A recent change in personal circumstances has, for the time being, completely changed my ability to train and take part in events. This has obviously been a frustrating time, so I’ve taken a few days to feel sorry for myself, accepted the situation, and have now moved on to reframing this from a threat to my running goals into a challenge. As I’ve sat down and thought about how to overcome it, it’s been necessary to revisit the process of goal setting.
For a goal to be useful it has to be attainable, and the simple fact is that my new circumstances mean my existing goals aren’t. Setting goals tends to begin with what we want to achieve in the long run, and as I hope my change of circumstances is temporary, I still believe my end goal, achieving a ballot-qualifying time for Spartathlon, remains within my capability with appropriate training. What soon became clear, though, is that my current plan to get there is no longer possible, so it’s time to rethink the process.
Process Goals
I’ve highlighted the word “process” for a reason, these are typically considered the most important type of goal for runners to focus on. They’re the goals you can control and achieve, and they help motivate you to keep training when your event could be months or even years away. A process goal might be to complete one speed workout a week or to run five times a week, goals that, when completed, move you towards your performance goals.
Performance Goals
These are the goals almost all of us are familiar with, for many it will be to run a marathon, to break 4 or 3 hours in the marathon, or to achieve a PB in a 5k race. Performance goals focus on your own performance, so they’re also a good motivator, driving you to achieve the process goals that move you into a position to hit them. Both process and performance goals are in your control, and hitting your process goals builds the confidence and ability to achieve your performance goals.
Focusing on both of these types of goals is a positive: they’re in your control, and your ability to achieve them depends on you and the effort you put in, as long as they’ve been set at realistic, attainable levels. As such, they’re an intrinsic part of your training.
Outcome Goals
Outcome goals can be tricky. They’re out of your control, because your ability to achieve them depends on events you have no influence over. You could set an outcome goal of winning a 5k race, but you can’t control the performance of other runners, so you could have the performance of your life and still not win. Setting outcome goals isn’t necessary for everyone, but if you do set them, it’s crucial to also have process and performance goals in place, otherwise you could be improving massively but only see the negative if someone else is always faster or goes further.
The Result
If you decide on your performance goal, then work backwards to figure out which process goals will move you in the right direction, and trust in that process, then the performance and outcome goals that seemed such a dream, and that you maybe only partially believed were achievable at the start, are very likely to become your reality.
What Now
So this is the process I’m going through. My performance goal remains the same: to run the ballot time for Spartathlon, with the outcome goal being to run Spartathlon itself, which I accept is out of my hands. So now I’m creating new process goals. I don’t know what they are yet, but they’ll drive me towards these two goals.
When developing my clients’ training plans, these are the goals I consider, and going through the process of reviewing my own has made me realise I need to make them a more visible part of my coaching process.
Have you considered your process and performance goals? If, like many, you have a performance goal but haven’t really thought about your process goals, take some time to think it through and put some in place, I’m sure it will help you focus your training and achieve your goals.
If you need help setting yourself some goals for your training, you can book a free consultation below and let me help you.
– Steve
