Quick, if I asked what is your goal for the cricket season, what would you say?

Maybe it's 500 runs, or 50 wickets. Perhaps it's getting selected for a higher team. Maybe it's something else totally.

These are fine ideas. They are not goals, they are dreams. So, you need to be careful with how you try and reach them. Goals and dreams are handled differently.

I'm reading The Chimp Paradox by psychologist Steve Peters at the moment, and this idea in the book crystalised an earlier thought I have had about goal setting: That you need to set goals about things you can control.

It's fine to have dreams. In fact, it's good. But a dream is an aim in life you have that is not under your full control. So to fixate on it and fail is asking for trouble.

Goals, on the other hand, are things you can control that allow you to give yourself the best chance of reaching your dream.

So, for example, say you are playing an 18 game season and you dream of 1000 runs. That's not a goal because you don't have full control. Pitches might be poor, bowlers might be exception, you might get dropped from your team because the captain's brother wants a game.

What you can do is set a series of goals that will give you the best chance of reaching the dream: Get to they gym three times a week to improve your fitness, buy a coaching course and use the advice in nets, develop a new scoring shot in practice, and so on. Pick things that you can control and that will make you a better player.

That way, if you achieve all your goals and you still fail at your dream you can say to yourself that you did everything you could. I have no doubt that either way you will be a better cricketer.