into that. So these are our action steps. Every single one of those is something that we get the opportunity to reward. So we create the fuel that keeps us moving, it keeps us on track, that keeps us going in the right direction. We then looked at making sure that it needs to fit in our world. It's not something that's going to be cumbersome, something that's going to inhibit our training or our daily structure or our daily processes. We want to be able to secrete it into our world without effectiveness in a negative format.
We then recognise we got to focus on what exactly what we want. We looked at the up and down bumpers. When we look at the down bumpers, our brain kicks in to protect us and starts to underachieve. It starts to lower our objective at the end. So that way we want to make sure we focus on the positive, the things that are working, the replicable parts, of course, we want to make sure that we recognise the things that aren't working, so we can then look at what we need to do differently. So therefore we're solution based thinking rather than catastrophizing, which most people do. They're looking at, this is not working. I can't do this. Maybe I'm not good enough. That's catastrophizing. If we look at this and this is not working, what do I need to do to fix that? What do I need to do to correct that? Now let me implement that and secrete that into my day. So I now become solution based thinking, not catastrophizing. We looked at number four, which was rewards. We want to fuel our process, our momentum with that positivity, making sure that we recognise everything and we want to collect and adjust.
So we want to collect the relevant data, make adjustments where they need to be, apply that, so, of course, the application is critical, and then collect even better data. That allows us to build a better system, which allows us to perform better. We want to create a system that feeds itself. So as you start on your preseason, as you start to think about, what am I going to do today? The silly season is over. I know I'm back into training. This ability to set and stay on track is critical for anybody who wants to have success moving forward. There will be some templates you can download, like the down bumper is an up bumpy process to look at what we're doing here. And also, if you want more details on how this system works, I've just finished an online video training programme called Building Champion Minds. And the links below this, I'll put a link to go in there. There's ten modules, about 13 hours of training that you as an athlete can go through, and it covers a multitude of different subjects from these kind of things setting achieving goals and objectives, to managing our emotions, to performing each and every time consistently.
So there's about 13 hours worth of trainings in there that are available to you. And, of course, there's always the face to face trainings we do as well. And I put all of those links in the bottom of this podcast. So I hope you've got a lot from this podcast. I'll be following this up in a few weeks time with actual structural processes that you as an athlete can put into your day. So we looked at that, how do I secrete this into my day to day process without it inhibiting my performance, taking too much of my time, being contrary to what my coaches want? I'll run through that as a different podcast in a few weeks time. So, until the next time, enjoy your training and train smart. My name is Dave Diggle and I'm the performance mind coach.
