Did you know that mental tools used by athletes are also great tools that can help us to optimize our performance in relation to goals?

An exceptionally good technique to keep motivation when dealing with goals is that instead of working with only a result goal, we work with three parallel goals: result, performance and an emotional goals.

The concept states that when striving to achieve goals, it is not only about winning, but also about the way we reach them and how we feel about it.

Could this be applied in other areas? The answer is YES.

Let´s try an example.

Objective: You want to become a great public speaker

First goal-Result:

You can set the result goal with something that can be measured as for instance a feedback form where the audience can score your presentation from worst to best with 1 to 5.

You could formulate the result goal as “getting a score 5”

Second goal – Performance:

This goal is about thinking about your personal best.

You might get a result score lower than the 5 but the performance goal will help you to improve as the target here is only compared with your own previous performances.

It could be that this time your presentation is performed without notes, your body language is more relaxed. The performance goal is much more under your control than the result goal, as it is only your performance that matters.

This can involve feedback comments added to the score form so you get assessment from the audience, or subjectively assessing your own progress in relation with past presentations, which can either be a self-assessment, a coach, friend or a mentor making an assessment of your performance improvement.

Third goal – Emotional:

This goal is about that nice feeling of having done your best and know that you could not do better than you did.

The sweet thing of the performance and the emotional goals is that we have all the power to always reach them. Even though the result goal can feel motivating in the beginning, it has the disadvantage that we do not have full control over it.

We often devote too much of our goal reasoning only to the result but adding the performance and the emotion, we are allowing ourselves to identify our progress with specific parameters that will reinforce our motivation when most needed.

At the same time, we are becoming better to reveal and appreciate those unnoticed efforts that are already leading to that final success achievement.