In order to be successful in anything, having good resources and a stable team of positive influences is crucial for self-development.
In sports, those things are inspired in many ways, such as having long-term goals accompanied with many short-term benchmarks. The importance of having many long-term goals can have a great impact positively or negatively depending if the short-term goals are attainable or unreachable.
Too many times we see huge aspirations of wanting to become a professional athlete with little to no reasonable short-term benchmarks.
For example:
A short-term benchmark for wanting to become a professional baseball player can be as simple as making your high school baseball team. Although that isn’t a deal-breaker if you don’t make it, it’s a good one to have. If you don’t make the team it doesn’t mean giving up, it just means keep chipping away at why you didn’t make the team and create more short-term goals on how to achieve it.
Maybe your footwork on fielding is sub-par. Then understand the details that come with good glove presentation and footwork and put yourself in a good circle of helpful coaches that inspire you to do the work.
Small benchmarks are all building blocks and can change periodically to eventually reach your long-term goals. Once you make your high school team, the short-term benchmarks can be altered and or add new ones.
Goals can include diet, workouts, gym goals, etc. As a student-athlete, school will always be part of those small benchmarks and can even be another long-term goal.
Sports won’t be forever and having long-term goals outside your athletic goals should also fall into those short-term benchmarks.
Making a list of short-term goals is important to map out how you see your success going forward. It helps to visualize all of those stepping stones so you can feel small doses of accomplishments to keep you motivated.
Large goals without small benchmarks are just dreams, so make a list and find a good circle of people to help make your long-term goals come to fruition.
