July 15, 2024 • 54 mins
In Episode #13, Ash and Matt talk about goals and setting goals. They share their personal experiences with goal setting and explore the differences between the traditional "SMART Goals" approach and the more "Open Goals" approach. They discuss the limitations of SMART goals and how they can lead to a rigid and all-or-nothing mentality. They highlight the importance of focusing on the process and enjoying the day-to-day journey rather than solely focusing on the end result. They provide insights into how goal setting can be tailored to individual preferences and personalities. They share personal examples of how they have implemented open goals in their own lives, both in sports and other areas. They also discuss the benefits of remaining flexible and adaptable in pursuing goals.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
How has your relationship been, Ashley, as an athlete approaching goal setting the smart way?
(00:06):
I've never resonated with the smart way. I just did it because that's what I was taught.
When it comes to soccer every year, how many goals do you want to score? And I'm just like,
ugh, I want to score as many goals as possible, but it feels like it's putting me in a box.
If I'm only focusing on scoring goals, I play stiff. I just know I want to focus on playing
my best, playing freely, working hard. And I know if I do that, these things will naturally
(00:28):
fall in place and I will score goals. And I feel like I did a really good job of that throughout
my college career. I also thought that if you don't want to do smart goals, you're kind of soft.
You don't think you can achieve these things. No, I do think I can achieve these things,
but I don't think I'm going to achieve them with this method. There's another way to do this. I'm
not going to make smart goals. I'm going to have more of this open, holistic approach because I
(00:49):
know if I'm in the right mindset, if I'm in the right physical state and I'm doing all the right
things, I will then be able to achieve those goals or surpass those goals.
Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Ditto. I'm Ashley Hatch, professional soccer
(01:10):
player in the NWSL and for the Washington Spirit. I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Matt Moore. Matt.
Hello.
How are you doing today?
How are you?
We're good.
I'm great.
Yeah.
We are both great.
We are good.
Hey, by the way, I need to tell you something because we haven't gone over this yet. So at
the time of this recording, it's been almost two weeks. No, no, no. Just barely a week since we
(01:35):
saw you in Utah when you played the Utah Royals. You guys killed the road. You just beat them.
One zero.
Still got three points on the road. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. That was just fantastic. And by the way, we need to upload that picture.
Yeah. That's a good photo.
Me in the background for those that can't see the video right now. There's a picture of me
behind the goal. That's where me and my daughter were sitting and we were the only Spirit fans.
(02:00):
So we are amongst the enemies and it was perfect time. So we got there a little late. I think it
was like in the, when did you score? It was like the 15th minute or 20th minute or something.
I think maybe the 16th minute or something.
We got there like the 10th minute and we sat down and it was like 12 minutes. We're going by 13
and then the ball started coming towards us. We're like, yes, here we go. Here's some action.
(02:23):
And they scored like within five minutes of us being there. And so I stand up and I'm yelling,
I'm the only Spirit fan. I think internally we're telling me to shut up.
Everyone around you was just like giving you that like scalding hate look.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was fantastic. And then of course, so I have a seven-year-old daughter
highly influenced by other women, especially professional women, whether it's swimmers or
(02:46):
soccer players or ballerinas right now. And so, you know, us of course, knowing each other,
Ashley's now one of her heroes and now she knows Aubrey because we sat behind the goal and Aubrey
came over to the goal and I told her all about Aubrey. Oh, nice. And so now she wants to be a
soccer player. Love it. My seven-year-old. And she wants to, yeah, I know. I know. And she was saying,
(03:14):
I want to be professional just like Ashley and Aubrey so people can come to my game and take
pictures of me. And then she goes, and then she turns to me and she goes, it was so funny. She
turns and she goes, but dad, if I play soccer or when I play soccer, I might get a red card.
Uh-oh. And I go, and I go, okay. Sounds good. As long as you're fighting for it, that's fine.
(03:38):
Anyways, it was a fantastic experience. It sounds like she's timid or shy at all, which is great.
No, she's, the last like two years, she's busted out of her social bubble, gone into her social
bubble. She was so isolated and shy, but now she's, just loves being around everybody.
Awesome. Anyways, wonderful experience. I know this was a couple of weeks ago. How was the
(04:01):
match just a couple of days ago? I know you guys tied. Yeah, we tied against San Diego Wave.
We had a packed Audi field, which was amazing. So I feel like that was huge. How many, how many fans
roughly is that when you say pack? 20,000. I think we were. Oh, cool. 18 or 19, maybe 19. So we were
(04:23):
really close to getting it fully packed, which was awesome. So that was really fun. Yeah. It was a
really cool environment. It was a really good game. Lots of back and forth. San Diego is a good team.
They scored early on and we kind of were chipping away all the way to the end and finally got the
equalizing goal. And it was great. I feel like our fans deserved that. So we all, of course, wish
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that we could have gotten a few more to get the W, but it was overall really good environment and
good experience. It was fun. Hopefully we can pack it the next game for sure. Are you, are you home
again this next game? No, we are leaving to Gotham and then we're home again the next week.
Batman. Yeah. You're going to go play Batman? Yes, we are. We're going to take him down.
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Are they good? Yeah. Are they good this year? Yeah. They're defending champs from last year. So
oh, that's right. You got to take it to them. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. It'll be fun. Yeah, for sure.
Awesome. Well, I guess speaking of things that we want to do in the future goals, I feel like this
is very fitting. You know, your daughter wanting to be a professional soccer player, going and
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playing the defending champs. Goals is what we're going to talk about today, which is exciting
because most of the time people talk about goals in January. And that's the only time that I feel
like people talk about them or set them. And I feel like the topic of goals can be different
for everyone, maybe even a little bit controversial because I've had conversations with teammates or
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people that are like, I love setting goals. Like it's my favorite time of the year. People are like,
I hate setting goals. Like I think it's stupid. It doesn't resonate with me. And I think it's
just something people do and never follow through. So I think this is a great place to start. But
Matt, what are your opinions on setting goals, whether they be physical, financial, spiritual,
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like all the above, what's your outlook on setting goals? Yeah. It's a topic that has, for me,
gone in different waves, in different directions over the years, ever since really my master's
degree. And so, going through my master's, speaking of that, I had a mentor. She is brilliant
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and she does wonderful work, especially in the field of sports psychology, but she hates goal
setting. And having next to zero exposure to different opinions of goal setting prior to my
master's degree, her saying this, I was like, whoa, should I be listening to this lady? What's
going on? I thought goal setting was like the way and the approach and we all have to be doing it to
(07:09):
achieve anything or any kind of happiness. And so, she opened, thanks to her, she opened my
opinion, my beliefs, my direction on how I teach goal setting, on how I approach goal setting
personally in my own life. Broadly speaking, and I think you can attest to this, let me know if you
(07:33):
don't. For me, I think my opinion on goal setting is if you have things to strive for,
that's the most important part. Now, the approach in the setting is up to you.
But again, from a 30,000 foot viewpoint, I think it's important that we as human beings have things
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to strive for. Now, you can call that your calling, you can call that your purpose, you can call that
your why, however you want to phrase it. Whatever resonates with you, I think is,
is the most important part. And then similarly, I think with my experience, I'm biased, obviously,
educating yourself on what works and how you want to approach that striving is really, really the
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most important part for me. Do you agree with that? Disagree?
Yeah, 100%. I mean, I would say I'm similar to you in regards of like, my relationship with goal
setting has evolved. And I think when we're all younger, and we first learn about goal setting,
it's usually smart goals, or it's like, set a goal and set steps to get to that goal and to achieve
(08:44):
that goal. And sometimes I feel like we would make up goals just because we know that goals are
important. And we don't really like we're like, okay, totally, I want to make varsity change.
Totally. I want to make varsity track, because that sounds cool, and everyone does it. So like,
let's do that. Or we don't really have a real reason to set goals, other than we know we've
(09:10):
been taught that goals are really important. So these are the goals that we're going to set.
So I feel like that's kind of how it started for me when I was younger, like goals are important.
So we sat down as a family, made goals for the year. It was always really fun. But then like,
life got in the way. And like, by the end of the year, forget about the goals. But as I got older,
(09:31):
or the half of the year, exactly. And then as I got older, and more competitive into sports,
I feel like goals started becoming a little bit more realistic, like, oh, hey, like I want,
I actually do want to achieve these things. Like, how do I achieve these things? Let's go after
these things. And then I feel like as I got even older, and learn more about myself, I feel like
(09:53):
this goal setting process has evolved. And especially like talking to you, I know we'll
dive into open goals. But open goals, I feel like resonates more with me and like my personality,
and my approach on just life in general. And so I feel like I started this process of like having
an open goal, before I knew exactly what an open goal was, just because I knew how it made me feel.
(10:19):
And I knew that like, I didn't want to tie my identity to a specific goal. And if I didn't
achieve this specific goal, then like, therefore, my identity was lesser than I think it can be,
or what I am capable of. And I feel like it can all get very intertwined. Doesn't mean that setting
(10:41):
goals isn't important. But I think like you said, the process and the way you go about it is really
important. So I think it'd be really important for us to dive into the differences between
these processes. I know you sent an article to me to read and I thought it was really good,
which I'm sure we can link here for our listeners. But yeah, I think differentiating that is important.
(11:02):
So many, yeah, so many good points and so much unpacked. Speaking to your experience, I mean,
we just had an amazing conversation with your dad. PDD baby, passion, dedication, determination,
right? That for me, and I don't know the specificity of those conversations of how you were
(11:25):
implementing those as a child or in the Hatch family. But that's, you know, from a broad
perspective, outsider looking into that conversation and how he approaches parenting and coaching,
it's very open. You have these kind of these pillars to strive for. But how Ashley approaches
it, how Brianna approaches it, how Braxton. Braxton approaches it. McKenna, how McKenna approaches it,
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is going to be very different with everyone. And that's for everyone else outside your family as
well, me included. And so, going back to my experience in my master's degree, it was ironic
because as a master's student for my second year, we were given a topic to present on.
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And I was gone for the day that the topics were assigned. I think I was sick. I was not like
sloughing. I wasn't in the ditching school. I really wasn't. And I come back and they're like,
oh, Matt, you have goal setting. And I'm like, okay. I know. Yeah, yeah, I know one way, like
the smart way to set goals. So I guess that's how I'm going to approach it. But this, again,
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life changing moment for me and my perspective of goal setting. I'm presenting and it was going
really well. And I was throwing a bunch of hypotheticals at my classmates. And okay,
we need to be specific and how are we going to measure this and all of these things.
And you always have a smart A student when you're doing role plays in classes. My classmate
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raises his hand and he goes, okay, so if I set this goal, what if I don't achieve it?
And he was being a smart alec, but very good question. In the moment, Ashley, I didn't know
what to say. I just go, no, seriously, it was so awkward. I go, yeah, we're not going to go down
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that right now. We'll just pretend that you are going to accomplish these goals. Yeah. And of
course, my class and my teacher goes, okay, like, that's not a wonderful way to set goals or how to
answer that question. And so it pushed me to learn more about goal setting and to not only learn more,
but to really try to take in all the different approaches and depths and breadth of goal setting
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and dive into the literature. And so we've mentioned in the last five minutes, these terms,
smart goals and open goals. And I sent you this awesome article. It basically breaks down two
approaches, but two broad approaches to goal setting. And so, as you know, listener, the smart
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approach is ubiquitous. Most people know what it is. Most people know how to do it. A lot of
companies, teams, musicians, families use this approach, basically specific, measurable, attainable,
relatable, or relevant, whatever version you're using in time bound. Okay. So when you set these
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goals, you're following this protocol. So if I want to lose 30 pounds, I have to be specific,
30 pounds. If I want to measure it, it's going to be on the scale. I got to get on the scale every
single day. If I want to attain it, I have to map out how that attainability is going to come to
fruition. Is it relevant or realistic or relatable? 30 pounds, that's kind of a lot. Maybe I go 10.
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Or if it's 30 pounds, I want to stick to that. The time would be a year from now or six months,
which seems like a lot. Anyways, that's what that approach looks like. However,
it doesn't work for everybody. And I know you can speak to this. I've done this approach, again,
(15:16):
up until I was about, I don't know, 25. It was the only approach I knew.
Oftentimes, and more often than we want to admit, we don't accomplish our objectives or our goals
that we set for ourselves. In fact, most gyms speaking to exercise, physical activity, objectives
and goals are done by February or March. So you're two months in and you're already over the loss of
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five pounds or getting your daily step count in every single day. It's like, no, that's too much.
Even though you followed this five step protocol. Right? So I guess, how can you,
as a professional athlete, relate to both, because there is a lot of efficacy, there's a lot of
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effectiveness within setting specific, measurable, attainable, et cetera goals. But there's also kind
of this, I'm going to call it the dark side, even though that sounds dramatic. There's also the
contrarian view of this. And we'll get into what this open goals is here in just a minute. But for
you, how has your relationship been Ashley as an athlete or maybe just as a human being in approaching
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goal setting the smart way? The smart way. To be honest, I've never resonated with the smart way.
Like I said earlier, I just did it because that's what I was taught in school or in, I don't know,
with soccer and my teammates or I don't know, mostly a classroom type setting. And it felt
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kind of like a fad and I just went through the SMART just because it just felt like I was doing
a routine. Checking a box. Yeah. Like activity or assignment. And I also noticed it just didn't make
me feel excited. It kind of just felt like work. And I was excited about the goal and like, okay,
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how can I get these steps to fit in these letters? And it honestly has never resonated with me.
And specifically when it comes to soccer, I've realized that every year I always have this,
I'm sure I had this conversation with you too, but I've always had this conversation with my dad or
with Jeff. I'm like, okay, how many goals do you want to score? And I'm just like, I hate this topic
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because I want to score as many goals as possible. That's my goal and I want to win games and I want
to do all of these things. But it feels like it's kind of like either putting me in a box or just
like putting it. And I feel like if I'm only focusing on scoring goals, then I play stiff and
(18:05):
I'm only worried about that. And if I don't score a goal in a game, I'm not enjoying it. And I'm like,
oh my gosh, I didn't score a goal. I'm not going to get closer to my goal. I'm scoring this many
goals per season or per game or whatever it is. Or you scored four goals in a game and you surpassed
your objective. Yeah, exactly. And then I'm like, okay, I'm chilling. So like, I just didn't like
the emotional roller coaster that it would put me on, especially for like a long season or like in
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college. So like, I would think about it. I'm like, okay, like, I know that I play better and I play
more freely. Of course I want to score goals. Like I became a forward in high school because I just
was naturally like good at scoring goals. It wasn't like someone was like, you need to score goals.
This is what you're going to do. This is your calling in life. Go out there and score goals.
I just like started playing and I was enjoying it and I was scoring goals. And I didn't really
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realize that there was like goal scoring records per year until my freshman year, my coach came up
to me halfway through the year and he was like, you're really close to score. Like, yeah, you're
really close to breaking the record for freshman goals. And I was just like, what? I didn't even
know we counted those things. Like, I didn't even know that was a thing. Right? So I never really
liked that discussion of like, how many are you going to score? But everyone always asks that and
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everyone always wants that. And so I've kind of like struggled with that. Like, oh yeah, this is
how many I want to score. But in the back of my mind, I'm like, I just know I want to focus on
playing my best, playing freely, working hard. And I know if I do that, these things will naturally
fall in place and I will score goals. And I feel like I did a really good job of that throughout
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my college career of just kind of like blocking out the noise of like, these are the records,
you need to go for them. Like, of course I'm going to go for them, but I'm going to go for them in a
different way than other people might think that I'm going for them. I'm not going to make smart
goals. I'm going to have more of this like, open, holistic approach because I know if I'm in the
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right mindset, if I'm in the right physical state, and I'm doing all the right things, I will then
be able to achieve those goals or surpass those goals, like you've said. So that's kind of been
my experience with smart goals. It never resonated with me. I never really enjoyed it. But I didn't
really know an alternative. So I kind of felt like I was like doing something wrong until we had a
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conversation and I feel like it really like, I had a lot of aha moments of like, okay, there's another
way to do this. And it doesn't mean, I also thought that like, if you don't want to do goals or smart
goals and like, you're kind of soft, like this perception of like, you don't think you can achieve
these things. I was like, no, I do think I can achieve these things, but I don't think I'm going
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to achieve them with this method. So that's my rant for you.
I love it.
With smart goals.
It's beautiful. Beautiful. And I share the same sentiment. I want to make it clear to the
listeners that this has been our experience and this is where our biases, I think, lie in terms of
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not really relating to the smart approach because it has been very effective for a lot of people
over the years. Here's the weird thing about smart goals that I think a lot of people don't know.
This approach was first introduced in 1981 by a business management like journal review editor,
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writer guy. His name is George Doran and he put it in a business management review. And as a result,
a lot of people, a lot of teams have adopted the approach, I think, because it's really simple
to integrate. And it can be a, as a result, a clear framework to set objectives, to have well
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defined and it's really easy for a company, like you said, Ashley, especially a company,
to check those boxes of, yeah, we have goals. Look, look how specific we are. Look how we're
going to measure it. Look how we're going to attain it. It's relatable. It's time bound,
all of these things. But inevitably people aren't going to always relate to it. And inevitably,
you're not always going to accomplish that specific goal. And so then going back to my
(22:21):
master's degree experience, what then? What if you don't accomplish it or what if you surpass it?
What if you make $3 million more than what your specific goal was outlining? So again,
Ashley and I have mentioned this term for the last 15 minutes, being open to the approach
and more specifically setting open goals can be an efficacious way in how you can go about
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accomplishing whatever it is you're wanting to accomplish in whatever domain you're wanting to
do that in, whether it's professional soccer or business or whatever. So this term, open goals was
first introduced, God, I forget the, I believe it was 2010, but I could be off. Anyways,
leading researchers, Christian Swan, for those that are interested, want to dive into the
(23:10):
nerdville with me. He's I think out of Australia and specifically, I think he's within this
department of psychology, specifically he studies goal setting. And similar to Ashley and I's
experience in conversations over the years, it was, man, there's got to be a different
way and how we can accomplish these desires, these purposes in our life. And this open approach,
(23:36):
these open goals allowed for this. So, so basically open goals are broad and flexible.
They're exploratory. They're non-specific. And what I love most about them is they're,
they allow for creativity and exploration of your experience. So like smart goals,
(23:59):
they don't have this quote unquote, all or nothing mentality or approach.
Because like smart goals, this is where you're going and this is it. And you're concentrated on
this end objective that's very specific, which again can be good, but oftentimes it can be
really detrimental because you're missing the process. You're missing the day to day, which
(24:23):
is the most important part of setting goals. And being more open allows for that fluidity of
your life to be present. And then as a result, you're more present because you're concentrating
on the day, not the end objective. That's been a lot of my experience in accomplishing anything
(24:45):
that I've wanted to accomplish. I tell people what I do and oftentimes, you know, it comes up,
oh, you have a PhD and you teach in academia and they're like, oh, geez, you have a PhD.
And I go, I promise I'm not the smartest person in the world. Oftentimes, I'm not the smartest
person in the world. Oftentimes, I'm not even the smartest person in my household. My wife's way
(25:05):
smarter than me.
Yep, great answer.
Yes. However, I just work really hard on a day to day basis on doing what I needed to do and need
to do to be where I wanted to be. When I decided I wanted to pursue a PhD, actually in my master's
degree, you want to know what a mentor told me?
(25:27):
What?
I told her, and I'm not going to say the name because, yeah, not going to say it. I told her,
hey, I think I want to get a PhD. This stuff's just really interesting to me. I love it. I want
to learn as much as I can. And she goes, you know what? I don't really think you're PhD material.
Oh, geez.
(25:48):
And I'm like, oh my gosh.
What is PhD material?
Wow, that hurts. Just a dagger to the heart.
Ouch.
And so for me, it was, okay, thanks, I guess. So I had to go home and reflect on what do I need to
do on a day to day basis to put this belief in myself to accomplish the goal of getting into a
(26:11):
PhD program and obtaining a PhD. And so it was, I had to hire a tutor to help me with my math to
up my GRE score so I could get into a program. And it was little things of wanting to hopefully
get into a PhD. But first it was this on a day to day basis, and then that, and then this,
and then that. And ultimately, yes, I got into a PhD program, but then now I'm in,
(26:35):
how do I graduate? And now I have three years to actually accomplish this really hard work.
And similarly, it was, I can't focus and place all this attention and effort on the end objective
because I'm going to miss the meat of the experience. Right?
Yeah.
I know you've had that before or can relate to that.
(26:56):
Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, you hear people say all the time, like trust the process,
trust the process. And sometimes it just feels like flashy words, but it's like, no, really,
what is your process? Trust that process. And a lot of the times I feel like smart goals
has this perception of like, okay, here's the direct line to your goal. It's going to go
(27:16):
exactly like this because you've laid it all out. But it's like, as we all know, life is like this,
which if you're not watching, it's like all over the place and then you get there and you're not
going to fully get the most out of that zigzag. If you're not in the process and you're not
accepting it all and taking it day by day, step by step, appreciating the process,
(27:39):
I feel like is really important. Appreciating that there's going to be these ups and downs.
Totally.
And there's going to be these lessons that you're going to learn that you didn't know you were
going to learn that you didn't know that you needed. And you're going to get so much more out
of the experience than actually achieving the goal. And I think if you speak to anyone who has
achieved their goal, or if you listen to interviews of athletes who are on the podium,
(28:05):
they're really happy that they got there. But a lot of the times they reference the process and
all the hard work and all the trials they overcame. Over and over you see that. And it's because the
process is really important. If we skip that process, if we're not fully present for that
process, and that goal isn't going to be as sweet, it's not going to be as special. And
(28:28):
sometimes that goal will change because life changes.
Like there's a lot of things outside of our control that will influence what our goals are.
And sometimes those goals won't matter because maybe someone in our family is really, really sick
and we need to avert all of our attention to taking care of them. Or maybe we have to move,
(28:49):
or maybe we get a different coach, or maybe we don't like the sport that we're playing anymore.
So we're going to play, we're going to go a different direction. Or you change positions.
Or you change positions and you're asked to do something different than you're used to doing,
and your goals were attached to that position, or whatever it may be. Then what do you do? And I
feel like that's a reason why a lot of people drop their goals after the first second month of the
(29:13):
year. It's like, this isn't attainable to my life right now anymore. And so I need to push this aside
and focus on this. So it's like, how do you navigate this? How do you continue to make progress in your
life and all the areas that you want to make progress if you don't have some sort of direction
or something to focus on? And so that's why I love Open Goals because I feel like it can apply
(29:34):
to all areas of life. And I think this, I know I bring this up every single episode, but it's
really, really important, but the self-awareness of how is this goal or how is this process like
making me feel. And I feel like a lot of the times the article references it, but a lot of the times
when we set smart goals or we set goals just to set goals, we feel like we're doing things just
(29:58):
to check off the list, right? And so I know for me when, I don't know, growing up, I'd help my mom
with her goal of going on a walk or doing some physical activity every day or whatever it was,
sometimes it felt like, okay, we got to go on a walk. We got to go on a walk. We got to go do this
because this is my goal. Instead of like, oh, I'm enjoying this walk and I want to do this. It's
(30:21):
like, okay, I just got to check it off. And then once I check it off, I feel fine. But you're not
really enjoying that walk. You're focusing all of your energy just to get on the walk. And then you
have this like terrible relationship with whatever it is that you're doing. It's like, no wonder people
want to keep doing it because they don't have a great relationship with it. They're not really
(30:41):
enjoying it, even if it's hard. And I think you can have a good relationship with hard things
if you understand the process and you understand where you're trying to get to and you understanding
that near why I guess, I feel like if you have those things, then it's like, okay, I can do this.
This makes sense. But yeah, that's why I think open goals with recognizing the feelings that
(31:09):
you have while you're trying to obtain those goals is really important.
Yeah. And putting yourself in those type of situations and building upon that psychological
and emotional orientation, you're not placing focus on where you should be.
(31:30):
You're placing focus on the starting point and you're building on a day-to-day basis of a new
starting point and a new starting point and a new starting point. And then when you look back after
a week or a month or a year, you're going to go, holy bleep. Look how far I've come. And look how
much I've grown and progressed. And if I would have isolated myself to one specific avenue,
(31:55):
I guarantee you, you wouldn't have had those type of experiences.
For me, of the many reasons why I'm similarly actually an open goal advocate is it's very
mindful. I'm a mindfulness practitioner in how I philosophically and theoretically approach
sports, psychology and life really in general. And being mindful is paying attention on purpose
(32:19):
in the present moment non-judgmentally. It's beautifully correlated in my mind to this open
goal approach. Here's, you said something really, really important.
Oftentimes when we do reach the objective, I think in the moment
we're proud, we're happy, but then it's always like, what's next? Or, God, could I have done more?
(32:47):
Or something else. Reaching that apex oftentimes is anticlimactic.
I remember this quote from Nick Saban, winning as college football coach of all time, the goat,
as they say. His quote is, it's all about the chase, not the capture. And I think that
(33:10):
illustrates it perfectly. And he even said this after one of the many championships he won,
he's holding this crystal ball that you get in college football after you win the championship.
And his quote was, man, is this it? They just won everything. And he had probably an undefeated
season. And I know your husband's a huge Bama fan, but really, is this it? It's all about
(33:40):
what you're doing along the way. And then the icing on the cake, which is this thin,
the rest of the cake should be three or four inches, is the championship or is the number
of goals that you're aspiring to do. But the chunk of it, the meat of it is the process. And
to be able to get the most out of that process, you have to remain open, pun intended, and allow
(34:06):
for this creativity and this exploratory type of orientation to get the most out of whatever it is
you're wanting to accomplish. Because inevitably, you're going to have life throw its hurdles and
challenges, even if you are on the top of whatever professional league you might find yourself in,
(34:27):
and you're the very best of the best, you're still going to encounter hurdles and challenges,
whether it's personally or professionally. So how can you remain open and creative to that
and learn from it and continually grow and get better? And it's, in my opinion, it's not by
isolating yourself to one avenue and one specific avenue.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So powerful. I mean, I think, so as we're talking about smart goals,
(34:54):
and open goals, and I feel like open goals can be really hard for people to grasp or understand,
especially when we've all been exposed to smart goals. There's like this certain type of like
fluidity to it that can be hard to kind of like, capture or like really completely understand or
live out. And I feel like as we talk about it, and if I was a listener, if like, and I was listening
(35:19):
for the first time, I'd be like, okay, I understand the concept. Yeah. How do you do this? How do you
implement this discipline into open goals to therefore then continue to improve as a person
or achieve your goals? Because we all, we understand that goals are important, right? You
can't just be like, oh, I want to lose 30 pounds and I'm just going to take it day by day and
(35:43):
see how it goes, see how I feel. If I want to run, I'll run. If I want to eat lettuce, I'll eat
lettuce. You know, like, that's not exactly how it works. There's still is this like, there's still
an element of like discipline and self-awareness and these really important tools that you need to
be able to know how to use to be able to get from point A to point B. It may not be a straight line,
(36:08):
but like, you still want to move that direction. And so, you know, I think that's the way to go.
So, Matt, how do we do this? How do you go about starting an open goal?
Yeah. Yeah. Great question. And in a minute, I want to ask you what open goals have looked
like specifically for you in your career. But here's an example, because this is a great point is,
(36:32):
you know, what does this actually look like? If we're going back to physical activity goals,
let's say you do want to lose 15 pounds. You know, there are many things that one can do to
achieve that type of goal to be able to lose 15 pounds. And so, if we were approaching it from an
open orientation, it might look like this. Today, I want to see how many steps I can get on my step
(36:58):
count. Let's say yesterday was 6,000. Let's just see how many I can do today. You're not even
looking at your watch or your phone while you're doing the steps. Then maybe after you're done,
it's 7,500 or maybe it's 5,500. And then the next day you can go, ooh, let's see how many more I
can do the next day. And so, it requires, I think, more monitoring throughout the process. But it,
(37:26):
again, it puts you in the process way more than it would otherwise if you were just had one end
objective. And then from a nutritional standpoint, let's see how many vegetables
I can get with every meal today or maybe just lunch and dinner. So, you're remaining open,
(37:46):
but the objective is still to eat healthy. And it's contributing to this overall approach of
hopefully losing 15 pounds. Then after this monitoring on a daily basis, you're in the
process. You're in the present moment. You're recognizing that, geez, your step count is going
up. So, maybe we do a little jogging today. So, instead of just going on steps and we're going
(38:11):
for a walk, let's see how far I can jog today. Then you're growing just a little bit more and
you're having veggies with every meal. Ooh, okay. Now I'm drinking an X amount of ounces of water
every single day. Let's see how much more I can do today. And so, again, you're remaining open,
but it's the constant monitoring. It's a continual pursuit of just being a little bit better every
(38:37):
single day, even if it's 0.5% that much better. So, that's just a small example of a physical
activity goal on how you can approach this. Effort is a huge part of this. And if you've
listened to past episodes, you've heard this term growth mindset orientation. It's remaining open.
It's remaining dynamic. And so, for you physical people, aficionados out there,
(39:04):
a dynamic stretch versus a static stretch. Static is you're staying still. That's more
fixed oriented. Dynamic is remaining open and more growth oriented. And it's really all about
the effort. How much effort am I putting in today? Let's see how much better I can do today and the
next day and the next day, et cetera. Does that make sense? So, let me ask you, Ash, what does
(39:27):
this look like for you in your career to be more open goal oriented and how has it served you?
Yeah. I mean, I feel like I can use this year as an example. I feel like this year is probably the
first year that I was very intentional about my open goals. And I wish I was more prepared and had
(39:50):
my sheet of paper that you sent me that I filled out for my open goal. But as I looked at this year,
there was a lot of changes. New coach, new coaching staff, new style of play, new season,
lots of newness. You had no control over. Yes. Yes. Right? Yeah. There's a huge point. Yep.
(40:12):
And like we talked about in the holistic athlete episode, this doesn't pertain to just soccer.
There's a lot of things in my life that are also new or things that I want to learn, new things
that I want to learn. Starting a podcast, I'm trying to sew. There's a lot of new hobbies that
I wanted to explore, but I also wanted to explore them and enjoy them and not do them just to do
(40:38):
them because I want to say I've learned how to sew. So I went through that sheet and talked to you.
I know that you encouraged me to find one word that can encompass my open goals or encompass
my approach to this year, to this season of life. And the word that I landed on was grow.
(41:05):
And that word really resonated with me as I went through the sheet and kind of looked back on
the things that I have accomplished and the person that I am now and the person that I want
to become and the person that I want to be. I feel like there's a lot of growth that needs to happen,
but growth in all areas of life. And I feel like as I've approached this season, there has been a
(41:27):
lot of growth and it maybe hasn't looked exactly like I would have wanted it to or how maybe the
outside would perceive it or would expect it. But as I approach each and every day of training,
I'm able to reflect on like, did I grow today or how can I grow today? And when I show up, I can
(41:48):
grow by for right now on the soccer field. I'm trying to focus on my first touch going forward
and receiving the ball in space, checking my shoulder side on. And that may sound super
specific, but I make that the beginning of this season because I didn't know what I was going to
need right now. But this week going forward or this part of the season going forward, I'm
(42:11):
going forward in order to grow as a player and to continue to improve as a player in my position.
This is what I need to grow and this is what I need to improve. And I wouldn't have been able
to set that at the beginning of the season because I didn't know the specifics of my life. I didn't
know the details. I didn't know where I'd be as a player. So that's where I am right now, focusing
on that week by week. And as I continue, as I reflect on the times in training or in games
(42:36):
when I did it well, I also reflect on the times where I didn't do it well and how I can do better
next time. And usually I need to check my shoulder a few more times and then I'm able to turn. But
once I'm able to develop that skill, then I'm going to move on to the next one. But I'm still
moving in the right direction of continuing to grow as a person and a player. And that's the
(42:58):
direction that I want to be going. But I'm fully embedded in the process and in the day to day.
I'm not like looking forward and like, oh my gosh, how do I get there? That seems like so far away.
I'm like, okay, every day at training, how can I get better? How can I grow? And on the flip side,
even outside of soccer, I don't think I would have started this podcast if my word for the year
(43:21):
wasn't grow. Because as I kind of reflected, as you proposed, like, hey, we should do a podcast.
We have a lot of really good discussions. My first initial reaction was like, that sounds way too
hard. That sounds super vulnerable. I don't really like speaking publicly. Like, it just, I saw all
these like red flags are these scary things. But as I actually sat with it and like digested it and
(43:46):
reflect on it, I was like, you know what, my word for this year is grow. And this is a perfect
opportunity for me to push myself out of my comfort zone and to grow. And if I didn't have that open
goal, and if I had maybe a smart goal, I probably would have said no, because like, this could be a
distraction from soccer. And if we've had that conversation before, too, if it had, if it ever
(44:10):
does become a distraction, then we would just stop. But if I had a smart goal, I would have just said,
no. But I was open to exploring it and open to like, can this fit within my goal of growing
as a person and as a player? And it definitely has. And I feel like it's become a really fun
educational outlet for me that like, hasn't distracted from soccer at all, but I feel like
(44:35):
has helped me with my soccer career. And I'm learning a lot of new things. I'm learning a lot
of new skills, I'm developing a lot of new skills. And so yeah, that's kind of how I've been approaching
my open goals this year. And from an outsider looking into it, you may not be able to like
understand it or see it. But like for me, I'm like, this is really, really helping me. And I even
(45:00):
have my grow bracelet on today. Oh, cool. I love it. I sometimes give myself a little bit of a reminder
because when I have these, when I have down moments where it's like, oh, like training was tough
today, or I don't feel like I played as well as I could. I'm able to like look back on my word and
(45:20):
like, well, I'm, I'm trying to grow this year. And you need to go through these hard times to grow,
you need to be able to work through these hard times, you need to be able to implement these tools
that you've been provided with, whether it's mental, the mental side of the game, or the
physical aspect of the game. And you need to be able to use those tools and implement those tools.
And you can't use and implement those tools if you don't have tough days or down times, because
(45:46):
if everything's always easy breezy, then you're never going to learn, you're never going to grow,
you're never going to have the opportunity to use these tools. And so I feel like it's a good
reminder for me in the successful times, like, oh, wow, I grew today. Or it's like, wow, I'm growing
today because this is hard. I feel like there's growth on both ends. So that's how I approached
(46:08):
my open goals this year. Amazing. There's so much creativity in there and so much exploratory
orientation and growth, again, pun intended. I want to emphasize for everyone that
it's not the way. More precision when you're trying to do a very precise objective, and it
(46:37):
is very specific, maybe a smart type of approach would be the most effective.
But in Ashley's case, and in my experience, the more awareness and acceptance and kind of
mindful orientation that we've adopted to any kind of performance domain, you start to recognize
(46:58):
that you have very little control over the situation, but you can highly influence it.
Basically, it's preparation effort and your attitude, and it's really hard to be specific
on a long-term basis with that in mind. Like you mentioned, if you would have set very specific
goals at the start of the season, I'm assuming a lot of those would have taken a huge turn
(47:25):
because there's been so much change and unexpected turns that are way outside of your control that
have happened since the start of the season. And this goes for the start of a school season. This
goes for the start of a relationship. This goes for the day even. You just don't know as a human
being what life is going to throw at you. Sometimes it's really horrible. Sometimes it's kind of
(47:51):
horrible. Sometimes it's great, and sometimes it's really great, but you just don't know.
And so, in my mind, it's really beneficial to be flexible to that. And me and you, we've talked
about this term for years now. One of my favorite terms in sports psychology isn't mental toughness,
(48:13):
it's mental flexibility, because the idea of remaining flexible, being flexible, is so,
so important. And I believe a more open approach to be able to attain that is the effective
approach. Anyway, it's dependent on who the individual is, who the team is, and the actual
(48:35):
objectives that you're wanting to accomplish. So keep that in mind, listener, that although our
biases lie towards where we've just been talking about, there are many wonderful ways that can get
you to where you want to go and allow you to accomplish whatever it is that you're wanting to
accomplish. Anyways, goal setting.
Yes. Ditto to all of that, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I think another way that I've been able to
(49:03):
implement these open goal style approach is with my personal scripture study this year. My goal
for the year isn't just to finish the Book of Mormon, that's what we're studying as a church
this year. My goal this year is to study the Book of Mormon. And I feel like in the past,
(49:23):
my goal was always to finish. And I would finish, but a lot of the times, I would be reading like,
late at night or early in the morning, just like a certain amount of pages or for a certain amount
of time, I would read either way too fast or way too slow. But my goal was just to finish. And so,
(49:45):
I would finish and I would check that off my list.
Get nothing out of it. Yeah.
And get absolutely nothing out of it, except to say, I did it, I finished.
You finished, that's it. Yeah.
And this year, my goal is to study the Book of Mormon. And so, my approach to it this year has
(50:07):
been I want to do it in the morning. I've never been a study in the morning person, but I want
to try it this year and see how it goes. It sets the day off really well, right?
Yeah. When you can get this type of stuff done in the morning.
It does, it really does. And I've noticed a difference and I've really enjoyed it.
Yeah. But I want to like not just read in the morning,
(50:27):
I want to be able to study in the morning. And so, I do that by having my Come Follow Me
manual and the Book of Mormon side by side, reading scriptures, like reading chapters,
but not just like reading it, but like going back and looking at the manual and reading cross
referencing scriptures and like actually like stopping, answering questions or thinking and
(50:48):
pondering about what it is that I'm reading. And if I do that, I'm going to be able to read
and if I don't understand reading it again, but I'm able to do it with like such a more free,
like open approach instead of like, oh, I can't go off on these like-
Just getting it done.
Yeah. I can't go off on these other like searches and reading other scriptures or
(51:10):
cross referencing with the Bible because it's going to keep me from my timeline,
my timetable of finishing. And so, I've been able to, and there's also some mornings where
I had a late night or we had a late game and I want to sleep in an extra 30 minutes. I feel
like my body needs it. And I know that if I wake up early and I try and study, I'm not going to
(51:34):
actually be able to study. I'm just going to be reading. So, then I don't do it and I come home
when I do it after training and I make sure that I do it, but I make sure that when I sit down to
study, I'm actually able, I have a lot of amount and enough, sorry, I've allotted the right amount
of time to be able to sit down and study. And so, since my goal is study, I don't sit down and read
(52:00):
unless I'm able to study. And some days that means I can't do it and that's totally fine,
but I've also noticed a difference in the days that I do it and the days that I don't. So, I
naturally want to do it because I feel the benefit of it in my life and I feel the
just the upbeat attitude that I have in the morning when I get up early and I'm able to study
(52:24):
and kind of refocus my purpose and perspective to start the day. So, that's just another example
of an open goal that I feel like has worked really well for me this year. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So, then that word for you, study, looks different every single day. Yeah.
But nonetheless, you're accomplishing your quote unquote goal to study, right? Yeah.
(52:47):
And then as a result, you're also meeting this broader purpose of growth, you're growing
spiritually as a result of your study. Yeah. Beautiful example in a different domain other
than soccer or whatever it might be. I love it. I understand there are different opinions on this.
I've met some people that are, you know, you got to be specific, you got to write it on the mirror,
(53:10):
you got to look at it every single day, and you got to envision yourself accomplishing that.
And I get that that might work for some people. I know some people like us are more open and more
flexible and take a more mindful approach. Find your approach. Experiment with the domain,
with the context, with the team, and find what works best because there's going to be different
(53:34):
ways and how you can accomplish something. And most importantly, and hopefully, find growth
throughout the process so that you're finding and exploring every single day new ways to be
more resilient, to be stronger, to hopefully accomplish whatever it is that you're wanting
to accomplish. So. Yeah. That's all I got. I think that's great.
(53:59):
Okay. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode, everybody. Let us know what questions or comments
or opinions, even if you totally disagree with it, we would love to hear from you anyways.
Yes. Thanks. Thanks for listening. Bye bye. Bye.
How has your relationship been, Ashley, as an athlete approaching goal setting the smart way?
(00:06):
I've never resonated with the smart way. I just did it because that's what I was taught.
When it comes to soccer every year, how many goals do you want to score? And I'm just like,
ugh, I want to score as many goals as possible, but it feels like it's putting me in a box.
If I'm only focusing on scoring goals, I play stiff. I just know I want to focus on playing
my best, playing freely, working hard. And I know if I do that, these things will naturally
(00:28):
fall in place and I will score goals. And I feel like I did a really good job of that throughout
my college career. I also thought that if you don't want to do smart goals, you're kind of soft.
You don't think you can achieve these things. No, I do think I can achieve these things,
but I don't think I'm going to achieve them with this method. There's another way to do this. I'm
not going to make smart goals. I'm going to have more of this open, holistic approach because I
(00:49):
know if I'm in the right mindset, if I'm in the right physical state and I'm doing all the right
things, I will then be able to achieve those goals or surpass those goals.
Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Ditto. I'm Ashley Hatch, professional soccer
(01:10):
player in the NWSL and for the Washington Spirit. I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Matt Moore. Matt.
Hello.
How are you doing today?
How are you?
We're good.
I'm great.
Yeah.
We are both great.
We are good.
Hey, by the way, I need to tell you something because we haven't gone over this yet. So at
the time of this recording, it's been almost two weeks. No, no, no. Just barely a week since we
(01:35):
saw you in Utah when you played the Utah Royals. You guys killed the road. You just beat them.
One zero.
Still got three points on the road. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. That was just fantastic. And by the way, we need to upload that picture.
Yeah. That's a good photo.
Me in the background for those that can't see the video right now. There's a picture of me
behind the goal. That's where me and my daughter were sitting and we were the only Spirit fans.
(02:00):
So we are amongst the enemies and it was perfect time. So we got there a little late. I think it
was like in the, when did you score? It was like the 15th minute or 20th minute or something.
I think maybe the 16th minute or something.
We got there like the 10th minute and we sat down and it was like 12 minutes. We're going by 13
and then the ball started coming towards us. We're like, yes, here we go. Here's some action.
(02:23):
And they scored like within five minutes of us being there. And so I stand up and I'm yelling,
I'm the only Spirit fan. I think internally we're telling me to shut up.
Everyone around you was just like giving you that like scalding hate look.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was fantastic. And then of course, so I have a seven-year-old daughter
highly influenced by other women, especially professional women, whether it's swimmers or
(02:46):
soccer players or ballerinas right now. And so, you know, us of course, knowing each other,
Ashley's now one of her heroes and now she knows Aubrey because we sat behind the goal and Aubrey
came over to the goal and I told her all about Aubrey. Oh, nice. And so now she wants to be a
soccer player. Love it. My seven-year-old. And she wants to, yeah, I know. I know. And she was saying,
(03:14):
I want to be professional just like Ashley and Aubrey so people can come to my game and take
pictures of me. And then she goes, and then she turns to me and she goes, it was so funny. She
turns and she goes, but dad, if I play soccer or when I play soccer, I might get a red card.
Uh-oh. And I go, and I go, okay. Sounds good. As long as you're fighting for it, that's fine.
(03:38):
Anyways, it was a fantastic experience. It sounds like she's timid or shy at all, which is great.
No, she's, the last like two years, she's busted out of her social bubble, gone into her social
bubble. She was so isolated and shy, but now she's, just loves being around everybody.
Awesome. Anyways, wonderful experience. I know this was a couple of weeks ago. How was the
(04:01):
match just a couple of days ago? I know you guys tied. Yeah, we tied against San Diego Wave.
We had a packed Audi field, which was amazing. So I feel like that was huge. How many, how many fans
roughly is that when you say pack? 20,000. I think we were. Oh, cool. 18 or 19, maybe 19. So we were
(04:23):
really close to getting it fully packed, which was awesome. So that was really fun. Yeah. It was a
really cool environment. It was a really good game. Lots of back and forth. San Diego is a good team.
They scored early on and we kind of were chipping away all the way to the end and finally got the
equalizing goal. And it was great. I feel like our fans deserved that. So we all, of course, wish
(04:46):
that we could have gotten a few more to get the W, but it was overall really good environment and
good experience. It was fun. Hopefully we can pack it the next game for sure. Are you, are you home
again this next game? No, we are leaving to Gotham and then we're home again the next week.
Batman. Yeah. You're going to go play Batman? Yes, we are. We're going to take him down.
(05:09):
Are they good? Yeah. Are they good this year? Yeah. They're defending champs from last year. So
oh, that's right. You got to take it to them. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. It'll be fun. Yeah, for sure.
Awesome. Well, I guess speaking of things that we want to do in the future goals, I feel like this
is very fitting. You know, your daughter wanting to be a professional soccer player, going and
(05:33):
playing the defending champs. Goals is what we're going to talk about today, which is exciting
because most of the time people talk about goals in January. And that's the only time that I feel
like people talk about them or set them. And I feel like the topic of goals can be different
for everyone, maybe even a little bit controversial because I've had conversations with teammates or
(05:58):
people that are like, I love setting goals. Like it's my favorite time of the year. People are like,
I hate setting goals. Like I think it's stupid. It doesn't resonate with me. And I think it's
just something people do and never follow through. So I think this is a great place to start. But
Matt, what are your opinions on setting goals, whether they be physical, financial, spiritual,
(06:22):
like all the above, what's your outlook on setting goals? Yeah. It's a topic that has, for me,
gone in different waves, in different directions over the years, ever since really my master's
degree. And so, going through my master's, speaking of that, I had a mentor. She is brilliant
(06:45):
and she does wonderful work, especially in the field of sports psychology, but she hates goal
setting. And having next to zero exposure to different opinions of goal setting prior to my
master's degree, her saying this, I was like, whoa, should I be listening to this lady? What's
going on? I thought goal setting was like the way and the approach and we all have to be doing it to
(07:09):
achieve anything or any kind of happiness. And so, she opened, thanks to her, she opened my
opinion, my beliefs, my direction on how I teach goal setting, on how I approach goal setting
personally in my own life. Broadly speaking, and I think you can attest to this, let me know if you
(07:33):
don't. For me, I think my opinion on goal setting is if you have things to strive for,
that's the most important part. Now, the approach in the setting is up to you.
But again, from a 30,000 foot viewpoint, I think it's important that we as human beings have things
(07:54):
to strive for. Now, you can call that your calling, you can call that your purpose, you can call that
your why, however you want to phrase it. Whatever resonates with you, I think is,
is the most important part. And then similarly, I think with my experience, I'm biased, obviously,
educating yourself on what works and how you want to approach that striving is really, really the
(08:20):
most important part for me. Do you agree with that? Disagree?
Yeah, 100%. I mean, I would say I'm similar to you in regards of like, my relationship with goal
setting has evolved. And I think when we're all younger, and we first learn about goal setting,
it's usually smart goals, or it's like, set a goal and set steps to get to that goal and to achieve
(08:44):
that goal. And sometimes I feel like we would make up goals just because we know that goals are
important. And we don't really like we're like, okay, totally, I want to make varsity change.
Totally. I want to make varsity track, because that sounds cool, and everyone does it. So like,
let's do that. Or we don't really have a real reason to set goals, other than we know we've
(09:10):
been taught that goals are really important. So these are the goals that we're going to set.
So I feel like that's kind of how it started for me when I was younger, like goals are important.
So we sat down as a family, made goals for the year. It was always really fun. But then like,
life got in the way. And like, by the end of the year, forget about the goals. But as I got older,
(09:31):
or the half of the year, exactly. And then as I got older, and more competitive into sports,
I feel like goals started becoming a little bit more realistic, like, oh, hey, like I want,
I actually do want to achieve these things. Like, how do I achieve these things? Let's go after
these things. And then I feel like as I got even older, and learn more about myself, I feel like
(09:53):
this goal setting process has evolved. And especially like talking to you, I know we'll
dive into open goals. But open goals, I feel like resonates more with me and like my personality,
and my approach on just life in general. And so I feel like I started this process of like having
an open goal, before I knew exactly what an open goal was, just because I knew how it made me feel.
(10:19):
And I knew that like, I didn't want to tie my identity to a specific goal. And if I didn't
achieve this specific goal, then like, therefore, my identity was lesser than I think it can be,
or what I am capable of. And I feel like it can all get very intertwined. Doesn't mean that setting
(10:41):
goals isn't important. But I think like you said, the process and the way you go about it is really
important. So I think it'd be really important for us to dive into the differences between
these processes. I know you sent an article to me to read and I thought it was really good,
which I'm sure we can link here for our listeners. But yeah, I think differentiating that is important.
(11:02):
So many, yeah, so many good points and so much unpacked. Speaking to your experience, I mean,
we just had an amazing conversation with your dad. PDD baby, passion, dedication, determination,
right? That for me, and I don't know the specificity of those conversations of how you were
(11:25):
implementing those as a child or in the Hatch family. But that's, you know, from a broad
perspective, outsider looking into that conversation and how he approaches parenting and coaching,
it's very open. You have these kind of these pillars to strive for. But how Ashley approaches
it, how Brianna approaches it, how Braxton. Braxton approaches it. McKenna, how McKenna approaches it,
(11:54):
is going to be very different with everyone. And that's for everyone else outside your family as
well, me included. And so, going back to my experience in my master's degree, it was ironic
because as a master's student for my second year, we were given a topic to present on.
(12:15):
And I was gone for the day that the topics were assigned. I think I was sick. I was not like
sloughing. I wasn't in the ditching school. I really wasn't. And I come back and they're like,
oh, Matt, you have goal setting. And I'm like, okay. I know. Yeah, yeah, I know one way, like
the smart way to set goals. So I guess that's how I'm going to approach it. But this, again,
(12:38):
life changing moment for me and my perspective of goal setting. I'm presenting and it was going
really well. And I was throwing a bunch of hypotheticals at my classmates. And okay,
we need to be specific and how are we going to measure this and all of these things.
And you always have a smart A student when you're doing role plays in classes. My classmate
(13:00):
raises his hand and he goes, okay, so if I set this goal, what if I don't achieve it?
And he was being a smart alec, but very good question. In the moment, Ashley, I didn't know
what to say. I just go, no, seriously, it was so awkward. I go, yeah, we're not going to go down
(13:22):
that right now. We'll just pretend that you are going to accomplish these goals. Yeah. And of
course, my class and my teacher goes, okay, like, that's not a wonderful way to set goals or how to
answer that question. And so it pushed me to learn more about goal setting and to not only learn more,
but to really try to take in all the different approaches and depths and breadth of goal setting
(13:46):
and dive into the literature. And so we've mentioned in the last five minutes, these terms,
smart goals and open goals. And I sent you this awesome article. It basically breaks down two
approaches, but two broad approaches to goal setting. And so, as you know, listener, the smart
(14:07):
approach is ubiquitous. Most people know what it is. Most people know how to do it. A lot of
companies, teams, musicians, families use this approach, basically specific, measurable, attainable,
relatable, or relevant, whatever version you're using in time bound. Okay. So when you set these
(14:29):
goals, you're following this protocol. So if I want to lose 30 pounds, I have to be specific,
30 pounds. If I want to measure it, it's going to be on the scale. I got to get on the scale every
single day. If I want to attain it, I have to map out how that attainability is going to come to
fruition. Is it relevant or realistic or relatable? 30 pounds, that's kind of a lot. Maybe I go 10.
(14:55):
Or if it's 30 pounds, I want to stick to that. The time would be a year from now or six months,
which seems like a lot. Anyways, that's what that approach looks like. However,
it doesn't work for everybody. And I know you can speak to this. I've done this approach, again,
(15:16):
up until I was about, I don't know, 25. It was the only approach I knew.
Oftentimes, and more often than we want to admit, we don't accomplish our objectives or our goals
that we set for ourselves. In fact, most gyms speaking to exercise, physical activity, objectives
and goals are done by February or March. So you're two months in and you're already over the loss of
(15:42):
five pounds or getting your daily step count in every single day. It's like, no, that's too much.
Even though you followed this five step protocol. Right? So I guess, how can you,
as a professional athlete, relate to both, because there is a lot of efficacy, there's a lot of
(16:02):
effectiveness within setting specific, measurable, attainable, et cetera goals. But there's also kind
of this, I'm going to call it the dark side, even though that sounds dramatic. There's also the
contrarian view of this. And we'll get into what this open goals is here in just a minute. But for
you, how has your relationship been Ashley as an athlete or maybe just as a human being in approaching
(16:28):
goal setting the smart way? The smart way. To be honest, I've never resonated with the smart way.
Like I said earlier, I just did it because that's what I was taught in school or in, I don't know,
with soccer and my teammates or I don't know, mostly a classroom type setting. And it felt
(16:54):
kind of like a fad and I just went through the SMART just because it just felt like I was doing
a routine. Checking a box. Yeah. Like activity or assignment. And I also noticed it just didn't make
me feel excited. It kind of just felt like work. And I was excited about the goal and like, okay,
(17:17):
how can I get these steps to fit in these letters? And it honestly has never resonated with me.
And specifically when it comes to soccer, I've realized that every year I always have this,
I'm sure I had this conversation with you too, but I've always had this conversation with my dad or
with Jeff. I'm like, okay, how many goals do you want to score? And I'm just like, I hate this topic
(17:40):
because I want to score as many goals as possible. That's my goal and I want to win games and I want
to do all of these things. But it feels like it's kind of like either putting me in a box or just
like putting it. And I feel like if I'm only focusing on scoring goals, then I play stiff and
(18:05):
I'm only worried about that. And if I don't score a goal in a game, I'm not enjoying it. And I'm like,
oh my gosh, I didn't score a goal. I'm not going to get closer to my goal. I'm scoring this many
goals per season or per game or whatever it is. Or you scored four goals in a game and you surpassed
your objective. Yeah, exactly. And then I'm like, okay, I'm chilling. So like, I just didn't like
the emotional roller coaster that it would put me on, especially for like a long season or like in
(18:30):
college. So like, I would think about it. I'm like, okay, like, I know that I play better and I play
more freely. Of course I want to score goals. Like I became a forward in high school because I just
was naturally like good at scoring goals. It wasn't like someone was like, you need to score goals.
This is what you're going to do. This is your calling in life. Go out there and score goals.
I just like started playing and I was enjoying it and I was scoring goals. And I didn't really
(18:54):
realize that there was like goal scoring records per year until my freshman year, my coach came up
to me halfway through the year and he was like, you're really close to score. Like, yeah, you're
really close to breaking the record for freshman goals. And I was just like, what? I didn't even
know we counted those things. Like, I didn't even know that was a thing. Right? So I never really
liked that discussion of like, how many are you going to score? But everyone always asks that and
(19:17):
everyone always wants that. And so I've kind of like struggled with that. Like, oh yeah, this is
how many I want to score. But in the back of my mind, I'm like, I just know I want to focus on
playing my best, playing freely, working hard. And I know if I do that, these things will naturally
fall in place and I will score goals. And I feel like I did a really good job of that throughout
(19:37):
my college career of just kind of like blocking out the noise of like, these are the records,
you need to go for them. Like, of course I'm going to go for them, but I'm going to go for them in a
different way than other people might think that I'm going for them. I'm not going to make smart
goals. I'm going to have more of this like, open, holistic approach because I know if I'm in the
(19:58):
right mindset, if I'm in the right physical state, and I'm doing all the right things, I will then
be able to achieve those goals or surpass those goals, like you've said. So that's kind of been
my experience with smart goals. It never resonated with me. I never really enjoyed it. But I didn't
really know an alternative. So I kind of felt like I was like doing something wrong until we had a
(20:22):
conversation and I feel like it really like, I had a lot of aha moments of like, okay, there's another
way to do this. And it doesn't mean, I also thought that like, if you don't want to do goals or smart
goals and like, you're kind of soft, like this perception of like, you don't think you can achieve
these things. I was like, no, I do think I can achieve these things, but I don't think I'm going
(20:46):
to achieve them with this method. So that's my rant for you.
I love it.
With smart goals.
It's beautiful. Beautiful. And I share the same sentiment. I want to make it clear to the
listeners that this has been our experience and this is where our biases, I think, lie in terms of
(21:07):
not really relating to the smart approach because it has been very effective for a lot of people
over the years. Here's the weird thing about smart goals that I think a lot of people don't know.
This approach was first introduced in 1981 by a business management like journal review editor,
(21:30):
writer guy. His name is George Doran and he put it in a business management review. And as a result,
a lot of people, a lot of teams have adopted the approach, I think, because it's really simple
to integrate. And it can be a, as a result, a clear framework to set objectives, to have well
(21:57):
defined and it's really easy for a company, like you said, Ashley, especially a company,
to check those boxes of, yeah, we have goals. Look, look how specific we are. Look how we're
going to measure it. Look how we're going to attain it. It's relatable. It's time bound,
all of these things. But inevitably people aren't going to always relate to it. And inevitably,
you're not always going to accomplish that specific goal. And so then going back to my
(22:21):
master's degree experience, what then? What if you don't accomplish it or what if you surpass it?
What if you make $3 million more than what your specific goal was outlining? So again,
Ashley and I have mentioned this term for the last 15 minutes, being open to the approach
and more specifically setting open goals can be an efficacious way in how you can go about
(22:47):
accomplishing whatever it is you're wanting to accomplish in whatever domain you're wanting to
do that in, whether it's professional soccer or business or whatever. So this term, open goals was
first introduced, God, I forget the, I believe it was 2010, but I could be off. Anyways,
leading researchers, Christian Swan, for those that are interested, want to dive into the
(23:10):
nerdville with me. He's I think out of Australia and specifically, I think he's within this
department of psychology, specifically he studies goal setting. And similar to Ashley and I's
experience in conversations over the years, it was, man, there's got to be a different
way and how we can accomplish these desires, these purposes in our life. And this open approach,
(23:36):
these open goals allowed for this. So, so basically open goals are broad and flexible.
They're exploratory. They're non-specific. And what I love most about them is they're,
they allow for creativity and exploration of your experience. So like smart goals,
(23:59):
they don't have this quote unquote, all or nothing mentality or approach.
Because like smart goals, this is where you're going and this is it. And you're concentrated on
this end objective that's very specific, which again can be good, but oftentimes it can be
really detrimental because you're missing the process. You're missing the day to day, which
(24:23):
is the most important part of setting goals. And being more open allows for that fluidity of
your life to be present. And then as a result, you're more present because you're concentrating
on the day, not the end objective. That's been a lot of my experience in accomplishing anything
(24:45):
that I've wanted to accomplish. I tell people what I do and oftentimes, you know, it comes up,
oh, you have a PhD and you teach in academia and they're like, oh, geez, you have a PhD.
And I go, I promise I'm not the smartest person in the world. Oftentimes, I'm not the smartest
person in the world. Oftentimes, I'm not even the smartest person in my household. My wife's way
(25:05):
smarter than me.
Yep, great answer.
Yes. However, I just work really hard on a day to day basis on doing what I needed to do and need
to do to be where I wanted to be. When I decided I wanted to pursue a PhD, actually in my master's
degree, you want to know what a mentor told me?
(25:27):
What?
I told her, and I'm not going to say the name because, yeah, not going to say it. I told her,
hey, I think I want to get a PhD. This stuff's just really interesting to me. I love it. I want
to learn as much as I can. And she goes, you know what? I don't really think you're PhD material.
Oh, geez.
(25:48):
And I'm like, oh my gosh.
What is PhD material?
Wow, that hurts. Just a dagger to the heart.
Ouch.
And so for me, it was, okay, thanks, I guess. So I had to go home and reflect on what do I need to
do on a day to day basis to put this belief in myself to accomplish the goal of getting into a
(26:11):
PhD program and obtaining a PhD. And so it was, I had to hire a tutor to help me with my math to
up my GRE score so I could get into a program. And it was little things of wanting to hopefully
get into a PhD. But first it was this on a day to day basis, and then that, and then this,
and then that. And ultimately, yes, I got into a PhD program, but then now I'm in,
(26:35):
how do I graduate? And now I have three years to actually accomplish this really hard work.
And similarly, it was, I can't focus and place all this attention and effort on the end objective
because I'm going to miss the meat of the experience. Right?
Yeah.
I know you've had that before or can relate to that.
(26:56):
Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, you hear people say all the time, like trust the process,
trust the process. And sometimes it just feels like flashy words, but it's like, no, really,
what is your process? Trust that process. And a lot of the times I feel like smart goals
has this perception of like, okay, here's the direct line to your goal. It's going to go
(27:16):
exactly like this because you've laid it all out. But it's like, as we all know, life is like this,
which if you're not watching, it's like all over the place and then you get there and you're not
going to fully get the most out of that zigzag. If you're not in the process and you're not
accepting it all and taking it day by day, step by step, appreciating the process,
(27:39):
I feel like is really important. Appreciating that there's going to be these ups and downs.
Totally.
And there's going to be these lessons that you're going to learn that you didn't know you were
going to learn that you didn't know that you needed. And you're going to get so much more out
of the experience than actually achieving the goal. And I think if you speak to anyone who has
achieved their goal, or if you listen to interviews of athletes who are on the podium,
(28:05):
they're really happy that they got there. But a lot of the times they reference the process and
all the hard work and all the trials they overcame. Over and over you see that. And it's because the
process is really important. If we skip that process, if we're not fully present for that
process, and that goal isn't going to be as sweet, it's not going to be as special. And
(28:28):
sometimes that goal will change because life changes.
Like there's a lot of things outside of our control that will influence what our goals are.
And sometimes those goals won't matter because maybe someone in our family is really, really sick
and we need to avert all of our attention to taking care of them. Or maybe we have to move,
(28:49):
or maybe we get a different coach, or maybe we don't like the sport that we're playing anymore.
So we're going to play, we're going to go a different direction. Or you change positions.
Or you change positions and you're asked to do something different than you're used to doing,
and your goals were attached to that position, or whatever it may be. Then what do you do? And I
feel like that's a reason why a lot of people drop their goals after the first second month of the
(29:13):
year. It's like, this isn't attainable to my life right now anymore. And so I need to push this aside
and focus on this. So it's like, how do you navigate this? How do you continue to make progress in your
life and all the areas that you want to make progress if you don't have some sort of direction
or something to focus on? And so that's why I love Open Goals because I feel like it can apply
(29:34):
to all areas of life. And I think this, I know I bring this up every single episode, but it's
really, really important, but the self-awareness of how is this goal or how is this process like
making me feel. And I feel like a lot of the times the article references it, but a lot of the times
when we set smart goals or we set goals just to set goals, we feel like we're doing things just
(29:58):
to check off the list, right? And so I know for me when, I don't know, growing up, I'd help my mom
with her goal of going on a walk or doing some physical activity every day or whatever it was,
sometimes it felt like, okay, we got to go on a walk. We got to go on a walk. We got to go do this
because this is my goal. Instead of like, oh, I'm enjoying this walk and I want to do this. It's
(30:21):
like, okay, I just got to check it off. And then once I check it off, I feel fine. But you're not
really enjoying that walk. You're focusing all of your energy just to get on the walk. And then you
have this like terrible relationship with whatever it is that you're doing. It's like, no wonder people
want to keep doing it because they don't have a great relationship with it. They're not really
(30:41):
enjoying it, even if it's hard. And I think you can have a good relationship with hard things
if you understand the process and you understand where you're trying to get to and you understanding
that near why I guess, I feel like if you have those things, then it's like, okay, I can do this.
This makes sense. But yeah, that's why I think open goals with recognizing the feelings that
(31:09):
you have while you're trying to obtain those goals is really important.
Yeah. And putting yourself in those type of situations and building upon that psychological
and emotional orientation, you're not placing focus on where you should be.
(31:30):
You're placing focus on the starting point and you're building on a day-to-day basis of a new
starting point and a new starting point and a new starting point. And then when you look back after
a week or a month or a year, you're going to go, holy bleep. Look how far I've come. And look how
much I've grown and progressed. And if I would have isolated myself to one specific avenue,
(31:55):
I guarantee you, you wouldn't have had those type of experiences.
For me, of the many reasons why I'm similarly actually an open goal advocate is it's very
mindful. I'm a mindfulness practitioner in how I philosophically and theoretically approach
sports, psychology and life really in general. And being mindful is paying attention on purpose
(32:19):
in the present moment non-judgmentally. It's beautifully correlated in my mind to this open
goal approach. Here's, you said something really, really important.
Oftentimes when we do reach the objective, I think in the moment
we're proud, we're happy, but then it's always like, what's next? Or, God, could I have done more?
(32:47):
Or something else. Reaching that apex oftentimes is anticlimactic.
I remember this quote from Nick Saban, winning as college football coach of all time, the goat,
as they say. His quote is, it's all about the chase, not the capture. And I think that
(33:10):
illustrates it perfectly. And he even said this after one of the many championships he won,
he's holding this crystal ball that you get in college football after you win the championship.
And his quote was, man, is this it? They just won everything. And he had probably an undefeated
season. And I know your husband's a huge Bama fan, but really, is this it? It's all about
(33:40):
what you're doing along the way. And then the icing on the cake, which is this thin,
the rest of the cake should be three or four inches, is the championship or is the number
of goals that you're aspiring to do. But the chunk of it, the meat of it is the process. And
to be able to get the most out of that process, you have to remain open, pun intended, and allow
(34:06):
for this creativity and this exploratory type of orientation to get the most out of whatever it is
you're wanting to accomplish. Because inevitably, you're going to have life throw its hurdles and
challenges, even if you are on the top of whatever professional league you might find yourself in,
(34:27):
and you're the very best of the best, you're still going to encounter hurdles and challenges,
whether it's personally or professionally. So how can you remain open and creative to that
and learn from it and continually grow and get better? And it's, in my opinion, it's not by
isolating yourself to one avenue and one specific avenue.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So powerful. I mean, I think, so as we're talking about smart goals,
(34:54):
and open goals, and I feel like open goals can be really hard for people to grasp or understand,
especially when we've all been exposed to smart goals. There's like this certain type of like
fluidity to it that can be hard to kind of like, capture or like really completely understand or
live out. And I feel like as we talk about it, and if I was a listener, if like, and I was listening
(35:19):
for the first time, I'd be like, okay, I understand the concept. Yeah. How do you do this? How do you
implement this discipline into open goals to therefore then continue to improve as a person
or achieve your goals? Because we all, we understand that goals are important, right? You
can't just be like, oh, I want to lose 30 pounds and I'm just going to take it day by day and
(35:43):
see how it goes, see how I feel. If I want to run, I'll run. If I want to eat lettuce, I'll eat
lettuce. You know, like, that's not exactly how it works. There's still is this like, there's still
an element of like discipline and self-awareness and these really important tools that you need to
be able to know how to use to be able to get from point A to point B. It may not be a straight line,
(36:08):
but like, you still want to move that direction. And so, you know, I think that's the way to go.
So, Matt, how do we do this? How do you go about starting an open goal?
Yeah. Yeah. Great question. And in a minute, I want to ask you what open goals have looked
like specifically for you in your career. But here's an example, because this is a great point is,
(36:32):
you know, what does this actually look like? If we're going back to physical activity goals,
let's say you do want to lose 15 pounds. You know, there are many things that one can do to
achieve that type of goal to be able to lose 15 pounds. And so, if we were approaching it from an
open orientation, it might look like this. Today, I want to see how many steps I can get on my step
(36:58):
count. Let's say yesterday was 6,000. Let's just see how many I can do today. You're not even
looking at your watch or your phone while you're doing the steps. Then maybe after you're done,
it's 7,500 or maybe it's 5,500. And then the next day you can go, ooh, let's see how many more I
can do the next day. And so, it requires, I think, more monitoring throughout the process. But it,
(37:26):
again, it puts you in the process way more than it would otherwise if you were just had one end
objective. And then from a nutritional standpoint, let's see how many vegetables
I can get with every meal today or maybe just lunch and dinner. So, you're remaining open,
(37:46):
but the objective is still to eat healthy. And it's contributing to this overall approach of
hopefully losing 15 pounds. Then after this monitoring on a daily basis, you're in the
process. You're in the present moment. You're recognizing that, geez, your step count is going
up. So, maybe we do a little jogging today. So, instead of just going on steps and we're going
(38:11):
for a walk, let's see how far I can jog today. Then you're growing just a little bit more and
you're having veggies with every meal. Ooh, okay. Now I'm drinking an X amount of ounces of water
every single day. Let's see how much more I can do today. And so, again, you're remaining open,
but it's the constant monitoring. It's a continual pursuit of just being a little bit better every
(38:37):
single day, even if it's 0.5% that much better. So, that's just a small example of a physical
activity goal on how you can approach this. Effort is a huge part of this. And if you've
listened to past episodes, you've heard this term growth mindset orientation. It's remaining open.
It's remaining dynamic. And so, for you physical people, aficionados out there,
(39:04):
a dynamic stretch versus a static stretch. Static is you're staying still. That's more
fixed oriented. Dynamic is remaining open and more growth oriented. And it's really all about
the effort. How much effort am I putting in today? Let's see how much better I can do today and the
next day and the next day, et cetera. Does that make sense? So, let me ask you, Ash, what does
(39:27):
this look like for you in your career to be more open goal oriented and how has it served you?
Yeah. I mean, I feel like I can use this year as an example. I feel like this year is probably the
first year that I was very intentional about my open goals. And I wish I was more prepared and had
(39:50):
my sheet of paper that you sent me that I filled out for my open goal. But as I looked at this year,
there was a lot of changes. New coach, new coaching staff, new style of play, new season,
lots of newness. You had no control over. Yes. Yes. Right? Yeah. There's a huge point. Yep.
(40:12):
And like we talked about in the holistic athlete episode, this doesn't pertain to just soccer.
There's a lot of things in my life that are also new or things that I want to learn, new things
that I want to learn. Starting a podcast, I'm trying to sew. There's a lot of new hobbies that
I wanted to explore, but I also wanted to explore them and enjoy them and not do them just to do
(40:38):
them because I want to say I've learned how to sew. So I went through that sheet and talked to you.
I know that you encouraged me to find one word that can encompass my open goals or encompass
my approach to this year, to this season of life. And the word that I landed on was grow.
(41:05):
And that word really resonated with me as I went through the sheet and kind of looked back on
the things that I have accomplished and the person that I am now and the person that I want
to become and the person that I want to be. I feel like there's a lot of growth that needs to happen,
but growth in all areas of life. And I feel like as I've approached this season, there has been a
(41:27):
lot of growth and it maybe hasn't looked exactly like I would have wanted it to or how maybe the
outside would perceive it or would expect it. But as I approach each and every day of training,
I'm able to reflect on like, did I grow today or how can I grow today? And when I show up, I can
(41:48):
grow by for right now on the soccer field. I'm trying to focus on my first touch going forward
and receiving the ball in space, checking my shoulder side on. And that may sound super
specific, but I make that the beginning of this season because I didn't know what I was going to
need right now. But this week going forward or this part of the season going forward, I'm
(42:11):
going forward in order to grow as a player and to continue to improve as a player in my position.
This is what I need to grow and this is what I need to improve. And I wouldn't have been able
to set that at the beginning of the season because I didn't know the specifics of my life. I didn't
know the details. I didn't know where I'd be as a player. So that's where I am right now, focusing
on that week by week. And as I continue, as I reflect on the times in training or in games
(42:36):
when I did it well, I also reflect on the times where I didn't do it well and how I can do better
next time. And usually I need to check my shoulder a few more times and then I'm able to turn. But
once I'm able to develop that skill, then I'm going to move on to the next one. But I'm still
moving in the right direction of continuing to grow as a person and a player. And that's the
(42:58):
direction that I want to be going. But I'm fully embedded in the process and in the day to day.
I'm not like looking forward and like, oh my gosh, how do I get there? That seems like so far away.
I'm like, okay, every day at training, how can I get better? How can I grow? And on the flip side,
even outside of soccer, I don't think I would have started this podcast if my word for the year
(43:21):
wasn't grow. Because as I kind of reflected, as you proposed, like, hey, we should do a podcast.
We have a lot of really good discussions. My first initial reaction was like, that sounds way too
hard. That sounds super vulnerable. I don't really like speaking publicly. Like, it just, I saw all
these like red flags are these scary things. But as I actually sat with it and like digested it and
(43:46):
reflect on it, I was like, you know what, my word for this year is grow. And this is a perfect
opportunity for me to push myself out of my comfort zone and to grow. And if I didn't have that open
goal, and if I had maybe a smart goal, I probably would have said no, because like, this could be a
distraction from soccer. And if we've had that conversation before, too, if it had, if it ever
(44:10):
does become a distraction, then we would just stop. But if I had a smart goal, I would have just said,
no. But I was open to exploring it and open to like, can this fit within my goal of growing
as a person and as a player? And it definitely has. And I feel like it's become a really fun
educational outlet for me that like, hasn't distracted from soccer at all, but I feel like
(44:35):
has helped me with my soccer career. And I'm learning a lot of new things. I'm learning a lot
of new skills, I'm developing a lot of new skills. And so yeah, that's kind of how I've been approaching
my open goals this year. And from an outsider looking into it, you may not be able to like
understand it or see it. But like for me, I'm like, this is really, really helping me. And I even
(45:00):
have my grow bracelet on today. Oh, cool. I love it. I sometimes give myself a little bit of a reminder
because when I have these, when I have down moments where it's like, oh, like training was tough
today, or I don't feel like I played as well as I could. I'm able to like look back on my word and
(45:20):
like, well, I'm, I'm trying to grow this year. And you need to go through these hard times to grow,
you need to be able to work through these hard times, you need to be able to implement these tools
that you've been provided with, whether it's mental, the mental side of the game, or the
physical aspect of the game. And you need to be able to use those tools and implement those tools.
And you can't use and implement those tools if you don't have tough days or down times, because
(45:46):
if everything's always easy breezy, then you're never going to learn, you're never going to grow,
you're never going to have the opportunity to use these tools. And so I feel like it's a good
reminder for me in the successful times, like, oh, wow, I grew today. Or it's like, wow, I'm growing
today because this is hard. I feel like there's growth on both ends. So that's how I approached
(46:08):
my open goals this year. Amazing. There's so much creativity in there and so much exploratory
orientation and growth, again, pun intended. I want to emphasize for everyone that
it's not the way. More precision when you're trying to do a very precise objective, and it
(46:37):
is very specific, maybe a smart type of approach would be the most effective.
But in Ashley's case, and in my experience, the more awareness and acceptance and kind of
mindful orientation that we've adopted to any kind of performance domain, you start to recognize
(46:58):
that you have very little control over the situation, but you can highly influence it.
Basically, it's preparation effort and your attitude, and it's really hard to be specific
on a long-term basis with that in mind. Like you mentioned, if you would have set very specific
goals at the start of the season, I'm assuming a lot of those would have taken a huge turn
(47:25):
because there's been so much change and unexpected turns that are way outside of your control that
have happened since the start of the season. And this goes for the start of a school season. This
goes for the start of a relationship. This goes for the day even. You just don't know as a human
being what life is going to throw at you. Sometimes it's really horrible. Sometimes it's kind of
(47:51):
horrible. Sometimes it's great, and sometimes it's really great, but you just don't know.
And so, in my mind, it's really beneficial to be flexible to that. And me and you, we've talked
about this term for years now. One of my favorite terms in sports psychology isn't mental toughness,
(48:13):
it's mental flexibility, because the idea of remaining flexible, being flexible, is so,
so important. And I believe a more open approach to be able to attain that is the effective
approach. Anyway, it's dependent on who the individual is, who the team is, and the actual
(48:35):
objectives that you're wanting to accomplish. So keep that in mind, listener, that although our
biases lie towards where we've just been talking about, there are many wonderful ways that can get
you to where you want to go and allow you to accomplish whatever it is that you're wanting to
accomplish. Anyways, goal setting.
Yes. Ditto to all of that, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I think another way that I've been able to
(49:03):
implement these open goal style approach is with my personal scripture study this year. My goal
for the year isn't just to finish the Book of Mormon, that's what we're studying as a church
this year. My goal this year is to study the Book of Mormon. And I feel like in the past,
(49:23):
my goal was always to finish. And I would finish, but a lot of the times, I would be reading like,
late at night or early in the morning, just like a certain amount of pages or for a certain amount
of time, I would read either way too fast or way too slow. But my goal was just to finish. And so,
(49:45):
I would finish and I would check that off my list.
Get nothing out of it. Yeah.
And get absolutely nothing out of it, except to say, I did it, I finished.
You finished, that's it. Yeah.
And this year, my goal is to study the Book of Mormon. And so, my approach to it this year has
(50:07):
been I want to do it in the morning. I've never been a study in the morning person, but I want
to try it this year and see how it goes. It sets the day off really well, right?
Yeah. When you can get this type of stuff done in the morning.
It does, it really does. And I've noticed a difference and I've really enjoyed it.
Yeah. But I want to like not just read in the morning,
(50:27):
I want to be able to study in the morning. And so, I do that by having my Come Follow Me
manual and the Book of Mormon side by side, reading scriptures, like reading chapters,
but not just like reading it, but like going back and looking at the manual and reading cross
referencing scriptures and like actually like stopping, answering questions or thinking and
(50:48):
pondering about what it is that I'm reading. And if I do that, I'm going to be able to read
and if I don't understand reading it again, but I'm able to do it with like such a more free,
like open approach instead of like, oh, I can't go off on these like-
Just getting it done.
Yeah. I can't go off on these other like searches and reading other scriptures or
(51:10):
cross referencing with the Bible because it's going to keep me from my timeline,
my timetable of finishing. And so, I've been able to, and there's also some mornings where
I had a late night or we had a late game and I want to sleep in an extra 30 minutes. I feel
like my body needs it. And I know that if I wake up early and I try and study, I'm not going to
(51:34):
actually be able to study. I'm just going to be reading. So, then I don't do it and I come home
when I do it after training and I make sure that I do it, but I make sure that when I sit down to
study, I'm actually able, I have a lot of amount and enough, sorry, I've allotted the right amount
of time to be able to sit down and study. And so, since my goal is study, I don't sit down and read
(52:00):
unless I'm able to study. And some days that means I can't do it and that's totally fine,
but I've also noticed a difference in the days that I do it and the days that I don't. So, I
naturally want to do it because I feel the benefit of it in my life and I feel the
just the upbeat attitude that I have in the morning when I get up early and I'm able to study
(52:24):
and kind of refocus my purpose and perspective to start the day. So, that's just another example
of an open goal that I feel like has worked really well for me this year. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So, then that word for you, study, looks different every single day. Yeah.
But nonetheless, you're accomplishing your quote unquote goal to study, right? Yeah.
(52:47):
And then as a result, you're also meeting this broader purpose of growth, you're growing
spiritually as a result of your study. Yeah. Beautiful example in a different domain other
than soccer or whatever it might be. I love it. I understand there are different opinions on this.
I've met some people that are, you know, you got to be specific, you got to write it on the mirror,
(53:10):
you got to look at it every single day, and you got to envision yourself accomplishing that.
And I get that that might work for some people. I know some people like us are more open and more
flexible and take a more mindful approach. Find your approach. Experiment with the domain,
with the context, with the team, and find what works best because there's going to be different
(53:34):
ways and how you can accomplish something. And most importantly, and hopefully, find growth
throughout the process so that you're finding and exploring every single day new ways to be
more resilient, to be stronger, to hopefully accomplish whatever it is that you're wanting
to accomplish. So. Yeah. That's all I got. I think that's great.
(53:59):
Okay. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode, everybody. Let us know what questions or comments
or opinions, even if you totally disagree with it, we would love to hear from you anyways.
Yes. Thanks. Thanks for listening. Bye bye. Bye.
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