The weirdest thing is that I actually learned something about achieving goals from that little index card. I felt like a nerd writing them down, but I still have the paper with my original goals. So, fortunate reader, I will now share with you what baseball taught me about setting and achieving goals.
Make your goal something you can DO.
When you make a goal, don't set it up as some negative thing to avoid. "Eat less junk food" isn't something you can really do. It's something NOT to do. So what can you DO to avoid eating less junk food? Come up with a series of actions that can be accomplished. Which leads me to #2:
Make big goals that can be broken down into mini goals.
In baseball, everyone wanted to win the conference championship. That was the big goal. But what were the mini goals that would help us get there? Extra time in the batting cage before practice? More time in the weight room? Making almost 100% perfect throws during practice? The point is, you need to have some little goals that will eventually lead to achieving your long term objective.
Make your goals specific.
This is almost the same as number two, but it bears repeating. Vague goals are easy to abandon and hard to measure. "Become a better student" is not a clear, specific goal. What does that even mean, "become a better student?" Better writer? Better scores on test? Participating more in class? Make the goal specific, set up some mini goals that will help you achieve it, and then you can measure whether or not you are meeting your goal.
I keep these three techniques in mind every time I set a goal, and they have served me well so far. There's an added sense of satisfaction when you set specific mini goals, because you get little bits of success along the way, and you can adjust your behavior as needed. Keep the big goal in sight, but do it while knocking out the mini goals one by one.
Photo credit: Lululemonathletica
