Hi Everyone and welcome back to the Hockey Journey Podcast, episode number 57,
It's Hockey "Goal-Setting" Time, presented to you by Online Hockey Training.com. I'm your host Coach Lance Pitlick. If you're new here, please make sure you subscribe, so you won't miss out on any future episodes.
Before we open up the window, enjoy the last bit of warm weather and begin this conversation, if you want to learn more about me, my hockey experiences, what I know, and most importantly, how I've been helping hockey players get really good with a stick and puck, just head on over to onlinehockeytraining.com and gain instant access to my 10 part video series where I'll show you everything. Consider it my gift to you.
Lastly, if you live in Minnesota or are visiting the State of Hockey sometime soon and you want to schedule an in-person off-ice stick skills lesson, I'd love to have the opportunity to show you my little world. Go to sweethockeycoach.com, and watch the video on the homepage for instructions. Thanks and I look forward to working with you down the road.
The last episode, I discussed tryout tips for players and parents. Once the teams are put together and the winter season officially begins, have you ever physically written down your hockey goals or objectives for the year? I ask the question, because if you haven't ever tried this proven success method, you may want to reconsider, and start implementing this practice into your daily life.
Check this out for starters, quoting an article by Marie Forleo titled Self-made millionaire: The simple strategy that helped increase my odds of success by 42%. Quote, an often-cited study done by Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at Dominican University of California, shows the true power of writing down your goals.
Matthew's sample group included men and women, ages 23 to 72, from around the world and all walks of life: Entrepreneurs, educators, health care professionals, artists, lawyers and bankers.
She divided the participants into two groups: Those who wrote down their goals and those who didn't. The results were clear. Participants who wrote down their goals achieved those desires at a significantly higher level than those who didn't.
Infact, she found that you become 42% more likely to achieve your goals and dreams, simply by writing them down on a daily basis. (End Quote).
That is some powerful information. I can't remember exactly when and where I learned of this, but it was over 2 decades ago and I still use the technique today, accomplishing almost everything I write down. The most recent endeavour has been this podcast.
It's been almost a year, but back in October of 2021, my business partner and I were kicking around the idea of starting a podcast. Once the decision was made to move forward with it, I set the long-term goal of committing the next 2 years to see if it was worth the continued time investment. My next goal I set was achieving 100 episodes by the end of 2022. This is episode 57, so I have basically 3 months to git-r-done. It's going to stretch me a bit, but it's totally doable and if I continue to put daily time into it, I think I can do it, or at the very least, get super close.
My life has changed quite a bit, because more hours are required to meet my weekly objectives, so I had to start giving up things. The only people I see on a regular basis now are my wife, kids, my parents and brother and sister and their young kids. That's it for the most part. I try to repeat the same day over and over, keeping the streak alive.
I couldn't live the schedule I operate on now when the kids were in the house, but now that I don't have those responsibilities like they once were, I can work at a different tempo or rhythm now, more on the extreme.
The players I train have suggested I do an episode on my extreme work schedule. Maybe I'll take them up on their suggestion soon down the road.
So I'm a big believer in writing down my short and long-term goals, and look at them daily. I've heard several examples of highly successful people, who carry their goals written down on a small piece of paper, and keep it in their wallets or purses. Anytime they feel distracted, discouraged or unmotivated, they pull out that piece of paper, read their goals, and then, they get back to work.
This 42% increased success rate if you write down your goals is something that is free and available to anyone. You know what I always say, "If it's free, it's for me!" :)
I strongly suggest that you give it a try this season regarding your hockey objectives. It'll be good practice, because, you should know, this strategy can also be used in every other aspect of your life when you want to accomplish something.
Though I practice setting my long and short-term goals regularly, writing them down, looking at them daily and crossing them off once completed, I'm definitely not an expert in the field, but there are many, who have made the investigation of goal setting and it's power their life's work and I'd like to share with you some of their most important findings and how impactful this type of practice is and how it's paired with excellence.
For the following books I'm going to reference, know that I'm only scratching the surface of all the learning nuggets in each of the titles. If something resonates with you from a certain book, by the end of this episode, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of your own and read it in its entirety. I'll put the links to each of the titles in the description. With that being said, let's begin.
Book Number 1
Goals!
How to Get Everything You Want - Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible
By Brian Tracy
Quote #1
“Success is goals and all else is commentary. All successful people are intensely goal oriented. They know what they want and they are focused single-mindedly on achieving it, every single day. Your ability to set goals is the master skill of success. Goals unlock your positive mind and release ideas and energy for goal attainment. Without goals, you simply drift and flow in the currents of life. With goals, you fly like an arrow, straight and true to your target. ... After countless talks on various themes, if I was given only five minutes to speak to you and I could convey only one thought that would help you to be more successful, I would tell you ‘Write down your goals, make plans to achieve them, and work on your plans every single day.’ This advice, if you followed it, would be of more help to you than anything else you could ever learn. Many university graduates have told me that this simple concept has been more valuable to them than four years of study. This idea has changed my life and the lives of millions of other people. It will change yours as well.” (End Quote)
Quote #2
A QUICK TRIP THRU THE 21 STEPS
“The most important quality you can develop for lifelong success is the habit of taking action on your plans, goals, ideas, and insights. The more often you try, the sooner you will triumph. There is a direct relationship between the number of things you attempt and your accomplishments in life. Here are the twenty-one steps for setting and achieving goals and for living a wonderful life.”
1. Unlock Your Potential
2. Take Charge of Your Life
3. Create Your Own Future
4. Clarify Your Values
5. Determine Your True Goals
6. Decide Upon Your Major Definite Purpose
7. Analyze Your Beliefs
8. Start at the Beginning
9. Measure Your Progress
10. Remove the Roadblocks
11. Become an Expert in Your Field
12. Associate with the Right People
13. Make a Plan of Action
14. Manage Your Time Well
15. Review Your Goals Daily
16. Visualize Your Goals Continually
17. Activate Your Superconscious Mind
18. Remain Flexible at All Times
19. Unlock Your Inborn Creativity
20. Do Something Every Day
21. Persist Until You Succeed
(End Quote)
Quote #3
CUTTING THROUGH THE FOG
“Living without clear goals is like driving in a thick fog. No matter how powerful or well engineered your car, you drive slowly, hesitantly, making little progress on even the smoothestroad. Deciding upon your goals clears the fog immediately and allows you to focus and channel your energies and abilities. Clear goals enable you to step on the accelerator of your own life and race ahead rapidly toward achieving more of what you really want.” (End Quote)
Quote #4
SELF-TRUST = THE FOUNDATION OF GREATNESS
“Self-trust is the foundation of greatness. Self-trust comes from listening to your intuition, to your ‘still, small voice’ within. Men and women begin to become great when they begin to listen to their inner voices and absolutely trust that they are being guided by a higher power each step of the way. Living in alignment with your true values is the royal road to self-confidence, self-respect, and personal pride. In fact, almost every human problem can be resolved by returning to values.Whenever you experience stress of any kind, look into yourself and ask, ‘In what way am I compromising my innermost values in this situation?’” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #5
THE GREAT QUESTION OF GOAL SETTING
“My favorite word in goal setting, and in success in general, is ‘clarity.’ There is a direct relationship between the level of clarity you have about who you are and what you want andvirtually everything you accomplish in life. Successful men and women invest the time necessary to develop absolute clarity about themselves and what they really want, like designing a detailed blueprint for a building before they begin construction. ... One of the most important questions in goal setting is this: What do I really want to do with my life? If you could do or be or have anything at all in life, what would it be? You should returnto this question over and over again in the months and years ahead.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #6
READY TO MINDSTORM?
“The most powerful technique for improving your intelligence and increasing your creativity is what I call ‘mindstorming.’ The way it works is simple. The results that you get will be soamazing as to be life changing. You begin the mindstorming process by first getting a clean sheet of paper. At the top of this page you write your goal or problem in the form of a question. The simpler and more specific the question, the better will be the quality of the answers that you generate in response to it. ... Each of your answers should be written using the ‘Three P Formula.’ It should be personal, positive, and in the present tense. In other words, your answers should be written as affirmations or instructions from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #7
THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT QUALITY FOR SUCCESS
“The single most important quality for success is self-discipline. Self-discipline means that you have the ability, within yourself, based on your strength of character and willpower, to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. Character is the ability to follow through on a resolution after the enthusiasm with which theresolution was made has passed. It is not what you learn that is decisive for your future. It is whether or not you can discipline yourself to pay the price, over and over, until you finally obtainyour objective.” (End Quote)
Book Number Two
Succeed
How We Can Reach Our Goals
By Heidi Grant Halvorson
Quote #1
“The important thing is that while achieving your goals is a bit more complicated than just doing “Three Things,” it’s not overly complicated, either. In Part 1 of the book, “Get Ready,” I’ll talk about the key principles of goal-setting that seem to be universally true, whether you’re pursuing goals at work, in relationships, or for self-development. In Part 2, “Get Set,” you’ll learn about the different kinds of goals we set for ourselves, focusing on the few distinctions that seem to matter the most. I’ll show you how to choose the goal that will work best for youpersonally in your situation. And you’ll learn how to instill the most beneficial goals in your children, students, and employees. In Part 3, “Go,” I’ll take you step by step through the most common reasons why we fail to reach our goals oncewe’ve started pursuing them. And you’ll learn effective, often simple and easy-to-implement strategies for avoiding these pitfalls in the future. In the last decade or two, social psychologists have come to know a lot about how goals work. Succeed is my attempt to take that knowledge out of the academic journals and handbooks and spread it around a bit more so that it can do some good.” (End Quote)
Quote #2
THE SELF-CONTROL MUSCLE
“If you want more self-control, you can get more. And you get more self-control the same way you get bigger muscles—you’ve got to give it regular workouts. Recent research has shown that engaging in daily activities such as exercising, keeping track of your finances or what you are eating—or even just remembering to sit up straight every time you think of it—can help you develop your overall self-control capacity. For example, in one study, students who were assigned to (and stuck to) a daily exercise program not only got physically healthier, but they also became more likely to wash dishes instead of leaving them in the sink, and less likely to impulsively spend money.” (End Quote)
Quote #3
GOAL TARGETS: DIFFICULT BUT POSSIBLE
“Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, two eminent organizational psychologists, have spent several decades studying the extraordinary effectiveness of setting specific and difficult goals. In more than one thousand studies conducted by researchers across the globe, they’ve found that goals that spell out exactly what needs to be accomplished, and that set the bar for achievement high, result in far superior performance than goals that are vague or that set the bar too low. And this is true regardless of whether the goal is something you adopt on your own, something you are assigned to complete, or something that you develop jointly with your parent, teacher, boss, or coworkers.”
“Of course, you shouldn’t set goals that are not realistic or are impossible to reach. Difficult but possible is the key. That’s because more difficult goals cause you to, often unconsciously, increase your effort, focus, and commitment to the goal; persist longer; and make better use of the most effective strategies.” (End Quote)
Quote #4
CONFIDENCE: IN ABILITY AND CHALLENGES
“Women who imagined that the path to weight loss would be easy lost an average of twenty four pounds less than those who imagined themselves having a hard time resisting temptation. Oettingen and her colleagues have found the same pattern when looking at students in search of high-paying jobs after college, at single individuals looking to form lasting romantic relationships, and at seniors recovering from hip replacement surgery. No matter who they are and what they are trying to do, we find that successful people not only have confidence that they will eventually succeed, but are equally confident that they will have a tough time getting there.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #5
DAYDREAMING —> ROCKIN’ IT
“Then what is the best way to set goals so that you will reach them, without getting stuck daydreaming? The optimal strategy to use when setting a goal seems to be to think positively about how it will be when you achieve your goal, while thinking realistically about what it will take to get there. Oettingen refers to this as mental contrasting—first you imagine attaining your goal, and then you reflect on the obstacles that stand in the way. If you want to get a high-paying job after college, start by imagining yourself accepting an offer at a top firm, and then think about what stands between you and that offer—namely, all the other reallyoutstanding candidates that will be applying for jobs. Kind of makes you want to send out a lot of applications, doesn’t it? That’s called feeling the necessity to act—it’s a psychological state that is crucial for achieving a goal. Daydreaming about how great it will be to land that job or fall in love with that special someone you’ve had your eye on can be a lot of fun, but it won’t get you anywhere. Mental contrasting turns wishes and day-dreams into reality, by bringing into focus what you will need to do to make it happen.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #6
NOT ALL GOALS ARE CREATED EQUAL
“As I mentioned earlier, not all goals lead to lasting feelings of true satisfaction and well-being, and that’s because not all goals satisfy our needs for relatedness, competence, and autonomy. Which ones do? In general, goals that are about making, supporting, or strengthening relationships do. So do goals that focus on personal growth, physical health, or self-acceptance— addressing your shortcomings or, if they can’t be helped, simply coming to terms with them. Goals that have to do with contributing to your community or helping others also fulfill these needs. Here are the goals that aren’t going to help you achieve lasting well-being: becoming famous, seeking power over others, or polishing your public image. Any goal that is related to obtaining other people’s validation and approval or external signs of self-worth isn’t going to do it for you, either. Accumulating wealth for its own sake also won’t lead you to real happiness (this is not to say you shouldn’t care about money at all, just that being rich isn’t a sure ticket to a happy life).”
“All that glitters isn’t gold. Goals that are all about obtaining external validation of self-worth—like being popular, famous, orrich—not only won’t make you truly happy, but will actively diminish your sense of well-being, by interfering with the pursuit of goals that will really benefit you. If you have goals like these in your life, it’s time to rid yourself of them.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #7
GETTING BETTER VS. BEING GOOD
“My favorite piece of advice by far for dealing with difficulty is to make sure you think about your goal in terms of getting better, rather than being good. As you’ll recall from Chapter 3, when we are focused on personal growth and development, on making progress rather than on proving ourselves, we deal with difficulty far more gracefully. We tend to see setbacks as informative, rather than as signs of personal failure. We don’t worry as much about the likelihood of success because we know that even if we never do it perfectly, we will certainly improve. (And getting better is, after all, the goal.)”
“If you focus on growth instead of validation, on making progress instead of proving yourself, you are less likely to get depressed because you won’t see setbacks and failures as reflecting your own self-worth. And you are less likely to stay depressed, because feeling bad makes you want to work harder and keep striving. You get up off the couch, dust off the potato chip crumbs, and get busy getting better.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #8
WHAT ABOUT “VISUALIZING SUCCESS”?
“What about “visualizing success”? I won’t name names, but it seems like there are an awful lot of self-help books out there telling people that if they just picture what they want in theirminds, it will somehow happen. That would be great if it were true, but scientifically speaking, there really isn’t much evidence for it. On the other hand, visualization can be very helpful, if you imagine the steps you will take in order to succeed, rather than the success itself. Mentally simulating the process of achieving the goal, rather than the hoped-for outcome, not only results in a more optimistic outlook, but in greater planning and preparation. Picture yourself doing what it takes to succeed, and you will soon find yourself believing that you can. The best part is, you’ll be absolutely right.”
“Don’t visualize success. Instead, visualize the steps you will take in order to succeed. Just picturing yourself crossing the finish line doesn’t actually help you get there— but visualizing how you run the race (the strategies you will use, the choices you will make, the obstacles you will face) not only will give you greater confidence, but also leave you better prepared for the task ahead. And that is definitely realistic optimism.” (End Quote)
Book Number 3
The 4 Disciplines of Execution
Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals
By Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, Jim Huling
Quote #1
“There are two principle things a leader can influence when it comes to producing results: your strategy (or plan) and your ability to execute that strategy. Stop for a moment and ask yourself this question: Which of these do leaders struggle with more? Is it creating a strategy, or executing the strategy? Every time we post this question to leaders anywhere in the world, their answer is immediate: ‘Execution!’ Now, ask yourself a second question: If you have an MBA or have taken businessclasses, what did you study more—execution or strategy?When we ask leaders this question, the response, once again, is immediate, ‘Strategy!’ It’s perhaps not surprising that the area with which leaders struggle most is also the one in which they have the least education. After working with thousands of leaders and teams in every kind of industry, and in schools and government agencies worldwide, this is what we have learned: once you’ve decided what to do, your biggest challenge is in getting people to execute it at the level of excellence you need. … The book you are reading represents the most actionable and impactful insights from all that we’ve learned. In it, you will discover a set of disciplines that have been embraced by thousands of leaders and hundreds of thousands of front-lineworkers, enabling them to produce extraordinary results.” (End Quote)
Quote #2
THE 4 DISCIPLINES OF EXECUTION
“Although the disciplines may seem simple at first glance, they are not simplistic. They will profoundly change the way you approach your goals. Once you adopt them, you will never leadin the same way again, whether you are a project coordinator, lead a small sales team, or run a Fortune 500 company. We believe they represent a major breakthrough in how to move teams and organizations forward. Here’s a quick overview of the 4 Disciplines.
Discipline 1. Focus on the Wildly Important. Basically, the more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish. This is a stark, inescapable principle that we all live with. ...
Discipline 2. Act on Lead Measures. This is the discipline of leverage. It’s based on the simple principle that not all actions are created equal. Some actions have more impact than others when reaching for a goal. And it is those you want to identify and act on if you want to reach your goal. ...
Discipline 3: Keep a Compelling Scorecard. People play differently when they are keeping score. If you doubt this, watch any group of teenagers playing basketball and see how the game changes the minute scorekeeping begins. ...
Discipline 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability. Discipline 4 is where execution really happens. The first three disciplines set up the game, but until you apply Discipline 4, your team isn’t in the game.” (End Quote)
Quote #3
THE WHIRLWIND
“The real enemy of execution is your day job! We call it the whirlwind. It’s the massive amount of energy that’s necessary just to keep your operation going on a day-to-day basis; and, ironically, it’s also the thing that makes it so hard to execute anything new. The whirlwind robs from you the focus required to move your team forward. Leaders seldom differentiate between the whirlwind and strategic goals because both arenecessary to the survival of the organization. However, they are clearly different, and more important, they compete relentlessly for time, resources, energy, and attention. We don’t have to tell you which will usually win this fight. The whirlwind is urgent and it acts on you and everyone working for you every minute of every day. The goals you’ve set for moving forward are important, but when urgency and importance clash, urgency will win every time. Once you become aware of this struggle, you will see it playing out everywhere, in any team that is trying to execute something new.” (End Quote)
Quote #4
DISCIPLINE #1: FOCUS ON WHAT’S WILDLY IMPORTANT
“The first discipline is to focus your finest efforts on the one or two goals that will make all the difference, instead of giving mediocre effort to dozens of goals. Execution starts with focus.Without it, the other three disciplines won’t be able to help you. ... Simply put, Discipline 1 is about applying more energy against fewer goals because, when it comes to setting goals, the law of diminishing returns is as real as the law of gravity.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #5
LAG VS. LEAD MEASURES
“Let’s drill down into the distinction between lag and lead measures. A lag measure is the measurement of a result you are trying to achieve. We call them lag measures because by the time you get the data the result has already happened; they are always lagging. The formula from X to Y by when, in a WIG gives us a lag measure, but WIGs are not the only lag measures in your world. The whirlwind is full of lag measures such as revenue, accounts payable, inventory numbers, hospitalization rates, asset utilization, and so forth.
Lead measures are different; they foretell the result. They have two primary characteristics. First, a lead measure is predictive, meaning that if the lead measure changes, you can predict that the lag measure also will change. Second, a lead measure is influenceable; it can be directly influenced by the team. That is, the team can make a lead measure happen without a significant dependence on another team.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #6
WHAT’S THE SCORE?
“The third discipline is to make sure everyone knows the score at all times, so that they can tell whether or not they are winning. This is the discipline of engagement. Remember, people play differently when they are keeping score. The difference in performance between a team that simply understands their lead and lag measures as a concept, and a team that actually knows their score, is remarkable. If the lead and lag measures are not captured on a visual scoreboard and updated regularly, they will disappear into the distraction of thewhiteboard. Simply put, people disengage when they don’t know the score. When they can see at a glance whether or not they are winning they become profoundly engaged.” (End Quote)
Bonus Quote #7
I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE MAGNIFICENTLY TRIVIAL
“Envision for yourself the day you report the achievement of your wildly important goal to your own leaders. What would that day be like for your team? For you? Now, imagine that day never comes. Imagine you forget everything you’ve read in this book.
Consider spending the future in the midst of a relentless whirlwind where everything is always urgent and the really important priorities are forever postponed. The great management scientist Peter Drucker observed, ‘I’ve seen a great many people who are magnificent at getting the unimportant things done. They have an impressive record ofachievement on trivial matters.’ But you don’t want to be magnificently trivial. You want to make a high-level, high-impact contribution. The 4 Disciplines of Execution can take you there.” (End Quote)
Dreams, we all have them and they are different for all of us. My hope is that after listening to all of that goodness, which was by the way pretty compelling evidence, that you'll give goal-setting a try for something going on in your life, in order to optimize your process and increase your odds for success, 42% to be exact, so start writing down your goals!
Well that concludes another episode of the hockey journey podcast. I can’t thank you enough for stopping by and listening. I hope you enjoyed this segment on goal-setting and you're excited for your new possibilities! If you think there’s someone in your circle of family and friends that might like this episode as well, please share it with just one person, it will really help me in growing this hockey community.
Again, I appreciate you being here, don’t forget to subscribe, rate or submit a review, I hope to see you back here soon, and do me a favor, make someone close to you smile today. All the best my friends!!
