Mind Over Meta 37 - Setting SMART Goals

Mind Over Meta is a weekly series of articles on /r/SSBPM, the Project M subreddit. Written by several different authors, this series covers many of the mental aspects of playing smash and other subjects related specifically to Project M. This week user MeTricK wrote about respect. The original article can be found here. To read the rest of the series check out the Mind Over Meta Archive. Sit down, read, and enjoy.

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Hey guys! My name is MeTriK and I am a current sport psychology masters student, mental skills trainer for some European eSport organizations and most recent member of Smash Practice. I have been involved with high-level traditional athletics my entire life including playing collegiate ice hockey and now in the role of goaltending coach for the past 3 years. Exploring the mental side of competition and performance has always been a passion of mine and I am pleased to be bringing both my educational and personal experiences to eSports and the Smash Bros. scene. This is an article that accompanies two videos that we are producing as Smash Practice, the first being on motivation, and the second on goal-setting (to be released this week).

Motivation, that thing that most high school students tend to lose between the months of June and August. Recently within the Smash scene, I’ve seen a lot of top level players being affected by the mental strain that comes with traveling across the country and playing in high level tournaments. The situation has even gotten so bad that community-wide conversations have begun sprouting about the creation of an official season or circuit for the players. This article is going to skim the surface about increasing motivation through the creation of SMART goals.

When talking about increasing motivation, I don’t mean watching the Shia LaBeouf “Just Do It” meme for an hour on repeat. Although that may get you off the couch and into the kitchen to make dinner, it’s not the kind of thing that will propel players in the top 20 to push themselves towards peak performance. The easiest concept to begin the discussion on motivation with is goal setting. Goal setting can be governed by the simple phrase of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound). An example goal that I will use to highlight these 5 goal-setting benchmarks will be: Complete a d-throw, u-air combo 6 times in a row against Fox, within a week’s time.

Specific​

We want training goals to be specific in order for progress to be properly measured. If a goal during training is “to do my best”, granted that’s positive and potentially motivational, but your “best” can vary from day to day. The example above shows specifics; what combo, how many times consecutively, what character against, and exactly when the completion date is.

Measurable​

Creating a measurable goal piggybacks off of the specifics of the goal because if you deal with an abstract concept, then looking at the raw data from training will not have as much meaning. Being able to look at a calendar and notice the slightest improvements will do wonders for increasing motivation.

Attainable/Relevant​

Making your goals both attainable and relevant is important because even though “if you shoot for the moon and miss, you still land among the stars” sounds wonderful, you still missed the moon. This isn’t meant to be a negative of goal setting but a reminder that it is just as important to focus on the journey towards the end goal of “the moon” by creating reachable “star-by-star” goals.

Time-Bound​

Giving your goal a specific date to be completed by eliminates the acceptance of Johns. If our example goal was just d-throw, u-air 6 times against Fox period, we wouldn’t be as motivated to practice it because “eh, I’ll get it eventually.”

Conclusion​

So now you have a basic guide to creating meaningful, motivational goals to improve your practice time and stay motivated towards improving in Smash, but how do we actually begin to implement and stay in the habit of working on this goal and not suffer New Year’s resolution fatigue? By writing the goal down! Coming from a hockey background, my teams would often take our motto and create a poster that would be put up above the doorframe to the locker room. Not only was the visible reminder of the team goal motivational, but by having each member of the team touch the poster on the way on to the ice, we were unified in our purpose. Taking a sticky note and placing it on or in front of your set up will act as a physical reminder of your purpose when training and help elevate your Smash game to the next level.

 

(first) I actually find this article really funny because just last week we were talking about setting SMART goals in one of my college classes. It may seem kind of ridiculous, but they're actually pretty useful if you do a good job at setting them properly.

 

This is actually really relevant to me. I have a friend who has plateau's really hard for a while now. Maybe this article will help.

 

Yep, this is how I learned to give applications in sermon class at bible college too

 

this article's... rather short and to-the-point on the topic. no extra explanation, no example stories, none of that.

that's... kind of refreshing, actually.

 

After watching your smashpractice appearance last week or maybe two ago, this is a very good recap and translation of what you were teaching them. I've implemented this inside of smash and out, to a good amount of success, focusing on what's worked in the past and polishing it with this in mind.

Don't let the lack of 'likes' affect how you felt this article was received, metrik, very good stuff, thanks for the community service

 

I really appreciate these articles and I really try to think about them when I play. I think they have helped me have a more efficient way of practicing and getting better.