There are many different methods for setting goals, lots of different advice out there and sometimes it can be all a bit confusing. So let’s keep this one simple shall we?
A goal to me is simply a ‘dream with a deadline’.
It is something that you have thought about within your mind that you would like to achieve at some point in the future.
There are long term goals and there are short term goals. The long term you might think of as ‘the dream’. The short term goals are the stepping stones along the way to achieving your dream.
Maybe the dream is to win a Gold medal. To win a specific championship. To be the best athlete in your area. Maybe your goal is to simply just have fun and do your best each time you compete. All our goals are different.
Here are three of my top tips on goal setting:

 Make sure your goals are your own
Too often I have found that people are chasing somebody else’s goal. Maybe even somebody else’s dream. This is a particular issue I have discovered in young people playing sport. Maybe the pressure comes from the parent or the coach or the teacher and the dream isn’t really the athletes.
I’ve seen this at the highest level of sport and it always ends badly.
When you are thinking about what you want to achieve in 2013, make sure it is what YOU want, not what somebody else wants. This can be a very difficult situation and if you find yourself in this situation, then gain the courage to speak up for yourself, to be honest with the people around you and to tell them how you really feel. This way you will gain their understanding, their support and their encouragement. And even if you don’t, you have done the most important thing of all – you have been honest with yourself. One of the most important qualities you can gain in life is to learn to trust yourself. The sooner you listen to your own instincts, the sooner and stronger you will build this trust in yourself.

Do your research
I would say the most common reason people fail to either set goals or achieve them is because they have not learnt enough about them, about what it will take, the sacrifices, the effort, the time it will take, the steps involved, how it will change their life.
Sometimes when you find out everything involved, it may change your view on wanting to achieve the goal in the first place. AND THAT IS OKAY.
Too many times people think they want something and then when they find out everything involved they are too scared to change their mind, because they have committed to early.
This can all be prevented by taking your time when setting your goals. Ask the people around you about what is involved, how long it will take, speak to people who have already achieved what you want to achieve, learn from them, then trust yourself and make your own decision.
Speak to your coach. Talk to them about your goals. Is it realistic? What will your training plan be? Get as much help as possible.
It is much better to take your time and get it right than to rush in and get it wrong. It will make the whole process much easier and then you will build a positive relationship with goal setting, which will be of great benefit to you throughout your entire life.


Love the journey
Recent studies in motivation have found that people who are only focused on achieving the end result are much more likely to give up compared with people who focus on the journey, the stepping stones along the way.
This is simply because people who are only interested in getting to the end goal end up feeling frustrated when things don’t always go their way and they meet disappointments on the journey. One bad race does not mean you cannot achieve your dreams! One bad season does not mean you cannot achieve your dreams!
Most people overestimate what they can achieve in one year. Most people also hugely UNDERESTIMATE what they can achieve in 10 years. Think long term.
When I first came to Trafford AC, I said to a group of athletes who were doing a hard winter training session they must learn to “love the pain”.
If you hate training, if you hate pushing yourself, if you hate working hard – then you are going to hate the journey. It is going to be much harder and MISERABLE. Who wants that?
Achieving the end goal means nothing if you have not enjoyed the journey. After all, the whole reason for setting goals is to ENJOY life more, isn’t it?
I hope so.
So make sure that the goals you set for yourself are enjoyable. If you don’t enjoy them, change them. Why waste your life and your time chasing something that makes you unhappy?
Again, the first point applies here. You choose goals that YOU want. Goals that get YOU excited. Goals that YOU will enjoy.
Whether your goal is to go to an Olympic games, win a race, run a particular time, or just to enjoy competing – choose a goal that you are going to enjoy along the way and you are much more likely to succeed.
The key to successful goal setting is chasing a dream that gets you excited and learning to love the journey and stepping stones along the way. This is a winning combination.

The reality is that sometimes you will not quite achieve the end goal but as long as you enjoy the journey, you will have spent your time well and you will learn a lot along the way.
Put these tips into practice and enjoy a brilliant 2013!

Martin Robert Hall

Some people have it. Some don’t.

Is motivation something that only belongs to certain people?

Or do we all have it?

And if we do, how do we get it?

To get straight to the point, you need to have the right goal. That is the first step. Having something to aim for that triggers motivation. You cannot be motivated without something to aim for. And something exciting too.

BUT I have found there is one challenge many people face and maybe you are facing this too.

You are not sure what it is that you want. Many people are not.

I wasn’t for a long time. I didn’t know what I wanted.

Life is a discovery. But many people don’t take the time to discover.

When I grew up, some people around me knew exactly what they wanted. They were very clear about that and that made me a little envious but more importantly CURIOUS.

Some people have an idea of what they want but are not entirely sure.

And some people haven’t got a clue and they never really take the time to find out.

It doesn’t matter where you are on this scale of knowing exactly what you want all the way down to not having a clue, as long as you have the curiosity to find out.

This is a goal in itself. A very big and important goal. Probably the most important goal you could ever have. To find out what it is you really, really want.

What gave me the curiosity was the contrast in people’s lives. The difference between being happy and miserable, the difference in the energy people gave off – or didn’t give off. You can notice it a mile off.

Think of somebody you know who is loving life. Think of how they make you feel when you are around them.

Now think of somebody you know who is miserable. Somebody who is a drag to be around.

Big difference right?

HUGE.

It is our own responsibility to discover our desires for ourselves.

And you can only do this by giving it some dedicated thought.

What do you enjoy doing? Think of 3 times in your life where you have been the happiest. What were the key factors? Who were you with? What were you doing? Where were you?

Look at what others are doing, what motivates them? Does it interest you? If it does, ask them about it or read a book about that subject or surf the internet for more information.

What are you strengths? What are you good at? If you are not sure, ask the people closest to you for some feedback.

Use this information to discover more about what makes you tick.

This will move you much closer to where you want to be.

Or you could carry on wandering through life while a small percentage really LIVE it.

Your choice.

Choose wisely!

Inspiring you to be the best you can be,

Martin Robert Hall

I spoke recently about “Making it Happen – From Dreams to Reality”.
I explained how the most common thing I have come across that holds people back in life is FEAR.
Fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of getting it wrong, fear of not being liked, fear of upsetting people, fear of being laughed at, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of criticism, fear of what others think, fear of looking stupid, fear fear fear…..
The truth is we all have many fears. Most of them we are not even aware of. And when we embark on a new challenge or set a new goal that throws us into new situations we have not been in before (and every good goal will) then we will feel FEAR. It shows up in the form of negative self talk (doubt), uneasy feelings in our body (increased heart rate, shaking, red faced, dry mouth, butterflies, upset stomach, etc). You felt these feelings before?
I hope so. They are a sign of life. A sign you are growing, stretching, making progress.
Most people interpret these feelings as negative signs. “Oh I must not do that – it doesn’t feel right”.
HOW RIDICULOUS. I am here to tell you the opposite.
For you cannot achieve anything worthwhile without feeling the fear. Every time you do something new or challenging your comfort zone will kick in. The difference lies in your response.
Do you embrace the feelings?
Or do you avoid them and retreat?
It is your choice. One leads to growth, learning and eventual success.
The other leads to sticking to what you know and staying stuck in the same place.
One leads to the feeling of life running through your veins.
The other a feeling of warm comfortable – nothing-ness.
If you want success, if you want to win, to grow and to make progress towards your dream life then you need to embrace the feeling of your comfort zone.
I told the audience today that every time you fail at something – celebrate.
You know why?
Because if you always beat yourself up or worry or feel bad when you learn something (failure) then you will never try anything new and you will be denying yourself the chance of success.
And for what?
For some FALSE EXPERIENCE APPEARING REAL.
Most often you will find that your fear of doing something is worse than the actual doing itself.
So what are you scared of attempting at the moment?
Write down the action steps. Know that your comfort zone will kick in when you take them. Only this time embrace those feelings as a sign of your progress and how well you are doing.
If you can make this one shift in your perception of fear you will make more progress in your life than you would mastering any other habit.
Inspiring you to be the best you can be,
Martin Robert Hall

What does the word responsibility mean to you?

For most its a boring word associated with doing things we don’t really want to do.

For me it is something completely different. It empowers me!

It means how you CHOOSE to respond to the events in your life. And it is your response that then determines your results.

For example:

You try something. It doesn’t work out. Do you try again? Do you give up? Do you become more determined to succeed? Or do you dwell in the disappointment?

Your Response – ability will determine every result in your life.

How would you rate your ability to respond to the events that happen in your life?

How do you respond when you lose?

How do you respond when you fail?

How do you respond when things don’t go your way?

Be HONEST!

Realising that your response is your choice is the first step to improve your response-ability.

How can you start doing that?

Quit moaning about the weather, the economy, other people, your job, your circumstances – this is a virus that will just keep you stuck in a negative mindset. If you want to lead a successful life you cannot be spending any of your time focusing on the negative aspects of life – least of all constantly banging on about them!

Successful people are quick to find and implement a solution.

Bad weather? I better wrap up warm and wear an even bigger smile today.

Bad economy? I better do a better job then.

People in your life are dragging you down? Tell them to quit moaning, lose them or inspire them by being a super positive influence.

YOU CHOOSE YOUR ATTITUDE!

And you make the decision on how to RESPOND to life’s events.

Now go and ROCK IT!

Inspiring you to be the best you can be

Martin Robert Hall

We all have bad days, off patches, periods. That’s natural.

And at this time of the year, when the nights draw in and its cold and wet, for most people these down times happen more often.

If you can learn to get more out of yourself during these times, you will be one step ahead of the game.

So what do you say to yourself when things go wrong?

“I can’t do this anymore”

“It’s not my day”

“Typical”

“Never mind”

“This always happens to me”

The words you say to yourself are programming your future thoughts, feelings and actions every second and their impact is hugely powerful.

Every single statement you make to yourself imprints upon your subconscious mind. It is recorded forever. Be careful what you say to yourself!

Recognising how you talk to yourself during difficult times is vital if you want to succeed.

Difficult times are inevitable. Reacting positively is not.

What did the Greatest (Muhammad Ali) say to himself?

“I am the greatest” of course!

What about Usain Bolt?

“I am a living legend”

Coming up with your own motto in life is absolutely essential to everyday performance and minimising down times.

A simple “come on” works.

“You can do this”

“Let’s go again, come on”

The World will hit you enough times on it’s own, please don’t be your own worst critic.

Encourage yourself!

“COME ON”

With Positivity,

 

Martin Robert Hall

In this post I am going to share with you some of my insights on goal setting. I have found a lot of people struggle with goal setting and in this post I am going to break the topic down for you and share some valuable things I’ve learnt.

Firstly, why set goals?

I believe the ultimate reason to set a goal is not to achieve the end outcome but to grow as a person. Because many times the destination is not all it is lived up to be.

That is just the way it is unfortunately. The most exciting part is before you have achieved the goal and the thought of achieving it is exciting. I have found this part to be more fun than when you actually reach your destination.

I have also had this feedback from many others.

Therefore the important part is that you set yourself goals that make you grow as a person. Goals that actually require you to become a better person to achieve them. That is the ultimate reward.

The reason?

Because that will never be short lived. That won’t fade. You will take that with you and reap the rewards for the rest of your life. There is nothing more powerful than that.

Do your current goals require you to become a better person to achieve them?

Secondly, there is much talk about writing your goals down. This is a MUST. You have to write your goals down and more importantly you have to review them every day just to remind yourself of them. Believe me it is too easy for them to slip your mind OR for you to not pay attention to them because they challenge you and require that you go outside your comfort zone. Don’t avoid this. If you don’t want to go outside your comfort zone – don’t set goals!

There is a statistic circulating in the goal setting industry that only 3% of the population have written goals.

Are you in that 3%?

Whether the statistic is true or not does not matter. Put it this way – it will NOT do you any harm to write down your goals. Only good. Yes it may be a bit scary but scary is great. It means you are growing as a person and that is the destiny of us all, we don’t have a choice in that one but we do have a choice in HOW MUCH we grow.

And finally, keep your goals private. Especially your most precious and personal goals. Maybe share some with close friends/family/partner but still hold some back just for yourself. I have found amazing power in this since I have been doing it.

The World doesn’t need to hear what you are GOING to do, it is waiting for you to SHOW us.

So get your pen and paper and start dreaming. And writing!

Equipping you with the mental strategies for success

Martin Robert Hall

I was working with some youths recently who are out of work. The main focus of the training was around taking responsibility (response-ability) for their situation.

There can often be confusion around this statement of taking 100% responsibility for your life.

It does not mean that you are responsible for everything that happens in your life or what happens to you – it just means that you are responsible for how you respond to the event.

Event + Response = Outcome.

Not happy with something? Change it or change how you feel about it.

I talk about this in my book and call this principle Optimal Response. It is not the events in your life that define you or your success – more so it is your responses and decisions about how you react.

The youths got this principle and took responsibility. As a result they took back control of their situations and this can be incredibly empowering. To know that your destiny and your future is decided by your own decisions and responses.

Are you in control of yours?

There will be many disappointments, setbacks and losses during your time in athletics, especially in competitions because everybody wants to do well, everybody loves to win.

So it is important to remember that it is not your results that define you, it is how you respond to defeat that matters. You won't always succeed, especially not straight away, but if you always choose to fight harder, to practise more, to come back better, then there are no limits to the amount of improvement you can make.

Remember this now during the winter training period. This is the time when you lay the groundwork for next season. It is NOW that you stake your place as the winner for next season. This is the time you become a winner, by putting in the hard work now.

So remember, when the cold nights creep in, when its cold and wet, when your body aches and you cannot be bothered because your fitness isn't quite there, just remember that bit by bit you will get stronger, as long as each session you do a little bit more, push yourself a little further, regardless of what level you are at, that is all we can ask of you and all you can control. Forget about the rest, the others, the weather, all those things are outside your control.

With Positivity,

Martin Robert Hall

Over the weekend me and a friend of mine were discussing how in football, the quickest of judgements are made and beliefs are formed about players in an instant.

It got me to thinking about how sometimes we are too quick to judge ourselves. Both in a positive and a negative sense.

We make one mistake and we say “I’m no good at that, it’s not for me”.

Or we do something well a couple of times and we say “I’ve got this handled. I will improve at something else now. Next”.

Both scenarios hold us back without us even realising.

If you judge yourself on the negative too quickly then you never really give anything your full effort. And we know what happens when you do this. You don’t improve.

If you judge yourself on the positive too quickly you don’t try any harder and just remain at a ‘good’ level and good just isn’t good enough. You should be aiming for GREAT!

I seen this happen with some young athletes a few weeks back. They were practising a new drill and in their first attempts they were struggling to get the hang of it. I said to them, don’t judge yourself just yet. Give it 10 tries and then see if you have improved. They did and guess what? They improved and were pleased with themselves.

The lesson?

Don’t always listen to your mind until you have given something enough time to judge it over. We generalize far too quickly and if we are not careful we end up forming negative beliefs about things in our lives that just don’t make sense. Worse still is that these beliefs prevent us from trying in the future.

Do you judge yourself too quickly?

If so give yourself more time to get it right before you are too hard on yourself. This is a problem for many athletes.

You have to learn to be your own coach not your own critic. Encourge yourself, say to yourself "I'll give it one more try", "eventually I will master this", "I am improving bit by bit".

Stay positive and stay persistent!

Martin Robert Hall
Performance Psychologist

The one thing that is most common in holding people back in life is doubt.

Doubt is a form of negative thinking. These negative thoughts stem from past experiences of your own or others you know of, from your analytical brain trying to predict the future and your own belief system.

Doubt is a form of fear and I like to think of FEAR as meaning False Expectations Appearing Real.

We all face doubt every day and most of the time it is running below the surface preventing us from taking the necessary action we are capable of.

It may creep in when you set yourself a new goal or when you do something you have not done before. We face these situations all the time so doubt really does have an active presence in our day to day lives.

Doubt doesn’t like sleep!

So how do the best performers cope with doubt? How do they overcome it?

Here are a couple of things you can do:

Ignore it. Actually listen to what your doubt is telling you and then choose to ignore it’s advice. Say thank you but no thank you. You are the voice of the past and I am creating a new future, you are no use to me any more [volume down].

Once you start ignoring your doubt it will start to get quieter. Think of it like a baby having a tantrum. After a while, they begin to calm once they realise their tantrum is not getting a response.

Doubt is childish in many ways. Treat it that way!

Secondly, you need to first recognise that doubt is actually active and how it is holding you back. You can only do this with valuable reflection time. Take at least 5 minutes each day to think about where doubt held you back today, make a note of it and then decide that in those situations in the future when it pops up, you will be ready for it and you will just smile and simply ignore it.

These two methods work brilliantly together. Put them into practise today and slowly but surely watch your doubt fade away.

Inspiring you to be the BEST you can be,

Martin Robert Hall
'The Performance Specialist'