A mental skills training tip to achieve your goals is to understand the difference between the different types of goals.

A poorly prepared performer wll just focus upon the outcome goal. I will win the Olympic gold in London 2012. With this as their only goal they have no direction, no performance requirements and no benchmarking on improvements or declines. If the performer wakes on the day of the final and does not feel too good and comes in 2nd, they will consider that they have failed as they did not achieve thier goal.

However, in real terms they have come second in their event against the whole world and cannot be classed as a failure. This is why it is imperative to have an outcome goal but that stays then in the background as your chosen destination. The importance is to get to that destination and that will be achieved in mental skills training by the use of process goals and performance goals.

A process goal will be the day to day practice, tactics and technique used in your efforts and a performance goal is one that can be measured as to the times, weight or height etc that you deliver in your practice and competition. These goals should be worked on daily, weekly, monthly and annually to take you towards your desired outcome goal.

Mental skills training can help you develop your short, medium and long term plan for goal achievement.

Geoff Greenwood

www.geoffgreenwood.com