Posted on February 17, 2010 by Kurt Shuster

The Winter Games are here, and the world is once again watching as athletes at the top of their respective games go for gold.

And while each of the athlete’s dedication to being the best in the world is worthy of admiration, researchers studying goal theory have given us reason to be cautious when creating such lofty goals.

That’s because the evidence shows that, while having goals is indeed good for our general wellbeing, the types of goals we have may affect our emotional health. Specifically, some studies suggest that we are better off setting goals in which we strive to beat our personal best, rather than goals in which we compare ourselves to other people.

In an article on approach goals vs avoidance goals, I described a study by researchers at Nothwestern University who found that students who thought of their goals in approach terms had higher wellbeing scores than those who tended towards avoidance goals. In other words, we’re better off trying to move toward a goal (e.g. “I will improve my grades”) rather than avoiding something (e.g. “I will not fail calculus”).

That same study, however, also described another goal-setting dimension that correlated with general wellbeing: mastery vs. performance goals. A performance goal is one in which your progress is measured against someone else, while a mastery goal is one where your progress is measured against yourself.

Examples of mastery goals would be things like “I will beat my personal best time in track and field”, “I will lose 20 pounds”, or “I will increase my sales revenue by 20%”. Examples of performance goals would be “I will be the top performer this month on the sales team”, “I will weigh less than my sister”, or “I will win the gold medal”.

Unfortunately for the Olympic athletes competing for gold, it’s exactly these kinds of performance goals – ones that pit themselves against others – that the Northwestern researchers found were associated with lower levels of physical and emotional health than mastery goals.

So the bottom line for coaches of non-Olympians (which, let’s face it, is most of us) is clear – get your clients to focus on improving themselves rather than comparing themselves with others if they want to be healthier and happier!