Instead of overhauling your entire diet, you could break it down into packing a protein shake for a post-workout snack and carrying a bottle of water with you at all times.This form of improvement is not particularly glamorous.īut those misses are outweighed by the makes.Īnd they are far less demoralizing than not breaking the challenging goal down further.Īt the end of the day, with this approach, you are steadily building your capacity to accomplish your goal by breaking it apart.īreaking apart your goals can win the day in just about every other avenue of your swimming: With time, you replicate the same thing with 50s.Īs the success rate goes up, we increase the difficulty (hence the descending intervals in this example), ensuring that progress is perpetually being made (or at least attempted). Here is an example of how this could play out: Over and over, you “fail” at hitting the race pace, which, for obvious reasons, gets equal parts frustrating and disheartening.ĭo 25s aiming at swimming them in :14 or faster. The red :60 comes around, you push off, swim your little heart out, and the pace clock spits out a :29. With your goal pace in hand, you head down to the pool, strap your favorite set of swim goggles on your face and jump in the water race pace 50s at a pace of :28 per rep. To get there, you know that you need to bang out a whole boat-load of race pace specific reps in training.īeing able to hit this pace repeatedly in training will give you the confidence on race day to perform. Let’s say you have a goal of swimming a :56 in the 100 freestyle this season. And you might even need two weeks of 4k workouts to build up the proper conditioning to get to the next level.īut this example should give you an idea of how you can break apart a distance-focused goal. In reality, you would actually require some recovery weeks to help you bounce back as the meters continue to climb. This example is very simplified and perfectly linear. The next few weeks could look something like this: Instead of wrecking yourself, break apart that goal of 6k and spread it out.
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This kind of overnight escalation is unsustainable. Now, let’s say you want to be the swimmer who wants to swim 6,000m.įirst, your current conditioning levels mean you will be absolutely wrecked after doing a 6k workout.Īnd you may be able to do it once, maybe twice before the walls cave in on you. It’s a challenge to get there, but you do it. You are currently the kind of swimmer who does 3,000m at swim practice. ? Example 1 – Increasing Total Distance Swum at Practice I’m going to give you a couple of examples of how breaking apart your big goals can help you make progress, faster. The Power of Going Granular with Your Goals It’s doing the work along the way in a sustainable manner to help us maximize the time we have.Īnd one way to keep your effort consistent and energy focused is by breaking apart your goals. Setting the big goal is rarely the difficulty.
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The enormity of a goal is both exhilarating and daunting.Įxhilarating because we think of how much change we will incur to get there, the satisfaction we will experience in the moment, and the pride of the accomplishment.ĭaunting because it will require more effort of us than ever, is not guaranteed to happen even if we do work hard, and the thought of failing on our face when it’s time to race. The Difficulty of Really Hard and Really Awesome Goals
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Read on, and I will explain what I mean, give a detailed pair of examples, and provide a couple of next steps for you to take action. In times like this, it can be extremely helpful to break your goal apart.
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Or you’re feeling overwhelmed with all the work that is still to be done. They inspire us, motivate us, and sharpen our focus when we wrap our toes around the edge of the pool deck.īut there will be moments over the course of the season where things aren’t progressing as fast as they should. There is a TON of utility in having big goals. Here’s why you should pull your Big Goal apart to maximize progress. One of the best strategies for improving rapidly in the water requires you to break apart your Big Goal like a 300-year old foam pull-buoy.