Additionally, it’s often better to frame your goals as approach, behavior, or mastery-oriented.

Approach vs. Avoidance Goals

An approach-oriented goal is where you focus on doing things a little bit better, and approaching a better outcome. In contrast, an avoidance-oriented goal is where you try to not do something. In his book Change Maker, John Berardi highlights some good examples:

• Instead of “no junk food,” try focusing attention on eating more cut-up fruits and vegetables.
• Instead of “no soda,” try focusing attention on drinking a glass of water with at least three meals each day.
• Instead of “no stress-eating,” try focusing attention on stress-relieving activities to do instead of eating.

It’s been shown that those who focus on approach-oriented goals tend to be much more successful in reaching their goal; read a study done on this.

Outcome vs. Behavior Goals

An outcome goal is something like: “I want to lose 10 lbs, run a 20 minute 5 km, squat 3 plates…etc.” These are all great, but it’s much more effective to focus on the behavior goal that reinforces the outcome goal.

• Example for weight loss: “I will exercise 4 times per week for 30 minutes, and 6 out of 7 days of the week I will eat 1/2 plate of vegetables with at least one meal.”

Outlining goals this way is also framed more positively to reinforce future success. By that I mean you might not always achieve the outcome goal, for various reasons, but you can consistently deliver with the beavhior goal.

Performance vs. Mastery Goals

This is taken directly from John Berardi’s book Change Maker: “Performance goals are a lot like outcome goals, except they’re usually associated with external validation – wanting to win a competition for the prize money or wanting to beat a record time…In contrast mastery goals are about learning, skill development, and the intrinsic value of becoming excellent at something.”

Performance goals can have limitations since there are many factors that can affect the outcome, and this can be demotivating if you don’t achieve your performance goal. Further, after a while, it can be increasingly hard to continue to push for performance goals. Instead, if you focus on mastering the process – like skill development – you’ll enjoy the process much more and almost always improve your performance goal.

An example, that John uses in his book, is setting a new half-marathon personal record. How to approach this goal ties in points 2 and 3, as this is both an outcome and a performance goal. Instead of focusing on a set time, focus on:

• Running 4x a week. Use a reverse-engineered plan, up to race day, that will include increasing volume week-to-week with: 1 interval tempo run (hill repeats, fartlek), 1 pace medium length run, 1 above pace short run, and one below pace long run.
• Focus on running technique mastery: proper foot striking, faster food speed and not larger strides, proper breathing technique, etc.

With mastery goals, the focus becomes about progression and not performance.