#7 - Lag Goals
Having a goal like “win state next year” is great but it doesn’t really help us actually get there. There’s a lot of things that go into a goal like that: fitness, teamwork, skills, health, etc. A primary goal like “win state” might not provide us with direction on a day to day basis. I’ve talked to plenty of athletes who have awesome primary goals but they haven’t considered what goes into that goal. The steps along the way are known as “lag goals.” I like to think of lag goals as a skyscraper—winning state is that skyscraper and the building will collapse without the right pieces in the right place.
Before setting lag goals, you need to know where your weaknesses are—the things that are holding you back. I know athletes who train really hard but fail to recover properly and spend most of their time injured. I know athletes who have great skills but neglect nutrition so their health holds them back. I know athletes who are fit and healthy but they don’t have good race strategy. I’ve seen teams that have great athletes but struggle to work together. What lag goals you set should be based on what your areas of weakness are.
Your primary goal will remain the same and now the lag goals are the steps along the way to achieving the main goal. For an athlete wanting to win state in tennis lag goals might include improving strength in the gym, being a consistent server, agility training, proper recovery, better nutrition, more sleep, new shoes.
The advantage of lag goals is that you can take a very difficult, even daunting goal, and break it down to pieces that are “bite sized.” Each of those pieces should be something you know how to approach and are confident in achieving. Without lag goals, many athletes end up overworking their strengths. For example, I’ve seen fit runners that have had disappointing seasons. The next year they try to run even more training miles and they end up injured (again). Using lag goals might’ve helped that runner realize that fitness wasn’t their problem—strategy, recovery, and muscle imbalances were.
So, let’s take your primary goal now and break it down into bite sized pieces.
Primary Goal: “I will _______.”
Weaknesses I have include: _____________
To reach my primary goal, I need to improve _______________
My Lag goals are: ___________, ___________, ___________, _______________
Some of these lag goals might not excite you that much. I had a teammate in college who hated weightlifting. Ultimately, that held him back from being the best skier he could be because he let that dislike prevent him from improving his weakness. So believe me, it will be worth it to do those lag goals. Even though some of the steps along the way might not be great, you have to climb the whole mountain to see the view from the top.
Grab a notebook and write down some lag goals. Make sure you think about what things are holding you back right now from achieving your primary goal. Talk to your teammates, friends, coaches, and parents; they might be able to see what’s holding you back more clearly than you can.