Lesson video

Hello there.

Thanks for joining me.

My name is Mr. Broom and I have a great lesson for you today called SMART Targets to Optimize Goals.

This is from the Sports Psychology: Goal setting, guidance and feedback unit.

I think this lesson's great because we can all apply this to all sorts of aspects of our life, especially our sporting careers, and therefore it's a really relevant lesson for everybody.

I really hope you enjoy it.

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

Here are your keywords for today.

They are specific, measurable, accepted, realistic, and time-bound.

You'll become much more familiar with those as the lesson goes on.

And today's lesson, as you can see, consists of four sections and our first is understanding performance and outcome goals.

Okay, so a little introduction to goal setting, something you may have done before.

Now, many people use goal setting to improve or optimize their performance.

This may also be referred to as target setting and that's an important thing to say at the beginning of the lesson because sometimes you'll see it referred to as target setting.

Other times you might see it referred to as goal setting, but essentially they mean the same thing.

So what are the benefits of goal setting? Why do people go through the process of goal setting? Well, it can help to increase motivation, increase focus, and helps you to assess your progress.

If you have a goal, you have the ability to then assess whether you are close to achieving it or you've got a long way to go yet.

Here's an example goal for you.

This athlete wants to improve their 1500 meter time by three seconds.

The impact of having that goal means that the athlete will be motivated because they want to see their times coming down and getting closer to have improved by three seconds or more.

It will give them a focus, especially in their training sessions.

So they'll be thinking, "Right, how am I going to improve my speed over 1500 meters to bring my time down by three seconds?" And by knowing exactly how much you want to improve by, it gives them the chance to assess how close they are to getting towards that desired time.

Not just saying "I want to improve," but by three seconds they know particularly how much closer they're getting towards their goal.

So a quick check for understanding.

Goal setting is also referred to as what? Well done if you said target setting.

Yes, of course this is a word which is interchangeable, target and goal.

You'll often see it called goal setting.

You'll often also see it called target setting.

Please don't worry, they essentially mean the same thing.

Back to our performer.

So this athlete wants to improve their 1500 meter time by three seconds.

We know that already.

I want you to imagine they're in a 1500 meter race then and they come in last place, but four seconds faster than their personal best.

How do you think they might feel about that race? Well in this case, if the athlete's goal is to improve their time by three seconds and they did it and improved by four seconds, then the athlete's achieved their goal and it doesn't matter to them perhaps where they came in the race.

Now, goals like this one, in which the performer set a personal standard they want to achieve, they are called performance goals.

Okay, performance goals.

And there's no comparison with performance goals against other performers or the position that they achieve.

In fact, the comparison is made with themselves and what they have previously achieved.

So in this case it was his personal best time.

Now, in contrast, we might choose to set goals called outcome goals.

Now, outcome goals are concerned with the end result, or the outcome, and this will often involve comparing ourselves against other people.

So setting the goal that you want to win a race or a trophy or a tournament or an award, all depending on what physical activity or sport you take part in, they are good examples of outcome goals because you're saying what you want to achieve at the end.

Let's check for your understanding then on performance and outcome goals so far.

We have Laura, Alex, and Andeep and they're all going to tell you a goal and I want you to decide whether you think it's a performance or an outcome goal.

Let's see Laura's first: "I really want my ice hockey team to win the league this year." Now, Alex: "I want to learn how to perform a back flip in my gymnastics class." And Andeep, his goal: "I want to improve my first serve percentage to more than 50%" Are those three goals performance or outcome? Let's start with Laura.

She wanted the hockey team to win the league.

That's a result, an end result and therefore it's an outcome goal.

With Alex, however, he wants to perform a back flip in his gymnastics class.

He doesn't compare himself to anybody else, does he? He's not saying that he wants to be able to do a back flip before everybody else in his gymnastics class.

In fact, all his goal is concerned about is his performance and so it's a performance goal.

Finally, Andeep wants to improve his first serve percentage to more than 50%.

Again, that's related to his performance, not compared to anybody else.

He's not saying he wants to have the best first service percentage at his tennis club or in such and such competition.

He's just concerned about improving his own performance, and that's why it's a performance goal.

Really well done if you correctly identified those three goals as outcome, performance and performance.

Here we have Jacob and Jacob is a rugby player.

Let's imagine that Jacob's at the beginning of his season, before the first game of the season.

He wants to set a performance goal and an outcome goal.

And I would like you to write one performance goal and one outcome goal for him to achieve over the season.

Complete the task by writing Jacob's goals in the speech bubbles, and I'll see you in a moment for some suggested goals.

Okay, so Jacob's rugby season is about to begin and he needs a performance goal and an outcome goal.

I wonder what you said.

I'm going to give you some examples, but of course your goals might be slightly different and I want you to just really analyze whether you are correctly given a performance goal and correctly given an outcome goal.

Here's my example.

I want to improve my successful pass percentage this season from 60 to 70%.

Okay? So he wants to be a more accurate or consistent passer.

Completely to do with his performance.

He's not comparing to anybody else there.

For his outcome goal, I chose his goal as, I want to win the award for scoring the most points in the league this season.

Okay? So that is really comparing himself to all the players, not only on his team, but in this case it would be all the other teams in the league also.

And so a big, ambitious goal for him to be setting there, but it is to do with a comparison against other people and therefore it's an outcome goal.

I don't expect you to have written exactly what I wrote there, but of course, but I am hoping that you've put something there as his performance goal that is related to his own performance and not comparing to anybody else and that your outcome goal is something to do with an end result, or something he wants to achieve in comparison to other people.

Well done if you have successfully written a good performance goal and outcome goal for Jacob.

That brings us onto our second part of today's lesson and this is titled Making targets specific and measurable.

Now, we use this acronym and I expect you may have seen it before.

It's SMART, okay, and the acronym SMART, well, hopefully you know that an acronym means that each letter stands for a different word and we're going to learn all five of those words during today's lesson.

So the acronym SMART begins with obviously the letter S and that stands for specific, as the title of this section suggests.

Now, if a goal is specific, it means that it's specific to the demands of the sport or the muscles being used or the movements used, depending on what it is you want to achieve.

And the impact of having something that's very specific is that it increases your focus 'cause you know exactly what you are aiming for and you are focused on that particular aspect of your performance.

Let's check to see how much you understand of that.

So which of these three goals is specific? Is it I want to get better at football, I want to improve my swimming times or I want to improve my personal best in the long jump by 10 centimeters? Hopefully you recognized and well done if you did, that C is the specific goal here.

I want to get better at football.

I mean it is a goal, it is something people might want to achieve, but it's not very specific.

It doesn't tell me anything particularly about which aspects of football they want to get better at.

I want to improve my swimming times is slightly more specific because it's talking about times and so we know perhaps how it's going to be measured, but again, it doesn't say a stroke or by how much they want to improve by.

Is it a second or a minute? But C is very specific.

We know that it's a personal best.

We know that it's in the long jump and that it's by 10 centimeters, so it's very specific and detailed.

Brings us onto the second letter in our acronym, that's M.

M stands for measurable and measurable means that it must be possible to measure whether a goal has been met.

How will that have an impact on you? Well it means you can assess how well you're progressing towards your goal over time.

Let's have a little example of some measures that you might use in SMART targets.

Well, you might use time.

So if you are into racing in some aspect, maybe running or cycling or triathlons or whatever it is, it might be that you want to improve your time.

So an example being improve the marathon time by five minutes.

You might want to achieve something in terms of points or goals.

So for example, scoring three more points per game.

And another measure people use in SMART targets might be distance or height.

We just saw in your check for understanding, the long jumper wanted to increase their personal best by 10 centimeters.

That's a distance, isn't it? And so another example could be to improve a vertical jump by five centimeters.

We're not limited to just these examples, but these are three things that we might measure a SMART target with.

Let's just check for understanding.

Is it true or false that the impact of measurable targets is that it allows us to check how well we are progressing? It's true.

And why is that? Well, a measurable goal is important because it allows us to check how much we've progressed.

Measures should be quantitative.

That means you have a number that you can actually measure, like a height or a distance or a number of goals or a percentage or something along those lines.

Here's a practice task for you on making targets specific and measurable.

And now I'm going to give you some examples.

The first one, we have somebody who's skateboarding for the first time, and our second example is a marathon runner.

I would like you to write a target that's specific and measurable for both of these.

I'll see you in a moment with some suggested goals or targets, but first of all, you pause the video here and have a try yourself.

Okay, so let's begin with the boy here who's skateboarding for the first time.

How can we make a goal that is specific and measurable for them? Well, my example is to be able to balance on a moving board for five seconds.

I thought that was a good target for this example because they've only just started skateboarding and so that's quite a challenge.

If you've ever skateboarded, you'll know that was quite a challenge the first time you tried it.

It's measurable, isn't it? Because I know that he will have achieved the goal if he can balance on the board and it's for five seconds or more.

If it's under five seconds, he has not yet achieved that goal.

How about the marathon runner? The goal I gave was to improve their personal best time by 20 seconds.

Is it specific? Yes, it's very specific because the personal best is very personal, as it suggests and it's specific to that person.

So we know that time that she already has and that she's going to beat it, hopefully, by 20 seconds sometime in the future.

So there's your measure, the 20 seconds or more.

Now, in terms of your targets for the skateboarder and the marathon runner, have a look through and ensure that your targets are specific in what must be achieved, that there's detail in there and that you know exactly what it is you are going to see when they've achieved it and that it includes a quantitative measurement, something where you can actually put a number on whether they've achieved it or not.

Well done if you targets are both specific and measurable.

We're making good progress but we still have some more letters in our acronym.

And as you can see, we are now going to look in our third section at making targets accepted, realistic and time-bound.

So let's complete our acronym of SMART, starting with A, A stands for accepted, and accepted means that the goal must be accepted by the performer and possibly other people involved, for example, the coach.

And that helps to keep all involved accountable and focused and all knowing exactly what the person is going to achieve.

Well, hopefully going to achieve.

Which of these targets has not yet been accepted? Laura's target.

"I've told my coach my target and they think it's perfect for me." Sam says that their target, "I'm going to work hard at improving.

I'm fully prepared for the work I need to put in." And Andeep tells us, "I talked to my boss about my target but they think I should lower my expectations." Which of those has not yet been accepted? Congratulations if you recognized that Andeep's target hasn't yet been accepted.

He talked to his boss about his target, but the fact that the boss thinks he should lower his expectations means that his boss doesn't accept that that's a good target for Andeep.

In terms of Laura, she told her coach the target and they think it's a perfect target.

So clearly everybody's happy that that's a great target for Laura and it's been accepted by all involved.

In Sam's case, they said that "I'm going to work hard at improving, I'm fully prepared for the work I need to put in." Now, they didn't necessarily mention anybody else, but that's okay because for a target to be accepted, it doesn't always need to be that other people accept it too.

Sometimes it can just be that the athlete accepts that "This is what my target is and that's what I'm going to strive towards." And so in Sam's case, their target is accepted perhaps just by them.

Well done if you recognized Andeep was the target that needs some work still.

That brings us onto R.

R in SMART stands for realistic, and that means that the goal is actually possible to complete.

What's the impact of that? Well, it will increase the persistence.

You know when the going gets tough and you're tired and you perhaps don't want to go out and do your training session, having that goal in mind might just be what it takes to make sure that you stick with it and you keep going.

A target must be realistic to achieve, otherwise it may be quickly discarded.

Let's consider this.

Is the target suitable for somebody of this age, ability or experience to to make it a realistic target? Is it realistic with the time that you would need to achieve that target versus the time that is actually available? And is it realistic in terms of having the access to facilities and equipment that you would need to achieve that target? Few things you need to consider when you decide whether a target is realistic.

Let's have a check for understanding on that.

Here we have Aisha, and Aisha's target is to be able to surf on a surfboard for more than three seconds within the next two months.

To begin with, you might be thinking that's fine, that's a perfectly good target, that's realistic.

Aisha does not live by the sea.

So which of these might Aisha's target struggle to meet? Being accepted, being realistic or being specific? Okay, those of you who said being realistic, B, well done.

Yes, sadly for Aisha, her target is probably unrealistic.

She doesn't have access to the sea and so she's not going to have the time or the availability or the opportunity to go surfing regularly and improve.

And so although it might be very realistic if she did live by the sea, unfortunately, this time, it's probably an unrealistic target.

The final letter in our acronym is T.

That stands for time-bound and that means that the goal should be over a set period of time.

Why? Well that increases motivation and persistence.

Imagine knowing the date on your calendar that you wanted to achieve your goal by, it's really going to help you to be motivated and to keep training and keep working, especially when things are getting tough, because you know that date is coming and you want to achieve the goal by that date.

Which of the following does not have a time-bound target? Jun's target: "By the end of April, I want to have improved my 50 meter butterfly time by one second." Sofia's target: "I'm going to be able to hold a handstand for one minute in six weeks time." Izzy's target: "I want to improve my average goals per game by one." Whose target is not time-bound? Yeah, well done if you said Izzy.

It was Izzy's target wasn't it? Let's just go through them.

So Jun's target says by the end of April, so immediately he's made his target time-bound because we know that in that last day of April, we can judge whether he achieved his goal or not.

Sofia's target said that she wants to hold the handstand for a minute in six weeks time.

So we know that from today we can count six weeks forward and then we'll be able to judge whether Sofia has achieved her handstand goal.

Whereas with Izzy's goal, she wants to improve her average goals per game by one.

That's a nice, specific target and it's definitely measurable isn't it? It's quite possibly realistic also, but we don't know when she wants to achieve it by.

She might want to achieve it by tomorrow, she might want to achieve it by next week or she might want to achieve it in five years time.

We don't know because it wasn't time-bound and so we are not going to know, or she's not going to know when to actually assess whether she's made progress towards her goal.

Well done if you noted Izzy was the answer there.

And here's a practice task for you.

I'd like you to complete this table.

Down the left hand side we have the S-M-A-R-T criteria.

I'd like you then to complete in the second column a definition for each, and in the third column, the impact that each of those will have on the person who sets the target.

Pause the video here and complete the table and I'll show you some answers in a moment.

Okay, here is a completed table.

So I really hope that the five criteria from the SMART acronym are really familiar to you now, but let's just check, there's Specific, Measurable, Accepted was given to you already, Realistic and Time-bound.

The definition then for Specific goals are specific to the demands of the sport, the muscles used or the movements used, and that's going to increase focus.

For measurable, it must be possible to measure whether goals have been met and that impacts your ability to assess progress over time.

Under Accepted, goals must be accepted by the performer and possibly, remember not always, others involved, e.

g.

a coach.

And the impact of that will be the accountability.

Realistic definition is that goals are actually possible to complete.

That increases your persistence.

Goals which are not realistic generally will be given up on once it becomes clear that they're never going to be achieved.

And Time-bound goals should be over a set period of time which will increase your motivation and persistence towards that final date.

Well done if your table looks something like that.

That brings us onto our final section of today's lesson and that's analyzing the effectiveness of SMART targets.

So we now know what a SMART target should look like, and in GCSE PE, an important skill is to be able to analyze a SMART target.

So if you see somebody's SMART target, you are able to tell them whether it's a good one or not.

So what might we need to consider when assessing a SMART target? Well, how well does it meet the SMART criteria? And what will the impact be of this target for the athlete? Let's just have a quick check for understanding on this.

So a target will have the most impact as long as it includes some of the SMART target criteria.

That statement is false.

Why is that? Well, effective targets or the most effective targets include all five of the SMART target criteria.

Not including some or all of them might lead to poor motivation or lack of persistence or no accountability.

We should try to ensure that SMART targets or good effective targets include all five of the SMART target criteria, not just some.

Well done if you noted that word "some" should say "all" if it was to be true.

So what we know is that the first thing we're going to have a look at is how well does it meet the SMART criteria? And I'll just model how I have read his target and what I would say about his SMART criteria and you'll have a go at this later.

So Lucas' target is specific.

Yep, it's got detail in there, it's measurable, it's a percentage I know that he needs to achieve.

If it's above that or it is 90%, I know he's achieved it.

If it's lower, then he hasn't.

And it is time-bound because it's over the season of basketball games.

So lots of the SMART criteria have been hit already, three of them.

However, it's a very challenging target for someone his age.

This is something maybe you didn't know but perhaps something that is important to mention.

Now, the best NBA players achieve around 90% and lots of NBA players, and these are professional basketball players who dedicate their lives to this, will score less than 90% of their free throw attempts.

And we know that Lucas is still at school and so the chances of him being able to perform at the same level as a very good NBA player are very slim and therefore, I'm going to say his target is unrealistic.

He also hasn't told his coach and so it hasn't been accepted by all involved.

The second part of analyzing the effectiveness is to question what will be the impact of this target? If Lucas keeps this target, What will the impact on Lucas be? Well, it's not going to be particularly effective, because Lucas will lose motivation from it being unrealistic.

He may even give up on it altogether.

Let's say after the first couple of games of the season, Lucas is probably around 50 to 60% of his free throw attempts, and that's quite a good score for somebody still at school.

However, his goal was to score 90%, so he's immediately going to start to feel quite despondent perhaps, that he's not getting anywhere near that 90% and the goal may be given up on.

He should change it to a more realistic percentage to help him persist towards it.

Now, his coach, we said this coach didn't yet agree with the target, or accept the target, rather.

So his coach probably won't accept it either because if his coach has experienced enough in basketball, they'll probably also understand that it's an unrealistic target.

Quick check for understanding.

Which of these would be most useful for most people to consider when setting an appropriate SMART target? Okay? The performer's current achievements, the achievements of people of a similar age, the achievements of people of a similar ability, or the world records for your sport? So for most people, which of those might they consider to make sure that it's an appropriate SMART target that they're setting? Okay, there's actually three correct answers there.

So well done if you spotted that.

Things that we can help to set an appropriate SMART target, a realistic SMART target could be the performer's current achievements.

Let's go back to Lucas and think if Lucas set himself a target of 90% but currently he's only getting 10% with his current achievements, then that's a really unrealistic leap to go from 10 to 90%.

The achievements of people of a similar age.

As I said, professionals who are older might get 90%, whereas younger school children, maybe 50% is actually a really good achievement for somebody who's still at school.

And so if he had compared himself to people of a similar age, he may well have come up with a number sort of closer to 50 or 60%.

And again, very similar to that is that the achievements of people of similar ability, so other people who play in the same league as Lucas or are of similar ability to him, if he knew the percentage of free throws that they were scoring that might have helped him to set a more realistic target.

The world records for your sport.

Now, that can't be completely ruled out because some people will be aiming to achieve a world record, but that's a very, very small number of people and the question did ask for what most people should consider.

And so the world records for your sport is not something that most people will consider.

So well done if you ruled that one out.

Okay, so with Task D, we're really going to evaluate now, somebody's SMART target.

Sofia is here and her target, she says, is to run the 400 meters in two seconds faster by the end of this season.

Okay.

Your job is to evaluate how effective this SMART target has been written for Sofia, who is an Olympic 400 meter runner.

Now, before we do that, let's just BUC the question or B-U-C that question.

So we're going to box the command word.

So we know that we're being asked here to evaluate, we're going to underline the knowledge.

So we're demonstrating our knowledge of SMART targets.

And the context that's really important in this question is that Sofia is an Olympic 400 meter runner.

She's not a beginner or an intermediate runner, she's an elite runner.

And that's really important in this question.

To evaluate means to judge from the available evidence.

Okay? So that's the command word there.

So, what we are looking for is for you to demonstrate with AO1, your knowledge.

So quite simply, what are SMART targets? Then we build it up with AO2 where you're going apply it.

So in this case, how effectively does this target match the SMART criteria? And finally, most importantly perhaps is with AO3, you're going to say why.

How well does it suit Sofia's needs and context? Remembering that she's an elite athlete.

Pause the video here, have a go at answering that question and then come and join me again for some suggested answers.

Okay, so what might you have said? Well, first of all, let's deal with AO1, your knowledge.

What are SMART targets? You might have said something along the lines of, SMART targets are an effective way to set a goal because they ensure the target is specific, measurable, accepted, realistic, and time-bound.

Important that you demonstrate that you know the five parts of that acronym there.

AO2 moves on to apply, so your application of, how effectively does this target match the SMART criteria? Things you might have said here: Sofia's target meets the needs to be specific, as it's clear what she needs to achieve and over what distance.

We really know exactly what she needs to do, don't we? To achieve that goal.

And it's measurable because we know that she needs to improve her current time by two seconds.

If she does, she's achieved the goal.

If she can't, then she hasn't achieved the goal.

It's easily measurable.

And it is time-bound because we know exactly when she needs to achieve it by, which is the end of the season.

So three of our SMART acronym there have already been fulfilled.

However, you might have said that Sofia's target is not very realistic.

We don't know if it's been accepted, or we might expect that a coach won't accept it as it is unrealistic.

Why is it unrealistic? Well, for an elite athlete to improve their time when they're already an elite athlete by a whole two seconds in the 400 meters is a huge ask, and that's why we really needed to understand the context of this question and Sofia's situation while we answered this question.

So how well does it suit Sofia's needs and context? This is where you say why for your AO3 marks.

You might have said something like: Although the SMART target is written in the correct style and fulfills much of the criteria, the three parts of the acronym that we've just mentioned, Sofia's status as an Olympic runner means that it is not realistic and unlikely to be accepted by her coach.

Improving her 400 meter time by two seconds is incredibly difficult for an elite runner who would probably be happy to improve by something like 0.

2 to 0.

5 seconds in that space of time.

If the target had been set for somebody who does not run very often and has lots of room for improvement, this would be a much more realistic target.

So for a beginner runner to be able to improve by two seconds over the course of a season would actually be quite realistic, but not in the case of Sofia and her context as an Olympic runner.

Well done if your answer fulfilled the AO1, AO2 and AO3 requirements.

Brings us onto the summary for today's lesson.

Let's just read through this together.

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

Remember at the beginning, we talked about performance goals, which are setting personal standards to achieve and don't involve comparisons with other people, whereas outcome goals are focused on the end result or winning and perhaps comparing with other people.

Then we looked at the SMART target method of setting goals and it's an effective way to set goals which are specific, measurable, accepted, realistic, and time-bound.

Hopefully you've learned a lot there about goal setting, both performance and outcome goals and the SMART acronym.

And for those of you involved in sport, I think it would be a great idea if you used what you'd learned today, perhaps to set your own goal.

It could be for your sport or any aspect of your life that you want to try to improve.

So good luck with that and I hope it increases your motivation and persistence.

Well done for being part of today's lesson.

I really hope you enjoyed it and learned a lot and I'll see you next time.