Welcome to Strong Girl Talk, where we dive into the latest in sports science, performance, and well-being—all with a focus on women and girls in sport. This week Sasha and Molly talk about Goal Setting - for sure one of my Molly’s favourite things to talk about.
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What is goal setting? Goal setting is the practice of identifying something you want to achieve—and creating a plan to get there. But it’s not just about outcomes like medals or personal bests. It’s about building direction, purpose, and progress in a way that aligns with your values, your well-being, and your own definition of success.
We believe goal setting isn’t about perfection—it’s about intention. It’s how you learn, grow, and celebrate who you are along the way, not just when you cross the finish line, finish a big project, or meet a big team goal.
Before we dive in, we’re going to celebrate Molly’s other podcast, the Consummate Athlete Podcast, and it has some great goal setting episodes, like last years and the one at the end of 2023. Plus there are lots of other great episodes to listen to.
Molly and Sasha, loved this from Skadi Sports Psychology, which emphasizes the use of these three types of goals for effective goal setting:
* Outcome Goals: These are your major achievements, such as winning a competition or qualifying for a championship.
* Performance Goals: These focus on improving individual performance metrics, like increasing a training pace or earning a personal best.
* Process Goals: These are the specific, controllable daily tasks and habits that support your performance and outcome goals. For example, sticking to a specific training schedule.
Want to understand how these work together? Tune in to listen to Sasha and Molly discuss how outcome, performance, and process goals weave through their lives.
We also talk about why goal setting in an adult context might be harmful to kids, especially those under 12. We highlight this work from the British Journal of Sports Medicine,Goal setting in youth sport: are we unintentionally contributing to dropout, (ps, it’s open access!). Don’t worry we’ve got you covered with what we talk about in our episode, plus these great resources from ILoveToWatchYouPlay and TrueSport.
Plus, Sasha shares a piece she wrote for Oiselle a few years ago about how every goal has a past, a present, and a future.
And finally, we wrap about talking about how goal setting and routines are related and we promise to do a future episode on motivation.
Sports Highlights:
The World Athletics Championships wrapped up in Tokyo with many amazing performances. Alongside the world and championship records broken, World Athletics hosted a series of engagements, including the Gender Leadership conference (see Sasha’s notes). At the Gender Leadership Conference, Alexis Ohanian, founder and co-owner of Athlos said “when women lead, we all win.” Check out the Athlos meet October 10th if you can with this year’s theme She Lights the City.
Women’s World Cup of Rugby continues. No. 1 seed, England, was knocked out by France. Canada is set to play England in the final this Saturday (11am ET), and France and New Zealand battle it out for the bronze. (Sasha made a mistake and England did beat France in the semi-final and will play Canada in the final).
Mountain Bike World Cup action returned to Lenzerheide, following the World Championships. There are two more stops on the World Cup Circuit, both in North America, finishing at Mount St Anne Quebec.
World Road Racing Championships are underway in Kigali, Rwanda. It’s the first time an African Nation’s hosted a world championships event for cycling. Will this open the gates to seeing more of this beautiful continent.
In North America it’s cross-country running season. If you’re looking for school programming, Sasha has put together a host of resources on YouTube and in a Google Drive.
A few new preorders have dropped on Strong Girl Publishing, don’t miss out!
Remember you can follow Molly and Sasha on Social Media including:
Molly - @mollyjhurford @stronggirlpublishing
Sasha - @SGollishRuns @Yellow_Running_Shoes
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