Why Goal Setting Will Drive Your Game Forward

Vital to every golfer’s success are clear, measurable and challenging goals. Not vague and general goals, like ‘to be the best I can be’, but definite accomplishments you want to achieve, along with specific steps you will take to get you there. Clear goals and objectives are your driving force.

“The reward for goal setting is that as you achieve each goal, you feel in charge of your own destiny, with every moment taken up productively. Self-esteem increases and it becomes easier to remain motivated. So set those high goals and make clear plans for their execution.” Archibald Marwizi

Here are some goal-setting mental skills and objectives, and why they work!

Goal Setting Will Help You Create A Vision

Visions are important to improve your game as they are emotionally charged, and emotions drive people and outcomes. Visions get into your subconscious, which drives a lot of your behaviours. As you know, imagery is very important in playing an individual golf shot – the more you can remind yourself of what you want by consciously thinking about it, the more you ingrain it in your subconscious mind to help you move towards it.

But in order to program your subconscious, you need to speak in the language it understands – pictures. When you create the image, the subconscious creates the feeling and the belief. For your long-term goals, it’s important that you have a strong visual image to get it deep into your subconscious. Tiger had a poster of Jack Nicklaus on his wall to remind him of his life goal, which is to beat Jack’s record of 18 majors. That image would have been a big motivator for the success he’s already achieved. In order to achieve his goal, Tiger had a vision and he looked at it every day.

Goals Give You Focus

There will always be many things trying to get your attention, so defining what is most important to you will help you focus, on a daily and weekly basis. By setting short and long-term goals to accomplish, you’ll identify the best way to spend your time to get you to where you want to go.

Goals Keep You Motivated

“Goal setting for golfers can be inspiring and motivate us to put in the effort each day. If we focus too much on what we want to achieve, we can miss out on the journey. If you are always doing something now to achieve something in the future, you are not fully experiencing the moment you are living in.”

David MacKenzie – GolfStateofMind.com

Goals Create A Sense Of Urgency

Time is the most valuable commodity we have, and we can’t buy more of it. If we don’t think (often) about how we’re spending it, it’s easy for it to be squandered. By sitting down and defining your golf goals (the more specific the better),and giving them a clear deadline you’ll push harder to get them done.

Goals Help You Build Confidence

“Confidence is the most important single factor in this game, and no matter how great your natural talent, there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.”

Jack Nicklaus.

Achieving smaller goals builds confidence and makes you feel a sense of accomplishment and high productivity. You’ll feel like you’re moving forward and build confidence in your process.

Goals Give You A Benchmark

The goal-setting process makes you take an honest look at where you are now relative to where you want to go. By doing this, you can get a benchmark to compare yourself against, so you know if you’re getting better, or not.

Goals Hold You Accountable

Writing down your goals and reminding yourself of them (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and beyond), will give you some accountability to getting them done. There is space at the back of your Oneday Golf Journal to write your golf goals. Reviewing your progress and moments of brilliance in the games you’ve played provides additional motivation to keep you on track.

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” Michelangelo

Next steps

Like to try golf journaling for yourself? Ready to take your golf game to the next level? Explore our Oneday Golf Journals HERE.