Establishing a goal hierarchy

Estimated read time: 2 mins

Goal setting isn’t just for the new year, realistically if you’re looking to achieve something you’ll have to set up some form of structure in order to get there. So today I will go over how I approach goal setting for myself and my clients. 

We’ve talked previously about meaningful values, which will help you establish what might be an excellent goal to work towards. But how do you practically go about that? There are some things that are more helpful than other in terms of structure, and helping avoid the mental health pitfalls that can come from an overfocus on goal orientation. 

​Firstly, we need to establish a goal hierarchy and at the top of that particular pyramid are our superordinate goals. These will typically be big-picture concepts that resemble values (see how that worked out?) than more classic goals (in a SMART format for example). 

In the fitness sphere let’s put our superordinate goal as ‘be healthy’

Book your discounted trial now!

 Now that sounds pretty vague, what do we mean by being healthy? Well, that helps in filling our next step, which is our intermediate goals. These are more specific and provide a decent direction of heading towards our superordinate goals. In the case of ‘be healthy’ they might look something like this:

• Be in good physical shape
• Get enough sleep
• Minimise unnecessary life stress
• Eat healthier

Finally, we can break down these intermediate goals into our subordinate goals which are very specific and precise goals, that specify what you’re going to do here and now (maybe not right now). 

• Our intermediate goal of ‘Be in good physical shape’ might break down into something like this:
• Go to the gym once a week on Mondays, after work.
• Go for an hour-long walk in the park on Wednesdays at lunchtime
• Go to yoga at the studio in town on Friday at 3 pm

Book your discounted trial now!

This structure quite nicely breaks down your bigger value-based goals and helps you make up some small, specific, manageable chunks that you can get knocking over straight away.

 You may also find that some of your intermediate goals overlap with some other superordinate goals, which is great, however, you should keep an eye out for any time that an intermediate or subordinate goal might conflict with either another intermediate or superordinate goal. 
​
Hopefully, you found this helpful and if you want any help with setting some goals or how to build your own goal hierarchy, consider getting in touch with us. @atsapproved on all social media.

Book your discounted trial now!

Author: Will Brown

Will is co-founder and director at Athlete Training Systems, he has a true passion for coaching and helping people reach their goals.