EP 51: Goal Setting, Revisited: Getting Focused for the New Year.

As the new golf year begins, we’re revisiting one of our most important episodes on goal setting—because most golfers still approach goals in a way that actually holds them back. In this episode of The Golf Intervention, we break down how to set goals that align with scoring, skills, and process, not vague outcomes or unrealistic expectations.

We also kick things off with a brief update on why we’ve been quiet the past couple of months—and more importantly, why we’re officially back on schedule with recording and releasing new episodes.

If you’re setting golf goals for the new year, this is the framework you need before you hit the range or the course.

Transcript

Eric 0:02

And welcome back to the Golf Intervention Podcast. name is Eric Leighton. I'm sitting here with my co-host, Rob Fails. It is nearly New Year's Eve on the East Coast. We're getting close and we just wanted to say we missed you. Same. We're back. We're back. We've never really gone anywhere, but we are back. I guess we went somewhere. Um, if you are hearing us have this conversation,

Rob Failes 0:31

Nothing happened to us. We we're safe. Right? We're not, not, not we. We didn't meet our demise, but

Eric 0:37

We still have a podcast.

Rob Failes 0:39

Yeah.

Eric 0:40

what did happen though is we had some technical difficulties that we've been working through, which is all my fault. However, if you're hearing this,

Rob Failes 0:48

No.

Eric 0:48

they have been resolved. So we've done this a few times, we record and

Rob Failes 0:52

Yep.

Eric 0:52

doesn't work. And so

Rob Failes 0:54

Yeah.

Eric 0:54

just hope you hear this because I wanted to, uh, update the listener and just say, we are. I'm gonna be back. We're gonna be better than ever. The Golf Intervention 2.0 is about to be unleashed upon you. Be excited for some new, exciting episodes, which we're going to be bringing out in the new year. uh, yeah, no, I know. I'm looking forward to it. Uh, the time away has made me miss it. I will say that. How about you, Rob?

Rob Failes 1:25

I a hundred percent miss it. Yeah,

Eric 1:27

much we miss it, also we had some things we had to work through both technologically and personally and other

Rob Failes 1:33

yeah,

Eric 1:34

and,

Rob Failes 1:37

yeah. When we, when we were first in our, kind of, our rhythm of recording this, uh, my son was going to bed at 7 30, 7 45. Uh, and you might hear some background noise. He is running around like a wild man right now, and it is 10 18, which makes it a little trickier. Um, but no, he's, uh, maybe hopefully some, some day soon he'll start to drop his nap and then maybe his bedtime will move back up closer to, you know, when we, when we used to have it. So, um, but yeah,

Eric 2:06

Many people,

Rob Failes 2:07

here now, so.

Eric 2:08

to this, have had two year olds before, so we know. What it is like, and we understand. So that's why we're not upset about it. But we've been working you and I on

Rob Failes 2:18

Yep.

Eric 2:18

maybe some alternate options for recording. So we're gonna work through it. What we're gonna do is

Rob Failes 2:22

Yep.

Eric 2:23

it happen. And actually it's a slower time of year for both Rob and I, um, in Central Virginia for

Rob Failes 2:29

Yeah.

Eric 2:29

So our energies get turned, to this, which is a very fun outlet for both he and I and we do this, you know, for the good of golf, hopefully. That's why we do it. We enjoy it. It's a nice hobby. So we're glad you tune in. We

Rob Failes 2:43

Yep.

Eric 2:44

the listener we wanted to kind of just drop back into the feed. What we really,

Rob Failes 2:49

Kind of just.

Eric 2:50

run. See if it works. See if it doesn't, Robbie could steal maybe 10 minutes, um, to sit down and record so. If you're hearing this, like I said, it worked and then we we're gonna have an episode. So what we're gonna do is we're

Rob Failes 3:02

Yes.

Eric 3:04

uh, with some light editing our episode on goal setting, which was one of my favorite, probably are one of our most, uh, positive feedback episodes that we did. I would encourage you to listen to it again'cause it is that time of year, the, you know, new Year's for no good reason. It's just like the turn of the year. But people do, um, look at their. their goals or their life or their dreams and hopes and aspirations. And they tend to start planning towards, uh, you know, self-improvement or whatever in the new year. And so I figured, hey, let's take a

Rob Failes 3:39

Here,

Eric 3:40

back into the feed,

Rob Failes 3:41

let's take a moment, drop back.

Eric 3:43

we're still here, we're

Rob Failes 3:44

Let everybody know that we are not the right

Eric 3:46

episodes, hopefully just back in the

Rob Failes 3:48

bringing out these episodes at three. This is back in the

Eric 3:50

very shortly in the new

Rob Failes 3:52

mm-hmm.

Eric 3:52

Um. So please tune into that episode, refresh yourself on your goal setting, and

Rob Failes 3:57

He to that episode refresh itself,

Eric 3:59

write some stuff out.

Rob Failes 4:00

see down.

Eric 4:01

think it can be

Rob Failes 4:02

So.

Eric 4:02

helpful exercise. What else you got going on, Rob fails. Anything else you wanna report?

Rob Failes 4:07

What else you got going on about anything else you wanna miss? Yeah, so we're super excited, um, our next retreat. So, if you're familiar, obviously aside from being, lead instructor at at Burwood Golf as well as., I work with Eric here on the podcast. I also have a yearly coaching conference that I run, with, mark Grace, Sean Kennedy and Garrett Ard. It's called the Retreat. This is actually our, gosh, is this our fourth year now? Fourth or fifth year,, in a row of doing this. Um, every year we bring in, um, at least one doctor, uh, um, in the kind of like the golf, uh, performance realm. Um, and we get to spend time. With him, with, with him slash them. And it's a very kind of, uh, intimate environment, right? We do usually 30 to 35 attendees over two days. And we pride ourselves on making it as hands-on and applicable as possible for when you. Take it and you go back home to wherever you teach and, and are able to actually start to apply what we're doing. So that's gonna be October 26th, 27th in Chicago, Illinois, Skokie Country Club, this upcoming year. So, we're gonna have Dr. Raymond Pryor come and, uh, and be our, feature doctor. Uh, it's gonna be awesome. And then, myself. Sean Garrett and Mark, for the first time, we're actually gonna be doing, um, all four of us are gonna have our own designated, um, presentation time and exploration time to where we're gonna go ahead and, uh, kind of take you through some of the stuff that we've been doing with our clients. So, uh, we are very, very excited about that. That'd be the only main update, really,

Eric 5:47

Yeah.

Rob Failes 5:48

aside from having a three major

Eric 5:50

Um, just to be clear, that's for golf instructors, um, edu education for golf instructors.

Rob Failes 5:55

Yep. Mm-hmm.

Eric 5:55

uh, that team is great people. Those are great people. And, hopefully I can go to Skokie Country Club this year. We'll see. We'll see how the year, see how the year plays

Rob Failes 6:05

Come on.

Eric 6:06

Um, I would love to do that for sure. And so that is it, that is,

Rob Failes 6:10

Yeah.

Eric 6:11

is our update. I will say you, you mentioned Raymond Pryor, man, go back and listen to that. That is our number one most listened to episode that we've had. I look at the stats, Dr. Raymond Pryor has been life altering for me. I would say that reading his book and getting to, to interview him and I, I sent his interview with us to somebody last week. Who I thought needed it, and she, and she texted me back and said, wow, that was really good. That was really, really helpful for the stuff that

Rob Failes 6:39

Yeah.

Eric 6:39

with. And so for me in 2026, I have this vision of pursuing. if you've listened to that episode, you'll know there's avoidance and there's pursuing, and I, I. I wanna pursue more in 2026. That's my vision for, so I just feel like going for things that I like to do is gonna be a bigger part of my story

Rob Failes 7:01

Mm-hmm.

Eric 7:01

2026 and,

Rob Failes 7:03

Yeah.

Eric 7:05

That's it. Not a New Year's resolution or anything. I'm just trying to, trying to do life a little bit better. That's it. So,

Rob Failes 7:13

Yep.

Eric 7:14

got nothing else to

Rob Failes 7:15

Love it.

Eric 7:15

unless you do, Rob. We'll get you off the call and you can go chase Jackson around and, uh, I hope you have a great evening and thank you again people for tuning in.

Rob Failes 7:25

Yeah.

Eric 7:25

Intervention Podcast. I promise we miss you and we will be back. And we are, uh, we'll be back probably, hopefully next week. We're gonna figure out, we're gonna start recording, um, even if it's later

Rob Failes 7:34

Yeah.

Eric 7:35

if that works. Um, I'm gonna try to stay up later in my advanced age, tender years. I will try to pick a night and stay up a little bit later, um, because I do enjoy it so much. So, That's it. So

Rob Failes 7:48

too.

Eric 7:48

everyone has a great New Year's. Be safe and uh, I look forward to some great conversations and some great golf in 2026.

7:57

And welcome in to the Golf Intervention Podcast. Whether you're a weekend warrior looking to shave a few strokes off your handicap, or a competitive player striving for excellence, join us as we explore the science strategies and secrets behind mastering the game of golf. It is time for your golf intervention. How you doing today? Rob fails. I know I'm doing pretty well here in Richmond, Virginia. I'm doing great. Doing great. Eric, thanks for, uh, thanks for joining me tonight. Should be, uh, should be a lot of fun. I wanna start off, um, by saying thanks to Mark Sweeney again. We had such a good interview with him. Aim Point. If you haven't listened to that episode, please go back and check it out. We could not be more appreciative. And it was so cool checking in on the PGA and watching all those guys in the final groups using AIM Point, just like we said they did, and you could see it right on the screen. So. Really cool to see that those guys are really great putters, as we all know. And, uh, of course they're mostly using name points, so kind of proved what we were talking about there. So that was kind of fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, uh, like Mark said, it's almost surprising now when they're not using it, which is, uh, which is testament to how accurate it is. So on today's episode, we're gonna talk about goals and really we're gonna talk about. Achieving satisfaction with your golf game and how do goals really play some type of role in that? Um, I'm kind of excited for this episode in a way'cause it's going back. We're kind of going back in time, back to our first few episodes when we really started to introduce how the golf intervention was gonna look at. Scoring strategies and who you are as a player and kind of break down the science of this thing and get you on a game plan for improvement. Um, and so we're going back a little bit to that and we're gonna expand out on that a little bit here. We're gonna start with goals and it was really interesting. Yeah, because Robbie and I had a little pre-production meeting and I said, maybe we could, maybe we can expand on skill or on on goal setting. And uh, and we had a long conversation and um, and we kinda went through, we kinda went through goals and, and it was, and I was gonna entitle this episode. Why Rob fails? Hates goals. No, I'm just kidding. Just being, just being funny. Um.'cause he definitely doesn't, but I think it was a really good discussion about sort of parsing out. How, how relevant, really goal setting is to a, to a golfer and how important it is for them, if it is, it even is important depending on who you are as a player. So when we, when we look at goals, you know, I was a business major in college and they're gonna teach you, um, goals. There's this acronym smart. Remember, remember that, Rob? Did you learn the smart goal acronym whenever you were in college? And the Smart Goal acronym, um, really it sort of stood for, um, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time based. That was what SMART meant, and as you and I were discussing it, um. You brought up some really good points about smart goals, which was, is it really, is that really how golf works? I mean, is it really, and and the biggest sticking point I think that you and I found was the time, the time-based element to it. Although we found other sticking points too. But you as a golfer, as you're setting goals, um, I think that. Whether you realize it or not in your game, if you're satisfied or dissatisfied with how you're playing, um, which you're probably gonna fall into one of those camps, right? Um, you probably have some type of goal. We're actually gonna detail three different sort of, uh, subsets of goals that you would definitely fall into. You go, oh, yeah, yeah, that's me. I have that goal, or I have two of those, or three of those goals and. And, and it's really probably a little bit better description of it than the smart goal, don't you think, Robin, we're gonna go into these here in a second. Yeah, no doubt. Let's go back, let's talk about, let's talk about the smart goal for just a second. Um, and, and I think it's, I think that the smart goal is really probably very helpful when you're talking about. Business strategies or sales stuff or, or that kind of thing, like in the quote unquote in the real world. But when you're talking about athletic performance, how do you feel like the smart goal really attaches to that or is really relevant for that, uh, certain type of performance? Yeah, I think piggybacking on our conversation we had actually just before going on air, I think it really depends on. The type of goal. I think when it comes to being in the real world, a lot of times we can easily meet our goals just through effort, right? Just through cognitive understanding. I don't have this piece of information. I'm gonna go find it. Now I have it. And a lot of people want to believe that acquiring golf skill is like that. They don't know how to do it. X Pro tells them here's what to do, and now they have it. And for many people, they haven't actually learned a motor skill since they learned to probably drive a car. And if you think about a lot of the clients that we're working with, 60 years old, 65 years old, who still have goals, they still wanna play at a high level. You ask them, when's the last time you actually learned? A motor skill. Um, and you get some amazing answers. I mean, I've had 65 year olds say, oh, I just learned how to play piano. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's incredible. And sure enough, they're typically right, uh, quite a bit better, uh, when it comes to understanding the learning process. But even for a lot of people when they, you really ask'em to think about it, and you peel back the onion layer after layer after layer, they haven't learned. To do anything since they learned to drive a car motor skill wise, which is insane to think about, like learning in of itself is a skill. You can get better at learning, you can get worse at learning. Um, and I think a lot of people fall out of touch with learning. And so I think this is gonna be a really good episode'cause we're gonna talk about what is it to learn and what is it to really. Have a game plan for how you're going to acquire a new motor skill. I can't wait to get into this. I, I think that you and I being around, um, busy active golf places, we see people every day. Some I'm very satisfied with how they're playing. Others very dissatisfied with how they're playing. And I think my goal as an instructor a lot of the times is to say, Hey, let's, let's figure out what's going on there and,'cause I want you to be satisfied with golf, like. For many of the people, although that not all, and by the way, I was just, just kind of involved in helping with someone's playing in a very large professional tournament this week. So nice. Um, some not all play for play for fun or play for enjoyment or recreation. And when, when whatever their expectation or quote unquote goal gets misaligned from their. S current skill set or their current abilities or their current idea about how they should be playing. Um, that's when the frustration, uh, sets in. And for me, like right now being that I've played very little golf this year, like it. If you said, Hey, Eric, let's play the two man next week, or whatever. I, I would've very realistic expectations about how I'm gonna perform in that. So I probably wouldn't be too frustrated because I know I just haven't played very much. Right. But I think golfers in general, um, people in general, like just not even in golf, but in life, we all struggle with that sort of realization, that actualization between, you know. What is my performance? What should I, should I be doing? What's gonna make me happy? What doesn't? How do I get there? Right? And like you said, if I just work harder in a lot of things or I just put the effort in, I'm gonna get there. But golf just really doesn't always work that way. And that's why the smart goal doesn't always land to the absolute best. Not always. Yeah. Um. Yeah, it doesn't always lend to that. So what we, what we're gonna talk about here, I'm gonna introduce three separate types of goals. Okay? A little bit different way of looking at it. Um, the very first type of goal we're gonna talk about, I'm just gonna name them and we'll talk about a little bit. One is an outcome goal, second is a performance goal, and the third would be a process goal. So outcome goal is really gonna be like, Hey, I wanna do this thing. Like I wanna, I wanna win a golf tournament. I want to be valedictorian. I want to, um, become, you know, CEO of IBMI wanna be president of the United States. Like these are outcome goals, right? That I'm sort of, sort of have a vision for how I wanna unfold my life or my career. A, a performance goal is gonna be more about your skillset. Like, this is gonna be about me, um, determining the skills that I have and then working on them to be a little bit better, or, you know, or improve them or keep them sharp or whatever, and they're measurable. Um, so like in golf, the equivalent might be in performance. I, I want to hit more greens and regulation. I wanna make more putts from, you know, four to six feet. I wanna. You know, drive the ball further. Like those are, those are performance based goals. And then per the process based goal is really about, um. The, the really the process of improvement, right? Like, so how I'm gonna work through, uh, what it is and I'm trying to do, how I'm gonna train it, how I'm gonna set up that process. So, um, as we look at this from these separate outcomes, we can start to see now Rob fails. There's some problems there with the smart goals and how that all fits into that. Am I not right about that? Correct? Yes. And, uh, I think the, the big differentiating factor that. We discussed, uh, off air is just how as you move from process to performance to outcome, you have less and less and less control over whether or not you achieve your goal or not. So again, what what that looks like is from a, from a process standpoint, it could be, alright, my process here is. Exactly what I'm gonna do to read this putt. This is my process goal. I'm going to put my feet in the middle section of the putt. I'm going to walk back. I'm going to use that information to determine a start line, and then from there, I'm going to focus on my speed control. Right? So that is a process, a mental process. That you have complete control over. There is nothing that the environment or nothing that any other plane competitors are gonna do to interrupt that process. Now, as you move from process to performance, even though the process is directly influencing the performance, you have less control over what's going on performance wise. You can do everything in your power. The golf ball, be up in the air in a. In a, in a bird fly across and, and hit your golf ball like you have, you have, you know, much, much less control over from a performance standpoint. Um, what ends up happening and then when you go from performance to outcome. So you think about the PGA, that just happened, right? I would be willing to, to, I'd be, I'd bet any amount of money that Bryce and de Shambo met or exceeded his performance goals. I mean, it was like the lowest. S uh, total score for PGA championship in like forever, I think. Right? So yeah, even though he met his performance goals, he didn't meet his outcome goal of winning the tournament. And so from an outcome standpoint, that's where you really have virtually no control. I shouldn't say no control. You have some control, but you have much less control over the outcome relative to the performance and then relative to the, the process. So all this to say. And you can kind of see where we're probably gonna end up going with this is that we would highly recommend process goals. We, they're almost, I shouldn't say man, but they're, they're pretty much mandatory for you to move to the next level. I think performance goals are still incredibly important to have, um, maybe a little bit less so than process. And then outcome goals, they can be great, but I think. What we'll talk about in this and later on in the show is that they're not mandatory in all scenarios. Yeah. And I think depending on who you are, and you're sitting there thinking about this to yourself, and this is what we, this is what we're about on the golf intervention is saying as, as you, as the listener, you know, put yourself, just think about your yourself for a second, and what are your goals? Are you much more outcome oriented? You know, are you saying, you know, I wanna win? My match on Saturday, I wanna win the club championship. Um, I want to beat this friend of mine who I always play with. I mean, those are a lot of the times how we, how we measure up. Um. And I like what you said there about control. You know, we have ultimate control over our process and if we, if we set the goal up to be process oriented a, I think our performance will likely improve. Not guaranteed. Yes. And therefore, if our performance likely improves, then we'll get some outcomes that we'll be satisfied with. I would think, unless we're not in the realm of reality. Right. And like I was saying to you before we came on. I, I could go try to play on the PGA tour, I would not do very well. And if I tried to think that that was reality for me, I'd be very dissatisfied. Right. So I'm very in reality when it comes to what my outcomes should be. And so when you look at performance, you know, you and I have, we, we really. Spend a lot of time. This is where data really comes in for performance, right? Um, but again, that can't really improve until the process improves. So, I'm with you. I think it's all about process. Uh. Outcomes. Yeah. I mean they'll, they, like you were saying, you don't have control of it. They kind of take care of themselves in a way. And Bryson had no out, he had no control. There's no defense in that in the PGA championship. Right. Sanders shuffle just put, played better. No, he was just standing there watching that putt go in while he is, you know, warming up on the range and that. That's a great, that was a great example of outcome goals and how there's nothing you do, you just. Was watching what was happening with that putt and it just didn't go his way. So yeah, I, I think, um, I think that's a, that's a good representation of that for sure. So now that we've defined these three types of goals, and you can sit there as a golfer, hopefully listening to this and say, okay, yeah. Like, I can see what I've been looking to achieve with my game and sort of tying, tying. You know, whatever it is that I'm trying to do or trying to feel about my game to one of those types of goals. Right. And this is different than the smart goal thing because I think that the smart goal thing and what we had a problem with was it was just so, it was so like it, it's not really how. Athletic performance works anyway and definitely not golf.'cause remember, golf is really hard. There's so many skills involved. There's such a diverse environment. You're really playing the golf course, but then you're, you're playing the golf course against other players who are playing the same golf course. And so it just changes, you know, it's just a different situation. So let's go into now with that framework in mind, let's talk about the outcome based goal. Yes. I think it's pretty easy to see here where the frustration lies in outcome based goals, correct? Yes. I think, uh, the first thing that I would want everyone to do or not do is do not couple your self-worth with your outcome goals. And this seems obvious. This seems like. Every, you know, everyone who's gonna listen to this podcast is gonna say, well, of course, I, I don't do that already. But you'd be surprised. There are questions, really relatively existential questions you can ask yourself of like, what if my best isn't good enough? Are you going to be okay? And you need to be able to answer that question unequivocally, yes, I'm going to be okay even if my best isn't good enough. Because again, you have so little. Control over the outcome is that if you start to say, okay, well I am a golfer who wins tournaments, well then what happens if you're not winning a tournament? Who are you then? Right? So you need to make sure that you, outcome goals are just, it's like a, it's like a compass. It's just pointing you in a direction of where you want to go. Long term. It is not. A end all be all, and your wellbeing is not dependent on you achieving this outcome goal. I think that would be the first place that I'd like to go with that. Yeah. And it depends on what, I think that there's a lot of deep psychological, uh, aspects to this whole part of it, because I'm way better as a, as a coach talking about things like process and performance than I am outcomes. Yeah. And in fact, I don't talk about outcomes all that often. I think you and I were discussing that off air before we started recording. It's like, I don't know that I've ever had an outcome goal for myself. Um, part of that is because, you know, just the reality of playing golf and teaching golf and being a parent and like, you know, I was always, always process oriented, always. And then performance to an extent, um, as I started being able to track things and try to figure that out a little bit more. But this is really before the stat age, right?'cause I'm older, so that was a little bit, uh, earlier. And so I think that there, your motivations and sort of your self-worth and all those things are really questions that people have to ask themselves, right? Like, I, I'm not gonna be able to solve that for somebody. But what I can tell you is. The frustration that I see with people lies mostly in the outcome. If it's performance based, we can work on it, you know, like typically we can work on performance, uh, numbers and we, we can, we can use the things that we talk about, data points and track man stuff and whatever, uh, scoring strategies, all these things. But when it comes to outcome based. I, I don't have a lot of answers there because this is really just the person and themselves trying to determine what it is their vision for their life is, right? Yeah. So it's like, as a, for instance, if my son who came to me, who's a great student, right? He's graduating tomorrow or two days from now, excuse me, really excited, um, great student going to the, going to the University of Virginia, which is just an absolute unbelievable thing for him, right? And. If he said to me, Hey, you know, um, my goal is to be president of the United States. I, I don't know. I don't know what I would say. You know, like, well, that's awesome, right? Um, and then he would have to try to figure out how he's gonna perform and how he's gonna work on his process to get there. Right. And what I would encourage him is to say, you know what, it'd be cool to be the president of the United States, but. That's really outta your hands, right? Like you can work towards that. You can make all these choices along the way. You can figure out how to study the best, you can figure out how to, um, really take all the right career choices, meet the right people, but at the end of the day, it's really outta your hands, right? Something like that is in the voter's hands or something like being president of IBM or something like that. That's outta your hands as well. Somebody else is making that decision for you, and so you cannot. Really look at that and say, son, you know, my life would be worthless if I didn't achieve that. Right? Like, and that's kind of what we see in golf sometimes, where the biggest frustration lies with golfers, I see it all the time, is they're just not per, they're not getting to that outcome that they think they deserve and that it's frustrating them. Right. I think you and I would say, Hey. That's a vision that you're having. Great. Now let's talk about what's really going on with your performance and with your process. Is that kind of how you would look at it too, Rob, or you got some different insight there? No, that I think we are definitely on the same page as far as that goes, and that gets into the relevancy of it, right? What is relevant for this person? We can't really tell you from an outcome standpoint what's relevant for you, but what we can tell you is. Relative to that outcome, what performance metrics are relevant and then relative to that performance goal, right? What processes are gonna be relevant for you? So that's where we more come in, uh, more often than not. It was fun. We did a little exercise, you and I, uh, before we came on the air, um, where we were sort of divvying up the, the pieces of the smart goal, um, and sort of graphing them into. The different types of, uh, goals as far as process, performance and outcome. And it was really interesting to do that. Most of them fell under performance strong, strongest under performance. Obviously, they could have ranges on each one of them. Um, the outcome based goal really only has two of the smart goals that really are any part of that, which would be measurable and timely. Right. Like outside of that, the, the, the relevancy of it. Um, the achievable part of it, like none of that's really as relevant as it is to the other ones. Right. As far as performance goes, almost everything applies to performance, right? Like every, every part of it is in the performance, but the most relevant we determined was the process, right? So that, that's so interesting. Well, why would that be the process? Is what drives the other stuff, right? So that's, that's really what it's all about. Um, so we've discussed real here outcome. We think outcome based is gonna be your most frustrating, so let's go to performance. I, I think performance can be a little more neutral in some of this. Like it's a little more, I'm trying to use the right term here. It can be more neutral for the right word, but basically it's like a little bit more. I was gonna say the, it's almost less emotional because it's either a plus or a minus. Like I, I, in my performance goals, I'm either doing it or I'm not. Right. And, and then I should be able to with modern, this is kind of the point we made way back in episode one and two is. You know, we can measure the metrics and then we can determine data points for you to work on, and then we just work on it, right? And that's just, then we have a process to work on it. So, you know, like if I wanna hit more greens and regulation, you and I are gonna figure that answer out for them. Okay, well how many are you, how many are you hitting it? Where are you missing it? What's your dispersion patterns? Like, let's look at your face to path numbers. Let, let's look at your contact issues. Let's look at, you know, all the relevant things, and then put it into that, and then we'll be able to figure it out, right? So there's a little bit more of a. Uh, I don't wanna say less emotional, but it's more math based there, you know, like here it is, there's the data point, and it's not the data point. Boom, boom, boom, off I go. Right. Um, do you disagree with that? Not at all. No. I think that's, that's, that's spot on. And then we go into process and that's a little more warm and fuzzy in a way. So that's kinda the way I look at it. I mean, like, the process piece of it is more of the like, um. That achievement of waking up in the morning and getting on the Peloton and just knowing that you did it. Like there's a, there's a. There's an achievement to that, that like, when you're in the process and you're trusting the process, like it just feels right. You know, like, it just feels right. So let, let's not glance over performance base here. I want to get into that a little bit with you. So when we look at the performance based goals specifically, I think, again, going back to some of our first very earlier episodes, um, this is where. We like to capture some data, right? Like, isn't it, isn't it in the performance space? If I'm gonna be satisfied with how I'm doing, if I capture data and capture statistics and I can analyze'em with something like Game Forge, um, which we talked about with Mark Sweeney last week, isn't that really the thing that guides me towards, um, my satisfaction with my performance goals? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. That's gonna be where. Most of your attention's gonna be certainly af right after you play is, what was I trying to do as far as a performance metric side of it goes, um, how was I trying to do it? And then ultimately what I do, right? What was, what was the actual performance? And then because that is, that is most directly tied to our processes. So really the, the performance is. Uh, the feedback for, you know, what, what kind of processes are, are the processes that I'm putting in place actually moving me in the direction that I want? And I know that based off of the objective, measurable, specific, right. The non-emotional performance metrics. Yeah. Non-emotional, measurable, mathematical. Like that's what I, that's really what I was after. And I think that's the world I live in. Um, e each and every day with my students is a lot of that performance, um, based sort of relevancy. And obviously then you're putting in the process like you're saying to, to, to, to get to where you want to go. Um, but every day I try to be in that moment. It's, it's really interesting to me. Um, I had some conversations with golfers who were sort of dissatisfied with how they were playing. I wanna say they're. They were very outcome oriented, not achieving that, and then sort of not going back into their, either their performance, it was some measurable data point or their, into their process for that. But I think the performance was the key for the, for this, actually it was a few people I was talking to with the same, with the same type of thing. Then they wanted to blame things like, um, you know, I'm not committed to my shots or I'm not. Trusting my swing, or I'm not, you know, I need a sports psychologist and all this stuff. And, and my answer to to them was like, well, no. It's like your, your face is four degrees open and impact on your driver. You're always gonna hit it in the woods. I don't care how much you trust it, I trust that swing. Right? Like, and so if you can. If you can figure out those things in the Perform, boy, you want to talk about gain and satisfaction with what you're doing. All of a sudden, you're not blaming yourself for these things. You're understanding what it is that you need to do to get better, and those performance type goals like. Hey, Eric. I, I, I can't, I can't break 80. Hey, Eric, I can't break a hundred. Um, I, I don't know what's wrong with me. I, I, I need a, I need this and I need that. Well, no, I mean, let's talk about it. Let's look at your metrics. Like we can figure it out. It doesn't have to be emotional, right? Yeah. Like this is where we can really get into the bottom of it and create solutions that are very much like you were saying, they're just. They're very objective and measurable and unemotional, and it's just a data point. Like, nope, it's just a data point. It's not your self worth, it's just a data point on a scale, and we can get you, you got it to where you want to go, and that's why I love. How we teach golf these days with TrackMan, because I'm telling you, I did this for 15 plus years without it, and man was that difficult to pull off in the past, but now we can do it. And um, and I think that that's probably one of the most satisfying things that I see with my job these days is seeing the, seeing the answer for people, seeing the solution like. Almost in a mathematical way and them going like, I got buy-in. I can work on that. And that's where you go into the process. But anyway, I, I kind of see that a lot. Rob, do you see that same sort of thing as far as like self-confidence and all these things as far as the outcome and really it should have been a performance based situation? Correct? Yeah, I, I would completely agree. So let's get into some examples of kind of. Uh, relative to an outcome goal, what's a, what's a relevant performance goal? And then, uh, process just to kind of give the listener a little bit more color, a little bit more context behind, um, some of these terms that we're kind of throwing out what you said. Awesome. And maybe for a, for them too is like, when is it most important for me to have one of those in place? Right. So, um, so you want to give an example, first of a process? Do you wanna go start with process? Yeah, we can move kind of through the smart, uh, acronym, maybe even, uh, with some of these might be, might be fun. Okay, go ahead. You started off then. Okay. So outcome goal would be, I wanna win my club championship. Right. And then relative to that. I've looked at the, the previous winning scores, I can see that I'm gonna need to shoot something in the neighborhood of, let's say it's a three six hole event. Let's say I'm gonna need to shoot something in the neighborhood of five to six under par to give myself a chance. Right? So the five to six under par, uh, on a particular golf course would be the performance or would be a. Type of performance goal.'cause it's just a number, right? It's just, hey, this is generally speaking what we're gonna need to do now for that. Then you're gonna break down, okay, where are my, what's my offensive opportunities? What's my defensive opportunities? Offense being like birdie opportunities, defense being, Hey, I'm just trying to get out with par. Um, par fives. Short par fours, maybe short par threes. And then you've got your really long par fours, long par four, but long par threes, um, which would be some of your more, your defensive opportunities. Right. And then looking at, for you as an individual, what are your performance goals? So like for, um, let's say this individual really struggles with the short game. It's like, Hey, let's make sure that we get 100% of our shots. Um. On the green from inside of 40 yards, right? That could be, again, another type of performance goal. Now, as we peel back the onion even deeper, right? So we're going from almost no control, right? To pretty decent amount of control. But then now what are we fully gonna control, right? So from a process standpoint, let's say again, I'm looking at short game. I'm trying to take advantage of my offensive opportunities on par fives when I'm pushing the green, trying to get inside 40 yards in, um, in two, you know, if I miss the green on par threes or par fours, my ability to save par. So for that, I'm gonna make sure that I'm going to read the lie as best as I possibly can. I'm going to pick out a land area, right? And. Based off how far it's gonna roll, right? I'm gonna choose a club and a shot. I'm gonna rehearse, I'm gonna see it as best I can. I'm gonna commit to creating that shot. Right? So that's just an example of like a mental process that you could go through. Just an example for the podcast. But you can do that every single time. You can read the lie, you can pick a landing area, you can pick a shot, you can. Okay. Visualize the shot, feel the shot, and try to execute the shot as best you can. And whatever happens, at least you'll know that you met your process goal. Now, if you go through your process goal and you commit to that process goal, what we're saying is that your performance goal is probably gonna be more likely achieved. Yeah, if you didn't achieve your process, sorry. If you didn't achieve, achieve your performance goal, then the question is, all right, was it the right performance goal? Number one, let's assume it is Number two. Was it just variance? Was it, oh, well my process were good. Everything was in place, just didn't work out for me this time, right? Everything, everything happens in variance. You're gonna have, it's like a bell curve, right? You're gonna hit, half of your shots are gonna be better than average. Half of your shots are gonna be worse than average. You're gonna hit a ton of shots that are average. Some are gonna be amazing, some are gonna be terrible, right? So everything's happening on the spell curve. So it could just be variance. What it also could be is that your processes weren't aligned with what you needed to do, right? And so that's when you can take a step back and say, all right, what do I need to build into my processes to better allow me to produce my performance goal? And so now we're looking at things very much from a. You know, like you'd run a business, right? It's not, it's not just, oh, I feel like I need to do this, so I'm just gonna go and see how this works. No, you're actually looking at what is actually moving performance in the direction of your outcome goal. If you have an outcome goal, like we said, we don't, you don't have to have one, right? And you're giving yourself feedback. You're giving yourself actionable feedback around what you need to do to kind of push yourself in the right direction. So that would be an example of kind of how you can move from. Outcome Win Club championship process. All right, we need to get this score. How are we gonna build this score? Well, it's just a accumulation of offensive defense. All right, so for this particular golfer, let's say that they hit it tee to green really well, but once they get inside 40 yards, they kinda struggle. Well, now they're gonna have. Um, kind of a spotlight. Performance outcomes. Like, Hey, let's make sure we never miss a green. And you can even put like proximities, P twelves, P sixes, right? If you're game forge, you know what I'm talking about. And then process goals. How am I hitting these shots? What are the behaviors that are going to align with my process goals? Sorry. What are my process behaviors that are going to align with my performance goals? And would you put practice? Um. In the process. Yes. Part of the, yeah, absolutely. Of that whole equation. A hundred percent. Okay. That's what I mean. To me, that's like the biggest, the biggest driver of that. And I think that as you go again, so we're talking about kind the overarching theme. You know, if you looked at Bryson Dbo may have had. Maybe he had a goal to win the PGA this week coming in, which would be very reasonable for him. He is, you know, a great player, one of the best players in the world, and so there's his outcome goal to win. So then his performance, he might have set a metric, I'm gonna shoot 20 under par this week. If I shoot 20 under par, I gotta Chino, I'm gonna do this thing. Yeah. Um, and he does it through all the things that you just said. You know, he, he works on his driving and I need to hit this. And these guys are going through things like. You know, this week I'm gonna need, you know, this type of shot for the par fives, or maybe this is a good shot I need on some of the par three. So they're, they're building towards their, they're periodizing, their training and their skillset. This is a level three thing, by the way, really level four, we'll call it tour player level four. Um, this is a level, level four thing where they're building up to this with specific skills inside their skillset. To optimize for the certain course, the certain week, the certain conditions, and then the process obviously is trusting that and building the caddy and the whole deal. Correct. And that's a beautiful, um, that's a beautiful description of all that. So let's, let's think about that whole thing again. Um, from a level one player, like maybe my outcome goal here is break a hundred. So I gotta, I'm gonna try to break a hundred. I guess that, is that an, is that as. Too much of a, um, performance goal. Guess that More perform? Yeah. That's more of a performance, performance goal, isn't it? Perform, yeah. Outcome. Outcome would be like, I'm going to beat, I'm gonna beat my buddy. Okay. Okay. So I see this all the time, right? I, I need to beat this friend of mine. He's obnoxious and he talks, he talks smack to me all the time, and I need to beat him, right? But I'm, but I can't do it until I can break a hundred, essentially. So here I am, level one golfer. Maybe I got a buddy that's a level two golfer. So now I've got this, this performance goal of shooting. A number. I gotta, I gotta break a hundred to beat this person. Um, so when they're looking inside of that skill set to break a hundred, they come to see you or me or some other teacher, like they're gonna need a definable thing to work on. And that's where we get into, that's where ball flight stuff comes in. Like, we're gonna be creating skills for them. That help them align with what someone that breaks a hundred does, right? They've gotta hit a certain number of greener regulation. It's not many, I don't think, right? Four, four or five. I don't have the data in front of me. I've gotta have this amount of putts, probably. Um, I gotta have not too many disruptors and penalty shots, and these are the things that are gonna help me. Uh, do that. And then the process is probably the hardest for the, for the level one player or the level one player, don't you think? I mean, I would say a level three player to tour player is so in tune to a process and they probably had to have that to get there. But the level one player, Rob, isn't this the place where the process really probably lets them down to speak. So yeah, it's the, it's the biggest opportunity for development for them because they don't have one. They literally, they, they don't know what they don't know. So at some point you've gotta give, you've either gotta give them a framework or you just give them the information and then allow them to come up with a framework. Um, but whatever they need to do, they need to understand again, their, their relevant process goals, which for level one golfers are usually low point in three dimensions, right? Is it. Up, down, forward, back, right or left, and they're keeping track of right where is my low point over time, right? They're not saying, okay, shot to shot. They're saying, okay, after the round of golf, where was my tendency in my low point? Because you do have control over where the low point having you might not feel like you have. You might feel like it's more variable than what you want, but the way that you swing the club. Is creating a low point and you can get more or less aware of that low point and the process of becoming aware of that low point is an amazing process goal. And so if you can have the process goal becoming more aware of where the bottom of your swing is, more aware of where the face of the club at impact is pointing, more aware of the speed of the club and impact those. Again, those are the golf intervention big three. Alright. Low point club phase speed. As you develop awareness of those things, then those are for almost every level one golfer that's gonna be very well aligned to their performance goal of reducing shots to green. I don't think there's any question when I've have level one players, either in clinics or in lessons. I feel like, and the, and you mentioned this a little bit before, is that we can all learn how to learn better. Right. And I feel like my job with a lot of that level one, level two player is really helping them learn how to learn better. Right? Like, it just, it's, it's about creating a process for learning, creating an environment to succeed in, um, getting a mindset that helps you achieve it. And then just, you know, building that up. And granted, I'm looking at the performance factors. There's no question about it. I'm looking at it every single time. But if we know that you've got this big data point, you know, club face to path is open seven degrees. Okay, we're gonna have a hard time here, right? So. We're gonna develop a process to try to, we're gonna know how to fix that from a swing technique standpoint, but I gotta, I gotta develop a process to practice it and implement it on the golf course. And so what becomes the most important thing? Well, it's really like the performance element in the lesson is really now just knowing what you didn't know, but that doesn't. Fix anything. Correct. Right. Like that's the least, that is not the roast relative relevant thing. And that's where we go back to process being relevant is I've gotta send you the student out and say, here's the process for you to practice this thing and implement it on the golf course. And if you can't, if we can't communicate that to our students, we failed them because man, nothing, nothing bums me out more when it's like than I hear. Man, Eric, I can do it when you're here coaching me up. And then when I'm left on my own, I can't do it. And, and I'm like, you know, I want you to be able to do it. I need you to be able to, and it's really hard'cause golf is hard. I get it. Like we all, we all experience that, but my goal for you is to be able to do this when I'm not standing there. So the process is the key to that. We go back to this, the process is the most relevant piece of this, especially in that level one player. I don't think there's any. Question about it. So, um, those are, those are good example. I think that hopefully gives a listener a little bit of a, a visual on that. Do you want to go through another example of that, Rob? Yeah, I can, I can think of a couple. Um, so let's say outcome, goal is to win the masters, right? You could go out and you could, you could shoot the Augusta National course record. And someone else could come right behind. You have the have the t have the tee time right behind you and then break your course record to win the, to win the masters. So again, you have an influence, but it's not direct control over that is more your compass. That is your guiding light to, okay, what are the performance goals that I need? So then you're going to back that into, okay, performance goal would be I need to hit. Half of my par fives, I need to birdie half of my par fives, right? Let's say that would be your performance goal is that you're trying to figure out how to birdie half of your par fives. Then you're gonna work that in, okay, what are my go for green opportunities? And then you might have even like a A underneath the surface, like, okay, my performance goal for this is to hit 75% of those fairways. Right? So that might even be kind of a, a. Peeled onion of that performance goal. Now, from a process goal, right, let's make sure that in practice we are hitting the shots that we're gonna hit, the way we're gonna hit'em some amount, right? We would prefer that it's a representative sample, which means if you're gonna hit 10 drivers, let's hit 10 drivers. The way we're gonna hit those 10 drivers, and you can visualize the fairway, you can visualize kind of what the, where the ball's gonna end up and then play the hole in from there, right? But then let's spend some amount of process time developing skill. So for this golfer, I can guarantee that face to path awareness is gonna be number, you know, very high on their list. Um, let's figure out where my bandwidth is, what my reference points are for my face to path. So I have awareness of where I need to operate within. This is gonna be a really, really tight face to path awareness with this type of player, right? So that'd be more of like a skill aspect. And then from a swing aspect, what are the general movements that I need to encourage that would allow me to then control the face to path more predictably, right? And so I'm gonna have between this player and their coach, they're gonna have some. Drill or some movement, some exercise that's gonna encourage that. Maybe they turn that into a pre-shot routine. Okay. For this swing change that I'm trying to encourage, here's a pre-shot routine that's gonna prime this movement, that's gonna make it more likely that that movement shows up when I play. So now we're building processes that are relevant to actually playing the game. Because ev, before you hit a shot, you're gonna have to do something before you hit the shot. So can we use that time prior to swinging the golf club to help encourage the swing that is going to make the skill more accessible and that skill be relevant for the performance goal of hitting 75% of the fairways, of the par fives that you're gonna hit into, and you're gonna try to bird half of those. To win the masters. Right. So you can see how this all kind of flows together. I think it's great. I think the listener here should maybe work through it a little bit themselves, like visualize what they want to do. It's really interesting. I wish, I wish people could have had some insight into the conversation we had.'cause it, it was re it was pretty interesting. Um. How we, how we ended up on this sort of outline for the, for the show, because you and I probably, we kind of looked at each other and we're like, you know, we're, we're both very satisfied golfers with how we play in general. Um, play really well. Number one, you know, we're level three players. Number two, we're both very satisfied with how we play. Like, I don't, I mean, I have days where I don't like, ah, you know, I didn't play that great, but it, I never get really frustrated with it. Yeah. Um. And I have never, I don't think in my life had an outcome goal. I don't think ever, um, performance goals may, maybe at times, you know, some stuff that, some data points. Like I went through a little bit of a time where I'm like, oh, I need to get my club, I need to get my club speed up. Or, um. You know, some proximity stuff. Maybe in the short game I was really working on hard in with wedge play, but for the most part I was always focused on just the process. You know, just always focused on the process. And I've always been fairly content with how I've played, you know, as I've moved along through, but everybody's different, you know, everybody's very different. And so I think that you can't, you can't box yourself into the smart goal framework in golf'cause it just doesn't really work for those. For those reasons. So I think what we're gonna do, Rob, is we're gonna, you and I are gonna work on a, a worksheet for the listener that we're gonna put on our substack. Yes. We're gonna put, we're gonna put that out on the substack and it's gonna help them work through some of these, some of these goals and kind of outlined a little bit better for them. So. Um, if you hadn't heard from us yet, we do have something called a substack, which is really just where we, where we put our content on the, on the, I guess on the internet. It's the golf intervention.substack.com is where you can find us. We have both free and paid subscriptions on there, so some of the stuff we're gonna do will be behind a paywall. Um, we'll, we definitely will have a bonus. Um, episode every month we've promised out there, plus some other really good stuff. And Robbie, you've written some incredible stuff for that already, which is all very golf intervention focused, right? It's like very much what we talk about on this show. So if you want to support the show, we would love you to have you subscribe to the Substack either. Either way. If you want the free, that's totally fine.'cause you're gonna see, we're gonna put stuff out there that's not behind the paywall too. And every time something comes up that we do put behind the paywall, you're gonna get a little notification about it. And so you'll see if you think that's something you want to, you want to check out or not. But those of you that have subscribed and are supporting the show, we can't thank you anymore. It's really cool to have that happening for us. Yeah. Um, I know, I think it's been really fun so far to figure that thing out. I think you and I are still figuring out the best ways to use that. Um, but it's fun. It's fun, it's a fun thing for us. Um, so we're gonna put some stuff out there on the substack when it come, where it comes to this process, or excuse me, this goal conversation that we're having.'cause what we wanna do is drive you towards golf satisfaction. Isn't that what we said? Like, we want to be satisfied. With how we play. We want to enjoy the game to the utmost. And I think some of this is really a, a very, very big part of that, without doubt. Um, so as far as goals go, Rob, um, anything else you'd like to add to that conversation? I think we covered it. I think that's, uh, I think that's a good summary for sure. So once again. Goals in golf are a very interesting thing. Think about to yourself what it is that you've been focusing on to, to determine whether or not you're satisfied with how you played. Is it an outcome? I want to beat this person. I wanna win that thing. I want to, whatever performance is more about your score and your skills and some metrics that are measurable that you're putting out there. It's very, like I said, it's almost mathematical. It's not, it's not emotional. Um, or have you been more process oriented? Um, all of which have their, their place. And so just figure out what you want to do. You don't have to write it down again. Robbie says, I've never written a goal down. You know, should I have not shared that with a listener? That's'cause we just keep it in the back of our mind. Right? Never in an outcome goal down. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, I think it's, yeah. Yeah, that's right. An outcome goal. I think it's so interesting. You know what you'll, what you'll learn from Robbie and I, and I think it's funny that we're just on the same page on a lot of this stuff. Um, you can listen to some stuff on whatever you want to, you know, what podcasts or who knows Instagram stuff or YouTube. It's like, you know, all this motivational stuff that's like, you know. You gotta put your goals on your lock screen on your phone, or you gotta write'em on your mirror and you gotta, you know, positive. I mean, yeah, all that stuff's relevant to some people too. You know, like, again, I've never really had to do any of that stuff. And, um, and some of you would go like, yeah, that, that wouldn't work for me. And other people would go, no, I have to do all that. Otherwise I would never achieve a goal. And that's all of it's fine. And every part along the spectrum is good. So don't let anybody tell you what's right and wrong there. You know, thyself thy best. And that you're gonna be your own best guide. We've always said that here. We're not telling you what you did, what to do. We're helping you help yourself along the path. That's our ultimate goal. At least that's what we're trying to do. And we thank you for tuning into the show. If you wanna support the show again, find us on Sub Stack. We'd love for you to,, subscribe. Also if you could rate and review on either Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen, that would be really awesome too. We've got all five star ratings, which I'm so proud of. Um, and the really the biggest thing you can do to support this show if you want to keep, keep Rob and I motivated and excited is really just share it with people. I mean, that would be the most powerful thing you could do for us. It's just share. Yeah, tell your friends, put it on your Facebook or your Insta whatever, and your stories and whatever stuff you've got out there. Um. That's the most powerful way for people to find us.'cause you know, we're not marketers. We're just a couple of guys trying to help people play better golf. Anything you'd like to add here at the end? Rob, that's it. Alright people, we'll be back next time and we're gonna talk a little bit more about skills on the next episode. So don't worry. We're gonna bring the heat with some skills. Tune in next time. Thank you. See you soon.