Goal Setting
Setting goals is one of the most powerful ways to influence your future, yet it is something not practised as commonly as it should be. Research suggests that only 8%-12% of a population will actually complete or maintain their New Year’s resolutions. Research has also shown that your rate of success will greatly increase by simply writing down the goal. In this article I will show you how to create and optimize your goals as I create a study plan in Go.
First off, let me say that I currently play at the 6-kyu level.
1. Define the Goal
We begin by defining the goal. By this, I mean stating our main idea; the “focus” of our goal. Let’s try it:
I want to improve in Go.
This is a good start, but let’s rephrase it a little. Your goal should be specific and measurable:
I want to play as 1-dan on KGS by January, 2011.
Notice how we now include a specific rank, and a date which we can use to measure improvement. Finally, let’s change the word “want” to “will” – this seems like a small thing; but when you have a goal you need to put in an effort and work at it; simply “wanting” it is not enough:
I will play as 1-dan on KGS by January, 2011.
2. Describe how you will achieve the goal.
Now that we have a clear idea of what our goal is, we will describe the steps needed to achieve our goal. Here are some ideas:
- Study from Go books.
- Do tsumego (Go study problems).
- Play and review games.
- Play teaching games.
This is a good start, but we have to be more specific. Let’s add some specific procedures for each of the items listed above.
- Study from Go books.
I have recently ordered some new Go books (and will be reading some older ones), but you must read books in such a way that you will actually learn from them. Here is my current plan:
- Study from Go books.
- I will follow Toshiro Kageyama’s advice and read no more than one chapter per day of his book, Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go. After I finish the book I will reread it, again, at the pace of no more than one chapter per day.
- Every day, I will read at least half a chapter from Elementary Go Series, Vol. 5: Attack and Defense. This should help with my middle-game.
- Every day, I will read one chapter from either Elementary Go Series, Vol. 3: Tesuji or Vol. 4: Life and Death.
- By July at the latest I will finish reading Cho Hun-Hyun’s Lectures on the Opening, Vol. 1.
- Beginning in August at the latest, I will read Keshi and Uchikomi: Reduction and Invasion in Go by Iwamoto Kaoru.
- When I have extra time I will reread from Opening Theory Made Easy by Otake Hideo, Go! More than a Game by Peter Shotwell, First Kyu: A Novel by Dr. Sung-Hwa Hong, and The Go Book (my first Go book) by Matthew Macfadyen.
That is a fair number of steps to take and is specific enough to follow. Onto the next item:
- Do Tsumego (Go study problems).
This statement can still be “broken down” into steps if you ask the right questions. Where will you study tsumego, and how?
- Do Tsumego.
- I will spend at least 20 minutes per day studying tsumego.
- I will study from Graded Go Problems for Beginners: Vol. 3, by Kano Yoshinori, and from my SmartGo (software) collection.
- I will not read the answers to the problems, if I get “stuck” on one I will simply move on and try it later.
Ok! Next statement:
- Play and review games.
Divide it into steps you can follow :
- Play and review games.
- I will play at least two rated games on KGS each week.
- I will review the games, preferably with a stronger player.
- I will play slow and “serious” games in the Canadian League Internet Go system.
- I will start playing on servers other than KGS; such as WBaduk, IGS and DGS, by July 2010.
One last step:
- Play teaching games and have games reviewed by stronger players.
Again, this seems like a simple statement, but you can ask yourself questions. Who will teach you? Who will you teach? Where and when?
- Play teaching games.
- I will take advantage of what I have access to: KGS Plus lectures, commented games, and people willing to teach me.
- I will offer at least two teaching games per month to weaker players, possibly more if I have time or find this helpful.
- I will use services like the Go Teaching Ladder or post my games on the Life in 19×19 forums for review.
Okay, now we have detailed steps to follow in order to achieve our goal. We are almost done…
3. Be prepared for obstacles.
A common reason that people “give up” their goals is because they encounter an obstacle which is too challenging to surpass. Instead of trying a different approach they may stop trying. When writing goals, it is important to be prepared for these scenarios. What kind of situations might be challenging to you, and how will you resolve them?
It is important to be realistic. The study plan I outlined above would require at least an hour, sometimes over 2 hours, of time per day. Of course, there are some days when this time will simply not be available (remember to prioritize your goals; although Go is important to me, there are other things which come first). It is okay if you do not follow your plan exactly. The important thing is to keep your goal in mind and resume it when you have time. If you do not keep your goal in mind you may continually tell yourself “I will get back to it tomorrow” and perhaps even forget about it completely.
4. Measure Success
Remember how we changed the wording in step 1 to make our goal measurable? You must be able to track improvement.
At the end of every month, I will look back at how much I have improved. It is important to keep your study plan flexible; if something is not working for me I will modify my plan accordingly. If I fall seriously behind, I will consider hiring a professional teacher if I believe it will help. Finally, research has shown that your chance of achieving your goal will increase if you report your success to others. Every two weeks or so I will write here, detailing how closely I followed the plan and how much improvement I noticed. One last thing – remember to reward yourself for improvement. Ultimately, my goal is to play at the 1-dan level, but any improvement at all is a good thing. Chose an appropriate reward for yourself, to help you stay motivated. You deserve it!
That’s it! Finally, let’s look at our goal:
I will play as 1-dan by January, 2011.
To accomplish this, I will take the following steps:
- Study from Go books.
- I will follow Toshiro Kageyama’s advice and read no more than one chapter per day of his book, Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go. After I finish the book I will reread it, again, at the pace of no more than one chapter per day.
- Every day, I will read at least half a chapter from Elementary Go Series, Vol. 5: Attack and Defense. This should help with my middle-game.
- Every day, I will read one chapter from either Elementary Go Series, Vol. 3: Tesuji or Vol. 4: Life and Death.
- By July at the latest I will finish reading Cho Hun-Hyun’s Lectures on the Opening, Vol. 1.
- Beginning in August at the latest, I will read Keshi and Uchikomi: Reduction and Invasion in Go by Iwamoto Kaoru.
- When I have extra time I will reread from books I have already read.
- Do Tsumego.
- I will spend at least 20 minutes per day studying tsumego.
- I will study from Graded Go Problems for Beginners: Vol. 3, by Kano Yoshinori, and from my SmartGo (software) collection.
- I will not read the answers to the problems, if I get “stuck” on one I will simply move on and try it later.
- Play and review games.
- I will play at least two rated games on KGS each week.
- I will review the games, with a stronger player whenever possible.
- I will play slow and “serious” games in the Canadian League Internet Go system.
- Play teaching games.
- I will take advantage of what I have access to: KGS Plus lectures, commented games, and people willing to teach me.
- I will offer at least two teaching games per month to weaker players, possibly more if I have time or find this helpful.
- I will use services like the Go Teaching Ladder or post my games on the Life in 19×19 forums for review.
I will report my progress here bimonthly, and change my study plan if necessary.
Finally, here is a useful mnemonic you can use when setting goals. Do you have SMART goals?
S Specific
M Measurable
A Attainable
R Relevant
T Time-bound
Good luck, friends!
Tags: goal
RamenBoya here!
Okay, my goal is Canadian 6-Dan by My birthday in October!
How to get there:
3 online leagues –>KGS Insei League A Division, CLIG, WBaduk ex-KBC students’ league–>Thoroughly review all games, preferably with help from stronger players, and play most league games against 6D+ if possible.
Tsumego –>Solve from my study book from Korea. Write down due dates on pages in the book. Set them up on the board, and try to solve as quickly as possible, preferably with the use of a clock.
Joseki –>Thoroughly learn all Joseki variations relevant to my game mistakes.
Other games with strong players –>Play James Sedgick on Mondays, Jeffrey on Fridays (both 6D’s), and Dusan whenever he’s available (KGS 8D).
No need to put all the details here I guess.
Nice post!
This has me looking at my own study plan very well. I like this and will set my goals with this format in mind. Thank you.
Thanks for your post on this site. From my own experience, often times when I understood that starting was the most difficult thing.