The Footballer’s Approach to Setting and Reaching Your Life Goals!

A Brief Guide

To score a goal, the best footballers:

• Know that practise makes perfect
  Look at what you have already tried, what worked and what didn’t – ensure you learn from past experience, never dismiss or regret it AND keep checking-in with your goal, each day imagine the effects of achieving it KEEP THE DREAM ALIVE!
  

• Keep trying if their first kick misses
  The key here is perseverance. If you are still emotionally-engaged with this goal, it is worth going through a few set-backs for and getting back on the road in the right direction!
  

• Have an amazing team around them
  Few goals are achievable without the help or input of not another single human being… Ask for and get help – don’t let your pride get in the way

• Have a support network outside of the team
  Similarly, your family/friends and others in your support network will provide the essential encouragement, good humour and emotional (or other, eg. financial) support to speed your journey to where you want to go

• Use anchoring (kit, football pitch, lucky charms, hair-cuts/beards! etc)
  Anyone familiar with NLP will have heard of the Spatial Anchor. This is the concept that having a certain item or being in a certain place can has the psychological effect of bringing you back to the feeling you need to capture to move forward towards your goal; eg. if you are a singer/actor/speaker and you got a standing ovation at one event, wearing blue – blue becomes your anchor for success
  

• Face the right direction
  We need to figure out which direction to head to reach our own goals – make sure you can ‘see’ your destination.
  

• Are well-trained in the skills/expertise it takes to aim and ‘hit’ the space between the posts
  As well as travelling in the right direction, we need to make sure we fine-tune the detail of our journey.
  

• Develop a success confidence (learn how to take on the mind-set of success by being with the right coaches/trainers)
  Get the best advice, guidance and support from the best people in your field – hire a coach or mentor to provide you with a feeling of assured success

• Can visualise a successful result
  More and more sports people are hiring coaches and other personal development experts to work on their mental approach. The following techniques have been proven to work in accelerating the journey to scoring OR achieving your goals:Visualisation – by mentally taking the exact steps and really ‘seeing’ the results in your mind, your brain is programmed to ‘live’ the success you are aiming forLaw of attraction – you get what you focus on. Focus on failure, and that is where you may be headed!Affirmations – repeated statements of success similarly programme your brain to move in the desired direction.

• Provide themselves with the best equipment/resources that they can
  What exactly do you NEED? What books/advice/equipment/experience/information? Get it ALL!
  

• Adjust their targets, to give a success-mentality in lead-up to ultimate goal
  For the longer-term goals, set journey goals to plot a path of successes leading up to the Ultimate Success

• Share their results… not just with those who rely on them scoring those goals
  TELL someone (or more than one!) what it is you are aiming to achieve. Make yourself accountable – it’s more difficult to give up if someone other than yourself is relying on you!
  

• Are those who get a massive emotional pay-off on scoring a goal (the ‘high of success’)
  The minute you lose the emotional-engagement with the achievement of a specific goal, you may as well forget it (or, at least, adjust it). The more the feeling of getting it thrills you, the more you can channel positive energy into it.
  

• Are constantly looking for a ‘way-in’ to score that perfect goal
  Make sure you are self-aware and conscious of the world around you. Will you spot that rare opportunity when it comes knocking at your door?
  

• Know that there is a huge pay-off at the end for a positive result
  Your goal does not have to be monetary or even involve financial gain. Making sure you know how you will reward yourself at the end of your successful journey provides a juicy added incentive to score the perfect goal….

Train like a Premier League Footballer and you WILL score your goals!