Читать книгу Sports Psychology For Dummies - Leif H. Smith - Страница 53

As you move along the path of achieving your goals that you set out for yourself, it is important to understand that perfection isn’t something you should be striving for. After all, it doesn’t, and won’t ever, exist! Humans are imperfect beings, and they make mistakes, wrong choices, and fail to achieve their goals on a daily basis. Don’t even entertain the idea that you can achieve perfection in your goal-setting program. As stated, you will need to make some adjustments along the way and that is to be expected! Make sure you allow space for the ups and downs along the path to your ultimate dreams and goals. Allow space for failure, which is part of the process, and allow space for adjustments. Do your best to banish the idea of perfection from your mind, since it is something that you can’t achieve anyway.

Athletes who do accept and even expect failure and mistakes at times are the ones who maintain higher levels of motivation in the long-term. How many times do people give up immediately after failing? Thinking about New Year’s resolutions. Many people set goals to get in shape and lose weight. Once they go off their diets or miss the gym a couple of times, they give up. They stop going to the gym or start eating sweets and other unhealthy foods. This is part of the reason that gyms are crowded in January and February and then become almost empty by April — people give up because they tried to be too perfect in achieving their goals.