Lesson video

Hello, everybody.

Delighted you've joined me here today for this lesson called Goal Setting and the SMART Principle from the units of work on Sports Psychology: Goal setting, Guidance, and Feedback.

My name's Mr. Brim.

As I said, great to have you here with me today.

We're going to learn some really important skills today in how to set goals, and this is something that you can apply to life itself, not only your GCSE PE.

So a really valuable lesson coming up.

Let's begin.

So by the end of today's lesson, you should be able to set and evaluate effective goals using the SMART target method.

And here are our keywords for today, they are specific, measurable, achievable, recorded, and timed, five words you'll know a lot more about by the end of today's lesson.

But if you'd like to pause here and have a look at the definitions, then feel free.

As you can see, our lesson is divided into four sections, and the first of those sections is titled Understanding the Effectiveness of Goal Setting.

Now, goals are something which lots of people set for themselves, but why do they do that? Let's have a little look.

So lots of people use goal setting to improve or optimize their performance.

And just to avoid confusion, this can also be referred to as target setting, and I don't want you to get confused with those.

Sometimes you'll see the goal-setting phrase, sometimes you'll see it referred to as target setting, but they essentially mean the same thing.

So don't be confused if you see that.

Now, there are lots of benefits to setting yourself a goal, and some of those include increased motivation, increased exercise or training adherence, and improved performance as a result of the goal.

Here's an example of a goal.

Here, we have an athlete, and this athlete wants to improve their 1,500-meter time by three seconds.

The impact of having this goal rather than not having a goal at all is that the athlete is motivated to see their times getting faster.

The athlete will focus their efforts in training on improving the speed.

They'll be thinking in their training sessions, "Right, what do I need to do to achieve this three-second improvement? How am I going to improve my speed around the track over 1,500 meters?" And it also means that the athlete can assess how close they are getting towards achieving their goal, and how much progress they're making.

A quick check for understanding, hope you were listening.

Goal setting is also referred to as A, focus setting, B, motivation setting, C, progress setting, or D, target setting? Well done if you remembered that occasionally, we will see it referred to as target setting instead of goal setting, but they'd essentially mean the same thing.

Second check for understanding then, true or false, goal setting helps us to check how well we are progressing? And well done again if you said that that statement is true.

And why is that? Well, knowing what you're trying to achieve means you can assess how much progress you've made towards it.

So having a goal and knowing what you're trying to achieve is a great way of being able to assess how much progress you're making.

Well done if you said, "True." Okay, so let's have a look at task A.

And here, we have Jacob, who's making a rather important statement here.

He says that, "I don't see the point in setting a goal.

I will get better without one." Now, what I'd like you to do in task A is to reflect on what Jacob said there, and then give three potential effects of Jacob's attitude towards goal setting on his progress.

Do you think that attitude is going to be a positive thing, or do you think it might hinder his progress? Pause the video here, write down your three potential effects, then come back and join me for some potential answers.

Okay, so welcome back.

Let's have a think about three potential effects Jacob's attitude towards goal setting will have on is progress.

Right, so things you might have said, something like, "Jacob will lack or lose motivation if he doesn't have something to aim for, and he might even end up giving up, because he doesn't know if he's achieving anything.

Jacob will not have something to focus his efforts towards achieving.

So when he is in training, he might not have that really strict focus on what he's trying to achieve." And you might have said that, "Jacob won't be able to assess how well progressing.

There's no quantitative measure where he can check how close he's getting, or how far away he is from achieving his goal." Well done if you said something along those lines with your three potential effects.

That brings us onto our second part of today's lesson titled Making Targets Specific and Measurable, and this is our SMART acronym.

Now, if you understand what an acronym is, you'll know that each letter stands for a different word.

And as you can tell perhaps by the title of this section of the lesson, the S in SMART stands for specific, specific meaning that a goal should be relevant to the sport or the activity, or the component of fitness aiming to be improved, whichever it is that you are trying to improve.

And the impact of having a specific target or goal is that it increases focus if you are really honed in on what it is that you want to achieve.

Quick check for your understanding on what I've just said then.

Which of these is specific? Is it A, I want to get better at football, B, I want to improve my swimming times, or C, I want to improve my personal best in long jump by 10 centimeters? They're all goals of sorts, but which one is specific? Well done if you said, "C." So A is a very vague target, I want to get better at football, it doesn't give us any detail or any specifics about exactly what's going to improve, it's very vague.

B, I want to improve my swimming times, is also quite a vague target.

Slightly more specific in the fact that it's talking about times, but we don't know what swimming stroke or what the time is that they're going to improve, or by how much.

There's a real lack of detail there as well.

Whereas C, I want to improve my personal best in long jump by 10 centimeters, has a lot of detail there.

I think it's a lot clearer about what specifically that person is going to achieve, or trying to achieve.

And so well done if you noted that C was the specific of the three targets.

That brings us to M, the second letter in our acronym, and M stands for measurable.

Measurable means that you are going to be clear about what is going to be achieved with a quantitative measure.

And the impact of that is that it allows us to assess the progress over time.

Now, going back to quantitative from the definition there, well, here's some examples of measures used in SMART targets.

It might be time is used as the measure, for example, improve your marathon time by five minutes.

It might be that points or goals are used in your target, for example, to score three more points per game.

And it might be that a distance or a height measurement is used as part of your target.

If you remember in our check for understanding, the person, they wanted to improve their lung jump by 10 centimeters, that's a distance, isn't it? Here's an example of where somebody might want to improve the height of something, in this case, their vertical jump by five centimeters.

By having a number that you can put on your target that makes it really measurable, this is what we mean when we talk of a quantitative measure, something we can really specifically measure in numbers.

True or false, the impact of measurable targets is that it allows us to check how well we are progressing? That was true.

Well done if you noted that it was true.

And why is that a true statement? Well, being measurable is important, because it allows us to check how much we progressed, and measures should be quantitative.

Well done if you said, "True." Here's a practice task for you to round up this section of the lesson.

I'd like you to write targets that are specific and measurable for the following, and we have somebody who's skateboarding for the very first time, and we have a marathon runner, someone a little more experienced in their sport there of marathon running.

Write down a target which you think is a good one and specific and measurable for the skateboarder and the marathon runner.

Pause the video here, write down your targets, and we'll have a look at those in a moment.

Okay, let's begin with the skateboarder.

So they're skateboarding for the first time, which is important context.

So the target that I gave them, and I wonder if you've got something similar, was that I think they should aim to be able to balance on a moving board for five seconds.

Is it specific? Yes, it's quite clear that they're going to balance, and the board will not be still, it will be moving, and that the measurable aspect of that target is that it should be for five seconds or more.

Any less than five seconds, and they haven't yet achieved their target.

For the marathon runner, as I said earlier, the context is different in this case, but the target that I gave the marathon runner was to improve their personal best time by 20 seconds.

Again, is it specific? Well, yes, because it's a personal best, which is incredibly specific to that person.

And is it measurable? Yes, because they will know that they need to do 20 seconds faster, or even faster, to achieve the goal.

Looking at your targets, just assess whether your targets are specific, and as in they have lots of detail, and it's very clear about what is to be achieved, and that there is a quantitative measurement in there as well.

Well done if you included both.

That brings us onto our third section of the lesson, and this one's titled Making Targets Achievable, Recorded, and Timed.

So the A, as you may have gathered, stands for achievable.

Achievable means that the goal should be challenging yet possible, and the impact of that is that it increases persistence of the athlete.

With that in mind, let's have a look at three targets, Laura, Sam, and Andeep have all set targets.

My question to you is, whose target is unlikely to be achievable? Laura says, "I want to increase my netball passing accuracy to 100% in every game." So every pass she ever makes will be accurate and reach her teammate.

Sam's target is that, "I'm going to go for a 20-minute run three times per week." And Andeep's target is that, "I'm going to try to walk 8,000 steps every day." Have a look at those three targets and decide which one you think is unlikely to be achievable.

Okay, it was Laura, wasn't it? Hopefully, you noticed that Laura's target isn't likely to be achievable for the reason that 100%, that means perfection in every single game that she plays.

That means she can't misplace a pass or have one intercepted, otherwise, she'll never get to achieve her target.

That's an incredibly ambitious target and also quite (chuckles) unlikely to be achievable.

Sam's target, while their target was to go for a run for 20 minutes three times per week, that feels like it's probably achievable for almost anybody who wants to try and achieve that target.

Going for a 20-minute run isn't particularly difficult, is it? Most of us can step out onto the street and go for a run.

And three times per week isn't asking an awful lot.

So their target is probably achievable.

Andeep's target of trying to walk 8,000 steps every day, again, if you've ever counted your steps, reaching 8,000, and most days, it's quite achievable anyway, and so it's very likely that Andeep will be able to achieve 8,000 steps every day, especially if he's really putting his mind to it.

So well done if you said, "Laura." She perhaps needs to bring that percentage down a little bit, doesn't she? So the R in SMART stands for recorded.

What do we mean by recorded? That means that you ensure that the goal is written down and progress is logged.

We have a written record of the target.

And what's that going to do? Well, having it written down and perhaps even therefore shared with other people means that it should increase the motivation and the persistence to achieve the goal.

So a target should be recorded.

And now, there's a few ways of doing that.

Some athletes will keep a written training log or a diary to record their progress as they go along.

And particularly these days, with the advancement of technology, there are several apps on phones which you can use to help track your goals, so you can keep a digital record rather than a written one.

That brings us to the last of the five letters in SMART, and that's T, for timed.

Timed means that you are date achieved by, and that's a really important aspect.

Why do we do that? It will increase your motivation and persistence.

I want you to think of the calendar on the wall, with the circle around the date that you're going to achieve your target by, and you see it every day, and that really gives you the motivation to think, "Right, I'm going to persist towards this goal." Or when times are getting tough, and you want to go training, and you're tired, that might be the motivation you need, knowing that that goal has got to be completed by a certain day.

Quick check for your understanding on this aspect of SMART targets, which of the following does not have a timed target? Let's see what Jun's saying.

"By the end of April, I want to have improved my 50-meter butterfly time by one second." Sofia says, "I'm going to be able to hold a handstand one minute in six weeks' time." And Izzy's goal is, "I want to improve my average goals per game by one." Which of those three targets is not timed? It was Izzy, wasn't it? Did you get that? I hope so.

The reason Izzy's is not timed is because it's really not clear when she's going to achieve that by.

If we compare that to Jun, well, Jun's target starts with, "By the end of April," and so we know that in that last day of April, that's when we're going to check whether he's achieved his goal or not.

Likewise, Sofia's target says that in six weeks' time, she's going to be able to hold the handstand for one minute.

And so we know that if we count six weeks' time from today, that's when we can check whether she achieved her target or not.

Whereas Izzy's just doesn't tell us when she wants to achieve it by.

She might want to improve her average goals per game by one next week, next month, maybe in five years' time.

We just don't know, and so we'll never know when we can actually check whether she achieved it or not.

Izzy needs to add some sort of timed aspect to her goal.

Here's your practice task for this third section of our lesson today, I'd like to complete the table now that we've completed our look at the five SMART criteria.

So at the left-hand column, please complete the five criteria.

I've given you achievable.

In the middle column, please write down the definition of each of those criteria.

And on the right-hand side, please add the impacts that you will have if you achieve that criteria when you are writing your SMART target.

Okay, so pause the video here, and I'll reveal the answers.

Here is what you should have said on your table.

So we, hopefully, are really familiar now with that left-hand column, specific, measurable, achievable, recorded, and timed.

And as the lesson has progressed, all these definitions and impacts have been shared.

So specific, that definition there is to state exactly what is to be done, and the impact is, it increases focus.

Measurable is to be clear about what is going to be achieved, and I gave you that the impact of that is that you can assess progress over time.

Achievable criteria means that the goal is challenging yet possible, and that increases persistence.

The recorded part of it is that a goal should be written down, and that progress can be logged, and that will increase your motivation and persistence.

And finally, timed, stating when the target will be achieved by increases motivation and persistence.

Hopefully, your table is complete and you got all of those.

Well done if you did.

That brings us onto our fourth and final section of today's lesson, it's titled Evaluating the Effectiveness of SMART Targets.

And essentially now that we know what SMART targets are, we need to be able to evaluate whether somebody's SMART target is a good one or not, and be able to state why that is the case.

So analyzing SMART targets is an important skill in GCSE PE.

Now, what might we need to consider when assessing a SMART target? Let's have a look.

Well, first of all, we're gonna consider, how well does the target meet the criteria? Has it achieved all five criteria of SMART? And secondly, we will then judge how effective the target will be.

Quick check for understanding, this is true or false.

A target will be effective as long as it include of the SMART target criteria.

Well done if you said, "False." Why is that? Well, the most effective targets will include all five of the SMART target criteria.

We need to be aiming to include all five criteria every time we write a target with the SMART target method.

Not including some or all of them might lead to poor motivation or lack of persistence, or a lack of accountability.

And so we need to make sure we're achieving all five.

Right, I'm going to give you an example here with Lucas, and we're going to work together to evaluate how effective Lucas' SMART target is.

So he says that, "My target is to score 90% of my free-throw attempts in the next season of school basketball games.

I will keep a log after each game to track my progress." At first look, it seems like quite a good target perhaps.

So then we'll think, "How well does it meet the SMART criteria?" And I'll model an answer for you, because you're going to have a go in a moment with a different target.

So Lucas' target is specific.

There's lots of detail in there, isn't there? I really understand what he's trying to achieve.

It's very much measurable.

He's got a percentage there.

It's a quantitative measure.

I will know if he's achieved it, because if he gets 90% or more, he's achieved it.

If it's below 90%, then he hasn't achieved it.

It's recorded, he said he's going to keep a log, and it's timed, because we know that it's going to cover the whole season of basketball games.

And once the last game has been played, we know his time is up.

However, and this might take a little bit of basketball knowledge here, 90% of free-throw attempts is a very high percentage for somebody of his age.

In fact, the very best NBA players, professionals, who dedicate their life to playing basketball, achieve around 90%.

Somebody who's still playing school basketball is very unlikely to get close to 90%.

Not even all NBA players come close to 90%.

That means that Lucas' target is probably, well, is almost certainly not achievable.

So what would be the impact? And how effective will the target be? Now, this won't be an effective target, because Lucas will lose motivation from it being unachievable, and he'll probably give up on it altogether.

Let's think about Lucas is after the second or third game of the season, and he's on about 50 or 60% free throws, and that's not a bad percentage for somebody playing school basketball.

His target is 90%, and he'll realize he's way off his target.

It will be incredibly difficult for him to get up to 90% in the future games.

And so very likely to give up on that goal altogether.

What Lucas should do is change it to a more achievable percentage, that'll help him persist towards it and make something a lot more realistic.

Lucas' target came very close to being a good SMART target.

It was just that the measurement he chose was too challenging and unachievable.

Nice try, Lucas.

What might we consider when evaluating if a goal is achievable for an athlete? Think about that.

So we're trying to decide whether the, well, we just did it with Lucas, didn't we? Whether the goal is going to be achievable for an athlete.

Would we look at the level the athlete currently performs at? Would we look at the athlete's favorite training method? Would we perhaps look at what similar athletes have achieved, or would we look at how long the athlete has to achieve the goal? Which of those would we consider? Well done if you recognize that actually three of those would be really suitable criteria to look at when we want to evaluate if a goal is suitable or achievable.

So we want to know what level they're currently performing at.

As we just had with Lucas, school basketball player, perhaps saying 60% as a goal would be very achievable.

NBA player, professional, saying 60% would be too easy.

And so a goal for them to make it more achievable would perhaps be to aim for something like 85 or 90%.

What similar athletes have achieved with their experience and their age is also something that makes for a good comparison to say what is actually going to be achievable and how long the athlete has to achieve the goal.

If Lucas had said he wanted to achieve 90% in the next 20 years' time, we might have said that was actually achievable, or at least it was more achievable than saying he wanted to achieve it in a season of school basketball, because he has 20 years to go away and dedicate himself to improving his free-throw percentage.

And so perhaps if he'd said, "20 years," we might have actually had a different judgment as to whether it was achievable or not.

Okay, so for task D, we have Sofia's target, and we're going to evaluate how effective this SMART target has been written for her.

And she is an Olympic 400-meter runner.

Let's have a look at that target.

"My goal is to improve my 400-meter time by two seconds by the end of this season, and I'll keep a record in my diary." Okay, so first thing we're going to do here when we see a question like this is, we're going to BUC the question, or B-U-C the question, to be really clear about what we're being asked to do.

So let's box the command word, that's evaluate.

Let's underline the knowledge, the knowledge is your understanding of SMART targets.

And the context, which is super important in this question, is that Sofia is an Olympic 400-meter runner.

Now, to remind you that evaluation means to judge from the available evidence.

Let's just give you a little bit of extra structure here.

So with a question like this, with an evaluate question, it's useful to demonstrate what you know to begin with for AO1 marks.

In this case, it'd be, what are SMART targets? AO2 would be some application.

So how effectively does the SMART target you can see with Sofia, how does that match the SMART criteria? And finally, and perhaps most importantly, with AO3, this is where you really evaluate whether this is a good SMART target for Sofia or not.

How well does it suit Sofia's needs and context? Remembering that structure, attempt to answer this question, and then rejoin me in a moment for some suggested answers.

So for answering this question, we need to take the approach of demonstrating what we know to begin with for AO1 mark.

So in this case, what are SMART targets? Something you clearly need to say in this answer is what the acronym SMART stands for, but also something along the lines of that SMART targets are an effective way to set a goal, because they ensure that the target is specific, measurable, achievable, recorded, and time-bound.

Important that you demonstrate that you what all the five letters stand for.

Okay, so for AO2 then, we need to start to apply our knowledge of SMART criteria to Sofia's actual target.

Things you might have said about that would include that, "Sofia's target meets the need to be specific, as it's really clear about what she needs to achieve and over what distance.

It's very measurable, because we know she needs to improve her current time by two seconds, and that means it can also be recorded easily with things like race times.

And she said she's going to keep a diary.

It is time-bound, because we know exactly when she needs to achieve it by, that's the end of the season." So of the five criteria already, or of the five letters of the acronym SMART, we've already achieved four.

We've got one left, though, and that's achievable.

And this is where you need to demonstrate that perhaps you understand that Sofia's target is not fairly achievable.

And we bring this understanding into AO3, when we discuss how well it suits Sofia's needs and context.

Really important, the context part, remembering that Sofia is an Olympic runner.

So things you might have said is that, "Although the SMART target is written in the correct style and it fulfills much of the criteria, Sofia's status as an Olympic runner means that it is not achievable, or not very likely anyway.

Improving her 400-meter time by two seconds is incredibly difficult, because she's an elite runner.

Now, elite runners, over a course of a season, if they train well, and they're injury-free, they'd probably be happy to improve by 0.

2 to 0.

5 seconds in that space of time.

Achieving a two-second improvement is a huge jump and very unlikely to happen.

Now, if the target had been set for someone who does not run very often, a beginner perhaps, and they have more room for improvement therefore, this would be a much more achievable target.

For a beginner runner to improve by two seconds in that space of time would be very achievable." That's where the context became really important.

Sofia, as an Olympic runner, probably couldn't push herself to a two-second improvement.

A beginner or an intermediate runner probably could.

Well done if you managed to really evaluate that target and say what was great about it, how well it did fulfill the SMART criteria, but also that in this case, because of Sofia's context, it wasn't a suitable target.

That brings us to the end of today's lesson on goal setting and the SMART principle.

Read the summary along with me.

So goal setting is an effective way for athletes to improve or optimize their performance.

The SMART target-setting method is an effective way to set goals which are specific, measurable, achievable, recorded, and timed.

And well-written SMART targets, like Sofia's, help to increase focus, motivation, and persistence.

They also provide a timeframe with which to assess progress towards a target.

Now, I love this lesson, because it's a really useful skill, being able to set yourself effective goals.

It's something that you can apply in your own life, be it in your sporting career or perhaps in your academics, or in any aspect of your life.

And so why don't you give it a try if you've never done that before? And good luck.

I hope you achieve it.

Nice to have you with me today.

I'll see you next time.