Effort Towards The Goal
We live in an age where we are exposed to the finished product with little exposure to the production process.
An example can be observed in the food industry:
An exceptionally small amount of people still hunt their meat.
If you want to eat meat, you may only need to travel for 10 minutes, to pick up a plucked, skinned and washed chicken breast.
The hunting and preparation process is eliminated for us. We are only shown the finished product.
Similarly, if you follow fitness accounts on social media, a lot of what you’ll come across is people already in very good shape, who can achieve exceptional physical feats.
The fitness industry is saturated with people’s achievements.
This is great. It can be inspirational.
However, we rarely see, or pay attention to, the processes behind these accomplishments.
I am all up for setting goals and having idols. I think it’s important.
However, it is the ‘effort towards’ the goal that we must pay most of our attention to.
Remember: “Have the vision, focus on the effort.”
Because, it is this consistent effort that will get you over the finish line.
Photo by: RUN 4 FFWPU
Here are 3 different approaches, with regards to exercise, that you can take to help you focus on the effort towards the goal:
Break the task down into parts, work on weaknesses.
Persistent practise, focus on the outcome.
Regress and progress.
1. Break the task down into parts, work on weaknesses.
This approach is analogous to fixing machinery - find the weak part and make it a strong part. You can adopt this approach when improving conscious coordination, flexibility, strength, etc.
Steps:
Practise the task.
Identify weak components in the execution of it.
Work on those weak points, in isolation, until they’re strong.
Continue practise the task and test it.
An Example:
When learning to play tennis.
You identity that your back-hand stroke is a weak point.
Identify which aspects of your back-hand stroke are weak, e.g. the line of stroke is too horizontal. It needs to finish above shoulder height.
Practise the line of your back-hand stroke until it is better.
Reintegrate back into a game of tennis and test it.
2. Persistent practise, focus on the outcome.
The idea here is that, over time, your body will figure out how to be better at the task. If you focus on the outcome and persist, your body will become more consistent, more accurate and more successful.
This approach places little emphasis on breaking down the task into small components and high emphasis on the success of the outcome.
Your technique is less likely to become like a ‘textbook demonstration’, but instead will contain more idiosyncrasies.
Steps:
Decide on the outcome you want to achieve.
Use vague guidelines on ‘how to do it’.
Practise repeatedly, and let your body figure out ‘how’ it achieves the outcome without too much conscious analysis.
An Example:
Your desired outcome is to kick the football into the the goal more frequently in a game.
Vague guidelines: strike the ball from ‘x’ distance using your right foot, position yourself within a clear line of site of the goal.
Practise repeatedly and let your body figure it out. Focus on the outcome of the task.
3. Regress and progress.
Have a selection of exercises, ranked in difficulty, from easiest to hardest. The exercise act as building blocks towards your goal. They should follow a logical progression and not just be random. Start with easier variations and work your way through to harder variations.
Steps:
Identify the end goal.
Select a number of variations that will build you towards the end goal.
Rank them from easiest to hardest.
Progress through them at your own pace, until you achieve your goal.
An Example:
Learning to ‘back squat’.
Identify appropriate variations of a squat, such as: Box Squats, TRX Squats, Squat to Box, Bodyweight Squat, Back Squat (low load), Back Squat (high load).
Rank them from easier to harder, (as is done above).
Progress through each variation at your pace until you have the building blocks in place to do a back squat.
Use these approaches to keep your focus on the effort towards the goal and not just on the goal.
If we just focus on the end result, without considering the road it takes to get there, you will likely not make the journey.
Focusing on the effort gives us small wins that will mount towards the final achievement.
Focus on the effort, because that is where the progress is made.
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Keep moving,
Monty