Performance Nutrition—Goal Setting 101

Have you ever left on a backwoods adventure without a map?

Would you ever sail the open ocean without a compass? 

How could you ever expect to arrive at your destination without an address?

We make and set goals everyday and never realize it.

Your wife asks you to stop at the store and grab a roasted chicken on your way home.

You now have a clear and concise goal that will either result in a reward or a good scolding.

When you leave your place of work you begin plotting the series of events that will lead you to the accomplishment of this goal.

You consider which supermarket you’ll get the best chicken at, then which course you will take, which road will be the fasted,  where to park, which chicken looks the freshest, which line is moving the quickest, how to pay, how to get home the fastest, and finally how to impress your mother-in-law. 

You do all these things without even realizing you’re doing them, and not a single thought goes into why we don’t have to think about them to get them done!

Here is another way for you to think about it.

 You go to play some basketball with the boys. You’re an average player, but an above average trash talker.

Why is it that you can dribble the ball, look down court, and trash talk at the same time, but you still can’t type with out looking at the keyboard?

The answer is firmly rooted in your subconscious.

When we set a goal and a path to achieve the goal, eventually the path becomes a subconscious journey we do not even know we are on.

Think about all the subconscious events that take place during a normal day.

What about signing your name, do you think about which letter comes next?

Goal setting is an art.

It takes time and dedication to set a goal. You want to loose weight. Most of us have decided to diet and failed, and failed again.

You believe you have set a goal “I want to lose weight”!

Why did you fail?

Well let’s examine this a lot more closely.

First, the goal, “I want to lose weight”, is very unclear.

How much? By when? Muscle or fat?

All of that should be sorted out, but we will deal with that in a bit.

The point I really want to cover is rather profound.

We need to first set a subconscious pathway. I have some bad news though; your subconscious will not work with negatives or deletion.

For example; think about the sky, what was the first mental image that popped into your head?

Blue sky will be the answer for most.

Now the next test. Do not think about the ocean.

Again the first thing that showed up in most people’s vision was an ocean.

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