I know what you need.

I know what you need.

Soak that up. Reading it might comfort you, or it might upset you, but either way: I do know what you need. I don't know the specifics of your circumstances, and you don't know mine. I don't know the bills, or overhead, or fading love you are worried about. I don't know if you're able to access food or you're afraid of losing what shelter you've got.

What I do know is that you need the same thing as me.

You need something to focus on, we all do. A goal that—even in our current, emotionally, financially or otherwise crippled state—we are capable of achieving or, at least, working toward. 

A goal is what we all need; something to aim at, something which is currently far away. And, on our way toward it, we need smaller goals or focal points; sharp and precise, crisp and clear. We need targets that will assure us we are on the right track when we hit them. More than that, we need to commit ourselves and be willing to sacrifice voluntarily. If the thing we commit ourselves toward improves us, it's that much better.

We don't need specialty bars or racks of any kind to set up a plan that will yield positive psychological dividends and help keep us moving through whatever training obstacles we currently find ourselves facing.

When it comes to my own training, I don't just show up and happen to be able to perform. No one does that. I prepare for each mile marker target ahead of time. I eat enough. I sleep enough. I hydrate. The night before, the morning of; I run my mental game. By the time I get under that bar, I have already completed the task 1000 times. If I had any doubts about my ability to execute, they are gone before my first working set.

A huge benefit of our training is the psychological reward we get when approaching short-term goals. There is a physiological aspect to this, too, but even without that, even when the goal isn't something physical, the psychological reward holds true. These "mile markers," in my case, can be as short-term as the goal for a given session.

Meeting a goal is fine, and that is usually enough to keep us going, but I prefer to set up short-term goals I know I'll be able to exceed slightly if I'm organized enough to prepare for them correctly. (Think AMGRAPS.)

On the other side of the coin, there are usually psychological obstacles we need to face to meet even our short-term goals in training or any other aspect of life for that matter.

Performing well is, in itself, psychologically beneficial. No one feels great about doing an acceptable job or barely meeting the mark.

So, following a plan that allows for realistic "mile marker" or micro-goals, like I mentioned above, is a crucial piece of the puzzle. But also, we don't want to undervalue the role of psychological preparation in having the confidence we need to execute our plans and meet those goals.

A lifter’s micro-goal for a volume session might be to improve or correct technique for every rep they perform on that day. A micro goal on a heavier session might be to maintain the improvements or corrections a lifter has already made while using a heavier weight. Or, if tech is already good, it could be to get an extra rep or two with a given weight.

From a psychological perspective, it’s crucial to clearly outline training goal structure, on both a micro and macro scale. That is to say that micro-goals should be achievable and predicated on an individual’s ability to optimize the modifiable factors which influence successful performance on a micro timeline. For example, a single session.

This keeps us accountable to prioritize those things because we are faced with the possibility of only performing acceptably or barely meeting the mark if we do the bare minimum to prepare. And, as I said before, no one feels great about that. 

This incentivizes the work necessary to perform well while achieving short-term goals. Performing well on short-term micro-goals becomes performing well on long-term macro-goals. Incremental improvement both "adds up" and is its own reward. It is truly the only path to anywhere worth going.

And that is the moral to extrapolate from our larger story this time. Set up short-term goals that not only incrementally support your long-term goals, but that remove as much misery from the process as possible.

Need some help getting started? Join the 5thSet for Powerbuilding team today, and let me take the wheel.