Outcome and Performance Goals for Sailing – Medium-Term Goals

Outcome and Performance Goals are the medium-term goals that link your Process Goals (short-term goals) and your long-term Dream Goal.

What the Experts Say

Paul Goodison – Laser Handbook

Jon Emmett – Be Your Own Sailing Coach

Beggs, Derbyshire and Whitmore – Mental and Physical Fitness for Sailing

Eric Twiname – Sail, Race and Win

Books with Information on Outcome and Performance Goals for Sailing

Laser Handbook – Paul Goodison, page 131

Be Your Own Sailing Coach – Jon Emmett, page 3

Mental and Physical Fitness for Sailing – Beggs, Derbyshire and Whitmore, page 7

Sail, Race and Win – Eric Twiname, page 13

Links for Outcome and Performance Goals for Sailing

This excellent Goal Setting article discusses the importance of both outcome and performance goals

This article on Goal Setting for Sailing talks briefly about outcome and performance goals

What We Learned…

This section deals with Outcome and Performance Goals, the medium term goals that will help act as a link between your Process Goals (short-term goals) and your long-term Dream Goal.

You should be looking to set a maximum of three medium term goals, all to be achieved between 4 months to 1 year.

So what is the difference between an Outcome Goal and a Performance Goal?

  • An Outcome Goal is a goal that depends on the result or outcome of a competition. This means that it is, at least partly, outside your control (i.e. it is dependant on the performance of others as well as your own performance)
  • A Performance Goal is a goal that is observable, measurable and relatively independent of the performance of others

Performance Goals are therefore more desirable than Outcome Goals, because you can control them yourself and they tend to be much clearer than Outcome Goals.

One of the hardest things to decide is how difficult you make these goals to achieve. The best rule of thumb I have found is to give yourself a 1 in 3 chance of achieving a goal that is not racing related, and a 2 in 3 chance of achieving a goal that is related to your racing results. For example, if you are choosing to aim for the top 5 overall in your club’s series then you should feel that you have a 66% chance of achieving this; if you are aiming to hike fully for two minutes solid then you should have a 33% chance of achieving the goal. The reason for this is that stress levels tend to be high during racing, and it is unwise to add to this stress unnecessarily.