Goal Setting is a very simple term and one that you may be very familiar with and have even used at some point during your life. It is simply defined as a psychological tool used to motivate us towards a goal or end state (what we desire). The original goal setting theory (Latham & Locke, 1979) itself has been adapted over the years to engage more with the sport and exercise world to help improve motivation across all levels of sport and exercise. You set a goal and you achieve it – In its most basic form, goal setting is that simple. However, the research would suggest that the outcome we have set our self is quite often not fully under our own control (Duda, 1992, 1997) and is not even very achievable, which eventually affects our confidence and motivation to continue exercising.

The main problem here is that goals being set are over complicated, restrictive, perhaps too easy/too short and we often find ourselves overwhelmed by our own high demands, or losing touch with goals that are not personal enough to our desires. Goal Setting itself is broken down into a simple acronym called SMARTER, of which I shall outline SMART below in this article to aid goal setting in the future. (Goal Setting and the “ER” of “SMARTER” shall be further outlined in part II of this article).

Specific. Make your goals specific to what you want to achieve. Vague goals can often be confusing and cause us to lose touch of what we actually want to achieve, whilst goals not specific to you can feel impersonal and you may not be able to relate to your own personal targets of achievement.

Measurable. Measure your goals effectively. How can they be measured? E.G. Am I making improvements in distance, time, weight-loss, number of active days per week? (Particularly good phone apps for measuring exercise and food intake are: Runkeeper & MyFitnessPal).

Achievable. Your goals must challenge you but also must be achievable in the long run. Make sure you’re not setting goals that you can never achieve, but more so that can be achieved but will still challenge you. This will greatly improve confidence as well as increase motivation to continue with regular physical exercise.  

Realistic. The goals must be realistic in terms of what you want to achieve. Again, they must challenge you but also be relatable to yourself – maintaining a balance between challenging and achievable goals, specific to your personal desires.

Time-Oriented. Goals should have a time limit. This creates the perception that we must then achieve a goal within a certain time frame, thus giving us the motivation to successfully achieve our goals. E.G. Running a 10K charity event in the next 3 months in an hour.

We must make sure our goals are in line with SMART to successfully use goal setting and increase our motivation. Unfortunately, what is not included in the acronym but is just as important is this simple rule: We must break down long-term goals into short-term goals. This will be elaborated upon in PART II. Please see Part II of Goal Setting to see how we can then maintain our motivation after setting our goals.