As we kick off 2016, it’s the perfect time to set your goals for the new year. But by “goals”, I don’t just mean your New Year’s resolutions stating that you want to do something better next year, I am talking about very specific process goals. Yes, you need big picture outcome goals such as scoring milestones, tournament finishes, your dream university, etc to keep you motivated and driven to reach the end result that you are working towards, but when setting goals you need to be very specific in what you need to do day in and day out, week in and week out, in order to achieve those big outcome goals.

I had a lesson in goal setting myself recently that I thought I would share to help encourage you to set your goals for 2016. All the way back to my college golf days, I never wanted to set goals for myself. It drove my coach, Mic Potter, crazy when he would ask what my goals were for the upcoming season and I would just say to “play well”. For a long time, I was the type to float along, day by day, doing what I could to get better and hope the results would take care of themselves. Which don’t get me wrong, not being so overly focused on certain outcome goals can be a good thing, but it can also be the source of a lot of wasted time and the reason you don’t reach your potential.

I ran into the same issues in my professional golf career and even with the first few years of my business. I never really had any specific goals as a professional golfer, each year I was just trying to get or keep my LPGA status and make cuts. Not until the end of my career did I begin to understand what process goals were and how they help you be accountable, stay on track and work towards the big outcome goals you have for yourself. And within my business, I ran into the same struggles early on with not wanting to set specific goals for myself, but 2015 was a big year for me to finally understand what goal setting is really all about. Actually, one of my goals for 2016 is simply to be a better goal setter. Ha!

As I began to set my big outcome goals for 2016, I started to add some smaller goals that I feel are needed in order to achieve the big goals I have set for myself and my business. For instance, I have my goals for 2016 broken down so small that I included how many blogs I want to write, how many webinars I want to host, how many new pdf guides to create, how many new college coach connections I want to make and about 25 more small process goals that will all help me achieve one big goal I have for my business. I even surprised myself on how specific I was able to be with the small process goals which I know will all help me to be accountable in the present so that I can reach my future big outcome goals. I plan to create a big chart that allows me to track all of these on a weekly and monthly basis and check them off as I go.

Being a sole business owner can be very difficult because I don’t have anyone to hold me accountable for the goals I set for myself. This is very similar to what junior golfers struggle with since so much of their practice time is spent on their own, without a coach telling them when to be there and what to do. But goal setting for junior golfers is so important to help them achieve the goals they have for the future.

A few suggestions for junior golfers as they consider their goals for 2016:

  • Write down a few BIG goals, these may not even be ones that can be accomplished in 2016 but they are goals that are important to you. You can even create a colorful vision board with these BIG goals and hang it up in your room as a reminder. Make sure to include WHY these goals are important to you.
  • Then write down 4-6 specific short-term outcome goals that can realistically be accomplished in 3-6 months
  • Some examples of short-term outcome goals include: scoring milestones, tournament finishes, improve a certain stat, increasing clubhead speed, number of college visits, reading a golf book
  • Then break each of those goals down into weekly process goals, the more specific you are the more likely you are to stay on track
  • Some examples of process goals include: certain drills to complete each week, number of practice hours, rounds of golf per week, tournaments per month, keeping up with your own stats, eating during tournament rounds, specific workout exercises, setting your schedule for the week, sending out emails to coaches, making phone calls, reading pages of a golf book
  • Create a chart with all of these specific process goals and check them off each day or at the end of the week. Always focus on these goals and the outcome will take care of itself