Black Belts Set Goals
Think about how many of a child’s goals are not their own.
Has anyone ever asked a kid if they would like to pass first grade and go to second? Of course not. For most of a child’s education, their goals are set by others—all the way until it’s time to go to college. Then suddenly, “Hey kid, the world’s a stage!” No wonder so many of them struggle. No wonder so many adults struggle to find meaning and purpose.
Learning how to set our own goals, achieve them, and move on to the next is one of the great lessons a student achieves on their path to black belt.
How to Start Goal Setting
Let’s start with how to determine what goal to set.
Goal setting starts with an internal assessment of where we are. Students training to become black belts learn how to assess themselves.
After getting the lesson on what a technique should be, they are encouraged to look in the mirror and see if they’re matching, in real life, what they see in their heads. Students are told this is what a black belt really is: having enough knowledge and confidence to truly look at yourself and then set goals to improve.
As an easy example, someone can’t set a goal for weight loss if they don’t know how much they weigh. You can’t set a goal for more push-ups if you don’t know how many push-ups you’re doing.
It is just an expectation that a black belt can do this for every part of the art. Then, like with everything else we do, this form of self-assessment becomes a habit, and most students will start using it everywhere else in life.
Once a student training for black belt learns how to assess themselves for where they are, they then learn how to set goals for where they need to be.
We use the SMART goal-setting system. (This idea originated with Doran, George T. 1981. “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives.” Management Review.)
SMART is an acronym that means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Specific
When setting a goal, you need to be specific.
“I would like to get better at karate.” Well, there are a lot of parts to karate. What would you like to get better at?
In order to achieve a goal, you have to know what it is you’re actually working for.
People tend to set goals that are vague—that way, it’s easy to give up on them. But if you really want to go somewhere, you’ve got to say where it is you want to go.
For example, we will never let a student say they just want to be better at a kick. Our next question is: How do you want to be better?
Do you want to be stronger so you can break more boards? Would you like it to be higher? Would you like your kick to be faster?
Be specific, and your kick will get better.
This is a habit students gain on the way to black belt.
Measurable
How are you going to know when to throw your party to celebrate achieving your goal?
Students are taught that when they set a goal, they need to be able to measure it. This is so important in building confidence in goal setting.
People need to be able to see their progress and know it happened. This builds confidence in goal setting as well as the drive to set greater and more difficult goals.
We will tell the students: How much?
Never just say “better.” How much better?
You need to know when to put a check next to that goal so you can move on to your next one.
Attainable
Here’s how we teach this in class:
“I’m going to set a goal to jump all the way across the mat. Does anybody here think I will be able to do that?”
“No? Huh. What do all of you think I should set as a goal to jump?”
Attainable is an important aspect of goal setting. It is important to strive for greatness and to constantly push ourselves for more and more. However, a great way to kill one’s confidence is to set goals that are not possible.
So, a student learns to be specific:
Never say, “I want to be better at karate.” Instead, say, “I want to improve my sidekick.”
Then measurable:
“Here is where my sidekick is now, and here is where I want to go.”
Then attainable:
“Is that amount of improvement possible? Can I achieve it in any reasonable amount of time? Or is this something that should be a long-term goal, and I need to break it into smaller pieces?”
The black belt understands how to set goals they can reach.
Relevant
Focus is key to obtaining success.
There are lots of things in life that we could work to be good at. There are lots of directions we can go.
Setting an overall long-term goal and then having the discipline to stick to it is what “relevant” is about.
Students are taught to ask themselves: Is this goal something that matches what I want to achieve?
Here’s an example used in class:
If someone is going to school to be a doctor, should they take flying lessons?
Sure, learning to fly would be a lot of fun. It would be a good challenge.
But would that match someone’s goal of wanting to be a doctor? No, of course not.
If we want to achieve big things, we have to learn to stick to them.
Sometimes that means we have to learn how to say no.
So, the future black belt has determined they wish to get better at their sidekick.
They have measured where they’re at now and set a reasonable goal for where they are going to get.
And yes, this will help them in their greater goal of earning a black belt.
Time-Bound
Tomorrow never comes. After all, there’s always a tomorrow.
Most people say they’ll do something tomorrow.
Then, when tomorrow comes, they say they’ll do it tomorrow.
Then tomorrow. Then tomorrow. Then tomorrow.
Eventually, they forget what the goal was in the first place.
Black belt students are taught to set a time.
Our students will set their goal for black belt very early in their training. It is understood that they may need to change this date because life happens. But if we are really going to achieve a goal, we need to be able to set a time to it.
Having a habit of setting a time limit for when you’re going to achieve something unlocks the confidence and power of goal setting.
It is impossible to hold oneself accountable for goals if you never say when you’re going to achieve them. Every student will know their goal year for black belt.
This is a habit that will carry with them for a very long time.
Ready to Start Your Child’s Black Belt Journey?