BLOG
2024 Challenge: Set realistic goals to improve in athletics
Saturday, 27 January 2024
At the Tenerife Athletics Center (CIAT), we want athletics to be an ally in your daily life, not a heavy burden you don’t know how to manage. Enjoying a sport as demanding as athletics isn’t always easy; knowing how to manage your level of commitment is essential to maintaining motivation and focus on your goal.
At CIAT, we don’t just provide athletics classes; we also care about the well-being of all participants, their relationship with the sport, and their emotional management of it. That’s why today we want to talk about the importance of setting realistic, not overly ambitious, goals when it comes to athletics—and practically any other sport.
Improving in athletics with realistic goals that bring us closer to our objective
Before talking about goals, it’s important to consider what our objective is. This should also be realistic and achievable. This doesn’t mean it has to be easy or immediate, but rather that it’s within our reach, which we’re sure is considerable. To establish our base objective, it might be helpful to think about the ‘SMART objective’: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Do we already have our objective? Well, it’s time to talk about goals. This simply means dividing our objective into different phases, or in other words, into smaller objectives that we can achieve until we reach the main one. This is fundamental for maintaining motivation and, in turn, having tangible knowledge of the achievements we are making.
It is very important to set realistic deadlines. In a sport like athletics, simply dedicating more hours doesn’t always mean faster improvement. Our bodies need to assimilate the skills and also need rest.
Evaluating progress as time passes or as we achieve our goals will allow us to know if we are working correctly, if we should dedicate more time to one type of training than another, or even if we need to adjust our goals. Our objectives may change throughout this process; this is normal, and we must accept it for what it is—an adjustment—and never as a defeat.
Would you like to share your athletics journey? At CIAT, we’re waiting for you with realistic goals and a sport you’ll be passionate about.
