Podcast Review: How To Set Goals Like A World Class Athlete

Podcast: The Tim Ferris Show 

Guets: Shaun White 

Shaun White is a seriously cool guy. Listening to Tim interview him last week was hilarious. It was done in front of an audience, who sounded like they were big fans of his as well. He is an American professional snowboarder and skateboarder. He is a two-time Olympic gold medalist. He holds the X-Games records for gold medals and highest overall medal count, and has won 10 ESPY Awards. So in short, a reasonably decent athlete. So how does he like to plan his season? Well, he and Tim covered a wide range of subjects but my take away point was on his methodology for goal setting. He tells Tim he ALWAYS sets goals annually, as he believes, (quite rightfully) it is vital for measuring where you have come. However the key is having serious goals countered by fun goals. Shaun mentions the example of setting the goal of 'winning as many cars in a year'.  To achieve this he would have to win tournaments, so in turn this would be working towards his serious goals, but it was a way in which he could have fun with it. Needless to say he also said he ended up with a garage cars which enjoyed giving away. An interesting approach to consider.