Goals & Process
I want to do something with you today that is more uncomfortable than it sounds.
I want to talk about what you actually want from this season. Not the goal you’re supposed to have. Not the one that fits on a poster. The real thing you’re hoping for — and whether the goal you’ve written down is actually connected to it.
Read this passage slowly.
Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.
Proverbs 16:3 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Commit whatever you do. The instruction is not about the quality of the plans — it’s about where they’re anchored. Plans committed to the Lord are held in something larger than the outcome. The result doesn’t determine the worth of the plan. The worth of the plan is established by what it’s connected to.
Most goal-setting in sport produces two categories of goals. Outcome goals — championship, ranking, stat line — which are worth having but only partially in your control. And process goals — what you commit to doing in preparation and competition — which are almost entirely in your control and are the actual mechanism through which the outcome goals become available.
But there’s a third category that almost never gets named in a team goal-setting session: formation goals. What do you want this season to build in you as a person? Not as an athlete — as a person. The character, the discipline, the perspective, the relationships that outlast the sport.
Those goals are the most durable. The championship might not come. The stat line might not reach what you hoped. But the person you become in the pursuit of those things — that’s available regardless of how the results land.
What do you want this season to build in you? Name it. Commit it. Let that be the foundation under everything else.
Outcome goals tell you where you want to arrive. Formation goals tell you who you want to become. The second kind outlasts the sport.
Beyond winning and statistics, what do you want this season to build in you as a person? Name one thing you want to be true about who you are at the end of it.
Formation question rather than outcome question. Give it real time. The answers are often the most significant ones in a season’s worth of devotionals.
Set the outcome goals. Set the process goals. Don’t skip the formation goals. Those are the ones that last.
Best used at the very beginning of a season as a frame for the goal-setting process. The formation question sets a different tone for the season than a pure performance goal-setting session.