Jason Grindstaff: Jonathan, Jonathan Davis: Hey how are you doing?
Jason: How are you doing today man?
Jonathan: All right, all right.
Jason: All is well?
Great we have this opportunity, so yeah, today we're gonna be talking about goal setting.
Jonathan: Oh man that's big.
Jason: It is, it is.
So tell me about ... Help the viewer, welcome the viewer into this-
Jonathan: Yeah- Jason: You know, tell us about a time that
you set a goal for yourself that you really had to push yourself, maybe back when you
were in high school or competing as a bowler in college.
Jonathan: Yeah, bowling is very big for me, not big for anybody else, but very big for
me, I remember in high school, my sophomore year I definitely wanted to do something whether
it would be that year or just within my four years of high school.
... Wanted to do something that I was gonna be remembered by.
High school was probably the best four years of my life so I definitely wanted to do something
that's within that realm of bowling, to kind of get myself remembered as well as to set
I guess that goal, set that mindset for maybe other younger bowlers to come to the high
school.
One of the goals that I set for myself was to make it to the State tournament.
I'm from Nashville, Tennessee and making it to the State tournament was something that
was definitely definitely the top goal being a sophomore in high school.
So to make a long story short once I got to my junior year, I got a call from my coach
and our bowling program was about four or five years new at the time and my coach told
me, he said "how would you feel if I told you you made it to State this year?", and
I was like man you're lying ... I don't believe it.
It's just a true fortunate thing in order for that to have happened like it did because
I really did for my sophomore year to my junior year worked definitely hard on ... More diligent,
I was in the bowling alley probably two or three times a week.
Jason: Jonathan, sounds like you really had to work extremely hard at that goal-
Jonathan: Yeah- Jason: And once you accomplished that goal
of making it to State, I bet you were just on cloud nine.
Jonathan: Oh man, my nerves were just out of the way, man, so ...
Jason: So when we talk about goal setting, there's really four reasons why sport psychologists
believe that goals work, of how they actually help a person take a dream and make it become
a reality.
So the first thing that it does, it helps the person focus attention-
Jonathan: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Jason: So there's four reasons, so it helps
a person ... Certainly helps them focus their attention.
The second one is that it helps mobilize energy, so we call that kind of the motivation pice
of it.
Certainly when we're working towards our goals we're gonna encounter setbacks and obstacles-
Jonathan: Right- Jason: It encourages persistence, you know-
Jonathan: Persistence, wow- Jason: So we've got our persistence.
And then finally, the last thing that when we set goals it helps performers do, is it
aids in the learning process- Jonathan: Gotcha, right-
Jason: All right, so we're able to learn new strategies.
So when we look at that, all right, so when we set a goal it helps us focus better, helps
mobilize that energy, increases motivation, helps with persistence and helps with the
learning process.
You know, unfortunately though, I'd imagine you and much like some athletes weren't always
perfect in setting goals- Jonathan: Not at all-
Jason: So, some of the mistakes, can you think of maybe a mistake that athletes make when
they set a goal?
Jonathan: I think one of them even personally with my goal that I had set to make it to
State, was the inconsistency, a lot of times I would bowl two or three times a week, then
I'd be off- Jason: There you go.
Jonathan: For two or three, for a couple weeks.
So that being said, inconsistency is something that definitely kinda leans that goal setting
a little bit to the negative side of it getting done versus the positive-
Jason: Absolutely, so maybe athletes don't work consistently towards their goal-
Jonathan: Yes, sir- Jason: Another mistakes that athletes oftentimes
make is that they'll set their goals in the negative-
Jonathan: Yeah- Jason: As a bowler, you're walking up to the
line and you're thinking in a pressured situation, don't throw it in the gutter-
Jonathan: Yeah- Jason: And as soon as you think "don't throw
it in the gutter", what happens?
Jonathan: You throw it in the gutter (laughs).
That's really true.
Jason: As well as a couple other mistakes that are big that athletes will make, is they
don't set their goals to be specific- Jonathan: Right-
Jason: Or they'll set overly general goals, or what they'll do is a lot of times they
don't follow up, we don't have a way to kind of continuously evaluate those goals.
So what I thought we would do in the rest of our time in sharing with the viewers here
let's look at a way or a principle that athletes can use to kind of overcome some of those
pitfalls- Jonathan: Yes, yes-
Jason: If you will.
So let's take a look here, and we're gonna share a principle.
So how about I hand you the marker here, and it's called the SMART principle.
Excellent, excellent.
So when I think of ... And I'll grab one here as well.
So, when we're working towards SMART goals, this is really an acronym to help athletes
set better goals and work towards their goals more effectively.
Jonathan: Right.
Jason: And what we think of, I'll have you kind of write the word up there, but I think
of S as being specific, I think of a target.
We want our goals to be as specific as possible.
There you go.
So we've got a target here, and we want to be laser focused on that goal.
Exactly, exactly.
So here's a clue as to our next ... Jonathan: I think I see where you're going.
Jason: What do you think we got there?
Jonathan: Measurable.
Jason: Measurable, exactly.
So we want our goals to be measurable.
Meaning, we want them to be objective, we want to be able to look at it at the end of
the season, did we accomplish our goal or not?
So let's say that your goal is to make it to State-
Jonathan: Right- Jason: Were you able to look at it at the
end of the season and say, did I make it to State or not?
Jonathan: Definitely at the end of it I was able to get some different documents, some
certifications, and stuff like that that showed that I was there.
So it's good to kind of reapply- Jason: There you go, there you go.
When we talk about the A, sometimes we get a lot of athletes that will set their goal
in the negative, like don't throw it in the gutter.
Jonathan: Sounds like it's not attainable.
Jason: There you go.
So there's a couple of things it could be, we want them to be attainable, and we want
them to be action oriented.
So we want them to be written and specified in the positive.
Go ahead, it can be attainable, or we can oftentimes say it's action oriented.
Great, great, great.
All right.
So we then move on and we want our goals to be, the next one that we say, we want 'em
to be realistic- Jonathan: Yeah-
Jason: Realistic, so for you over here, I mean you had to dream this image of going
to State- Jonathan: Yes, yes-
Jason: So you have to dream it in your mind and make it realistic in your mind before
it was ever realistic in person- Jonathan: Right, right-
Jason: But here's the thing, you know, if we set our goals too high, like if your goal
would have been to go in from your sophomore year to junior, you wanted to be a national
champion.
Was that realistic for you?
Jonathan: Not at all- Jason: Not to discredit your bowling abilities.
Okay, all right, we want 'em to be realistic and we want it to just be far enough out of
your reach that you gotta stretch yourself but I think it's important to dream that but
we want to keep them realistic as well.
Jonathan: Yes, sir ... Jason: Excellent, all right.
And then here is your final clue for our last one.
Jonathan: Okay.
Jason: What do you think the T is gonna stand for?
Jonathan: Goal setting definitely takes timing.
Jason: Fantastic.
So we want them to be timely or time oriented, all right?
That means that we want to have a schedule attached.
So you wanted to be doing it for your sophomore year, junior year, you knew by the end of
that junior year that you wanted to be a State qualifier-
Jonathan: Yes, sir- Jason: You didn't just say that you wanted
your goal to be a State qualifier because there was no time orient to it-
Jonathan: Right, right- Jason: It could've been your sophomore year,
your junior year, your senior year- Jonathan: Right-
Jason: But you had set that goal by the end of your third year of high school, that that's
when you wanted to be a State qualifier, so it was timely or time oriented.
So in essence what we have here and what we've covered today is we covered some of the reasons
why the goal setting process works.
It helps us focus our attention better, it helps mobilize our physical energy, it helps
increase persistence through some of those outcome obstacles and set backs and it helps
us learn new strategies.
The second thing that we covered were maybe some of those pitfalls, some of the things
that athletes might not do consistently, or not do at all in the goal setting process,
and then you very beautifully walked us through the SMART principle.
What I think we'll do there is kinda push the pause button and maybe in our next video
what we'll do is teach some of those viewers out there on how to set smarter goals more
effectively with maybe some additional examples.
How does that sound?
Jonathan: Gotcha, sounds good- Jason: All right, my friend-
Jonathan: Thank you- Jason: Very good job-
Jonathan: Alright, good work