Goals have long been thought as the best way to achieve & reach your holy grail! Whether it be weight loss, a sporting event or our career we can all probably remember sitting down & setting those Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant & Time-bound (SMART) short, long & medium term badgers only to get (pick one of) distracted, injured, demotivated, bored & not reach them. The latest thinking is to focus more on the process than the goal. You’ll hear modern football coaches speak about the ‘performance’ & not the ‘result.’
Process promotes progress, and progress, on a neurochemical level, primes us to persist.
The thought being that if you continue to move in the right direction the results will come. If you happen to miss out on an event, for whatever reason, you don’t suffer with the ‘let down’ as that wasn’t your focus; the process was.
Here’s a great article with plenty of further great links.
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/08/why-having-big-goals-can-backfire.html
