With goals that rely on the ability of athletes to control what they do, training and competing become contests between the athlete and stable pre-defined goals. This leads to athletes developing a mastery orientation and having clear purposes behind practice and competitions. A competition or training task should be a challenge to control oneself to achieve a set of defined, self-oriented outcomes. In that context athletes are totally responsible for what they do. A large component of external elements which cannot be controlled produces uncertainty in an athlete.
Uncertainty destroys confidence and self-efficacy.
The resulting realization that there is not much that can be done to control what others do, decreases the motivation to perform well. Another is that a desperation contest strategy is developed and usually produces poor results. For goals to be effective, they need to involve practiced features that can be controlled by the athlete. Steps in Goal-setting There are a number of steps that should be followed when setting goals. They are explained briefly below and are included as the steps for setting each goal-type included in this section.