Dreams, Goals and Practice

Research shows that when you walk in the dark or in an environment that is void of distinctive features you will walk in a circle. People blindfolded, in a gym, walk in a circle. People lost in the desert, walk in a circle. In order to make real forward progress we need to have a point of reference far enough out ahead that we track straight and we need a push to move our butt.

Goals are a type of reference point and push. Without them you are likely to either sit where you are or keep going in the same circle, doing what you already do best, not learning anything new. But there is more than one type of goal, more than one layer of goal. Goals need to be set far enough out ahead to keep our eyes lifted to the prize, and set for the outcome we want this week or this race, and set for the next practice session or action step.

Deciding that you want to be a great Laser racer, or perhaps beat a certain competitor or finish in a certain position in a fleet are usually long-term goals or visions. In the coaching parlance these are distal goals, ones that are a fuzzy vision of a better future. Long-term goals may keep you motivated, but they require shorter term goals to actually create actionable steps.

Goals that you can accomplish in the near future through your own hard work and skills are outcome goals. A goal for a race might be to avoid boat handling errors, to have an entire regatta’s worth of excellent tacks, to hit more wind shifts than ever before, or to be at the line, moving at full speed at the gun. A questionable, but perhaps doable goal would be to finish in a particular range of finishers – e.g., the top 25%. These are outcomes you have some possible control over reaching in the near future.

Beneath these goals for a particular timeframe or race are actionable steps or practice goals; ease and trim the sheet at the best time in each tack, initiate mark roundings with sail trim and body weight placement, establish a starting routine that notes all important variables, etc. Each racing maneuver is made up of this type of boat handling skill, which can be further deconstructed, practiced and reconstructed to increase your competitiveness.

If you’re a pretty good sailor but you want to move your sailing forward at a steady or increased rate you will need articulated goals, including visions of the future you desire, shorter term outcome goals and actionable steps, and you will need to refresh your goals regularly. Most people find that writing the goals down where they can be reviewed increases their potency.

Traditionally, goals are thought of as set. The constancy of the goal is supposed to be one of its attributes that keeps you persistently striving in the same direction. But there is little value in a goal that doesn’t adapt to changing circumstances. This is most obvious when you reach one of your goals early, of course you will then reset your goal. It is less obvious, but just as important to evaluate and reset a goal, when appropriate, that is too difficult to achieve in the time frame you’ve set. A goal loses its pull when it becomes unattainable.

A couple of years back I set a goal to be in the top half of the fleet in regattas I entered. The spring was a tough one for me with lots of family obligations and poor practice weather. My first regatta was a wake-up call; I finished in the bottom third. I thought through my schedule for the rest of the season and decided that it would be a reasonable push to finish in the middle of the fleet and then set an additional goal to increase the percentage of good starts I had.

We simply can’t know the future, so future oriented predictions, like goals, are markers that help orient us, but they demand flexibility. A more realistic approach to goal setting is a scenario plan (If this happens then I’ll do this, but if that happens, I’ll do that.) or a layered approach. (First I’ll get to here and when that happens I’ll move on to there.)

A scenario plan gets its power from the fact that it encourages you to prepare for multiple possibilities as you move forward. If you prepare for both light and heavy air, you’re more likely to place higher in the fleet over the entire season. You diversify your possible strengths. Your goals might be to improve both your upwind and downwind boat handling. You may not have time to spend on making your role tacks the envy of the fleet, but you will have eliminated a basic distraction on any leg.

Layered goals predict that you may surpass your initial goal and encourage you to set the next one so that you don’t slide into a lull in your practice motivation, “My tacks are coming along great. I love to go out and practice them.” Instead you start getting a twinge to move on when you feel the competency level hit the goal you set, “I wanted to be able to roll tack the boat in one fluid motion and I’m there a lot of the time. I need to keep working on this, but my jibes are next on the list and they are now the issue that stands in my way of making maximum use of wind shifts.”

My personal goals this year were to get good enough at jibing that I would never hesitate to use it in any weather short of survival conditions, to increase my awareness of wind shifts and puffs so that I could be competitive in the top half of the fleet, to be in the front row at starts more often than in the second row, to increase my practice times to over two hours twice a week for most weeks, and to maintain higher speeds during mark roundings while not losing out tactically.

If the weather was good enough that I could practice like I planned, then I wanted to strive to be in the top half of the fleet at any competitive regatta I entered. If the weather turned out poor during the spring, then I wanted to move up in the fleet in any race I entered and keep a keener competitive edge.

Racing a Laser is a demonstration that you’d like to improve your boat handling relative to the accomplishments of your fellow sailors. Under the surface glare of that goal is the more fundamental goal of improving relative to your own average performance, and the foundation of that improvement is to improve any or any number of specific boat handling skills.

To reach these goals you need to set your course, decided on what needs to happen this month and then detail the actions you need to take to accomplish that. Is it time to set a few goals and make some real progress in your racing skills?