What kind of sprinter are you trying to be?

You probably set goals around winning. Championships, getting PB’s, making teams. That's normal. You need something to aim for.

But there's another way some athletes think about goals that's worth considering.

Instead of just asking "what do I want to win?" you can ask "what kind of sprinter do I want to be?"

They're different questions. One gives you a target. The other gives you a standard for how you operate.

Someone training to win their regional championship has a clear goal. Win or you didn't. Simple.

Someone who decides "I'm the kind of athlete who takes training seriously" has a different measuring stick. It's not about the medal. It's about whether they showed up the way that person would show up.

That might sound like semantics, but it changes how you approach the boring parts of training.

If your only goal is winning the championship, every session needs to feel like it's getting you closer. When progress stalls or you hit a rough patch, the motivation for showing up properly can start to fade.

If part of your identity is being the athlete who does things right, that doesn't change based on how training is going. You warm up properly, you eat properly, you do the activation work, you show up on time. Not because you're calculating whether it helps you win. Because that's what you do.

Research on athletic identity shows that athletes who strongly identify as athletes tend to commit more to training and focus more on mastery rather than just results. The identity becomes the framework for daily decisions.

This doesn't replace wanting to win. You can still want the championship. You can still set ambitious time goals. But when those sit alongside an identity about how you train, the daily work becomes less fragile.

Think about what this looks like in practice.

The sprinter whose identity is "I'm professional about my training" has already decided how they handle cold mornings, tired days, sessions after a bad race. They've decided what kind of athlete they are before the moment when motivation would normally fail.

That's different from needing to manufacture motivation every time training gets uncomfortable.

Sprint training is repetitive. Block starts over and over. Acceleration work that never seems to feel comfortable. Strength sessions that are just heavy and hard. Some days you won't feel like doing it properly.

If winning is the only reason you're there, you need that feeling to stay strong. It won't always. There will be weeks where you're not getting faster, where your legs feel dead, where showing up feels pointless because the championship is months away and right now you're slower than you were last month.

If doing it properly is just who you are, the feeling matters less. You still show up. You still execute. Not because you feel motivated, but because that's what you believe an athlete does.

There's also evidence this helps performance. Studies on goal-setting in sport show that athletes focusing on controllable processes during training and competition tend to perform better than those only focused on outcomes.

That makes sense when you think about what actually happens in races.

The athlete thinking "I need to run 11.1 or this season was pointless" has added a layer of pressure that doesn't help their execution. They're not focused on running well. They're focused on the outcome, which they can't directly control in the moment.

The athlete thinking "I'm going to execute my race plan" has kept attention where it belongs. On the things they can actually do.

The outcome still matters. You're still trying to win. But the identity gives you something stable underneath it.

For sprinters, that identity might look like: I'm someone who takes warm-ups seriously even when coach is not watching. I do the boring mobility work that others skip. I eat like an athlete, which means I think about what I'm putting in my body. I don't drink heavily during season because I know what it does to recovery. I listen to feedback even when I don't want to hear it. I address tightness before it becomes injury.

None of that guarantees you win. But it makes you the kind of athlete capable of winning.

The difference shows up in consistency. The athlete motivated only by outcomes has good weeks and bad weeks depending on how close they feel to their goal. The athlete with a strong identity around their process has a more stable baseline.

They're not perfect. They still have off days. But the floor is higher because the identity doesn't fluctuate with results.

This is particularly relevant for sprinters because progress isn't linear. You'll have periods where you're not getting faster despite doing everything right. You'll have injuries that set you back. You'll have competitions where everything goes wrong.

If your entire motivation structure depends on seeing progress toward your outcome goal, those periods break you down. If your identity is built around the controllable parts of being an athlete, those periods are just part of the process.

For coaches, this is where you can make a real difference. Instead of only talking about championship goals or target times, ask your athletes what kind of sprinter they want to be. Help them define that identity in concrete terms. What does that person do in training? How do they handle setbacks? What are their non-negotiables?

Then hold them to it. Not in a punitive way, but by reflecting back when they're acting like that person and when they're not. The identity only becomes real when it's reinforced through action and feedback.

You can also model this yourself. If you want athletes who take preparation seriously, you need to be the coach who takes preparation seriously. If you want athletes who stay professional under pressure, you need to demonstrate what that looks like when a session goes wrong or a competition doesn't go to plan.

Athletes learn what matters by watching what you do, not just what you say.

The outcome goals can stay ambitious. You should still aim high. Set big targets. Want to win championships and set new times. But when they're built on top of an identity that holds regardless of results, the whole structure becomes more sustainable.

You're not just chasing a medal that depends on who else shows up. You're building the kind of athlete who's actually capable of winning it.

And when race day comes, you're not hoping you did enough. You know you showed up as the person you set out to be. Whether that's enough to reach your outcome goals depends on multiple factors.

But you've already won the part that really matters.