How to …. Goal Set as a Shred Girl

So you want to get better at bikes? That might mean trying a harder trail or bigger jump, getting a certain result in a race, or even just getting out and riding a certain number of times each week. Whatever your goal is, let’s talk about how you can work towards achieving it!

 

Pick a Process-Oriented Goal

It’s great to have goals that are tied to certain outcomes, like MTBer Emilly Johnston saying “I really want to go to the XC 2019 World Championships and I want to place in the top three.” That’s an awesome goal to have, but you need to have process-oriented goals as well as goals that center around getting to a certain point or winning a certain race. A process goal for Emilly is “I also want to improve my technical skills.” That process goal will help her make her way to the outcome goal of the World Championship team — a good goal is something that you can break down into achievable chunks, so for Emilly, that may mean she plans to practice log hops every Monday, cornering every Wednesday, rock-overs every Friday, and work with a skills coach one-on-one once a month. Single sentence goals are all well and good, but if you can’t break them into manageable chunks that you can work towards, they’re more like wishes than goals!

 

Find Your Willpower

When it’s cold and rainy, it’s hard to get out and sneak a ride in. But it’s almost always worth it! “I believe the hardest part for anyone is self discipline,” says Carys Reid. “Motivation can fade, especially through the colder months, making it easy to put off training but I always think of what I want to accomplish in the following season, giving me that extra boost of motivation.”

 

Show Up with a Purpose

“As motivation, something that always stuck with me is to “show up with a purpose”. You won’t get anywhere in this sport or life if you don’t show up—to school, to training, to a race. That’s the first step, show up. The second step is to have purpose. Self-purpose to be exact.” Carys said this and it totally clicked for me… I’ve gone to races, I’ve shown up, but I didn’t have a purpose, and — surprise!—the race didn’t go well for me. I was just riding along on the course, not really motivated to push myself. Now, whether I’m going to a race or just meeting some friends to practice, I make sure that I’m actually showing up and that I have a purpose and a plan (whether it’s to ‘just have fun’ or ‘try to be in the top 5’!) It’s made riding so much more rewarding.

 

Set a Goal to Work on Skills

The best part about this last goal, whether you ride BMX, road, CX or MTB, is that you can always be improving and practicing — and it’s an everyday thing, not just a ‘this is my one race for the year and everything has come down to this’ type of goal. And practicing skills will get you SO far in cycling! “It’s really common to be terrified of obstacles! I’m still terrified of some. I think it’s so important to focus on developing skills,” says new MTB World Champ Kate Courtney. If you go out for a ride with someone who’s already great at skills, it can be intimidating and seem like they just naturally are good at it, and you think ’they can do it but I can’t.’ But if you take the steps to learn, OK how do I go off a drop? What do I need to do with my body? And find a good teacher, you start to take away that fear.”

 

Write It Down

“Create your goals; dream about them, write them down, work towards them everyday and you’ll find yourself a lot better for it!” says Carys. Start by writing down where you want to be as a cyclist this year or by this time next year. Maybe you’ll need to ask your parents for help (or ask them to find you a coach or mentor), or maybe you can do some of the work on your own. But write down what those goals are, reflect on them often, and make a plan to slowly but steadily achieve them!

 

 

 

 

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