Working with objectives in a structured training course is a necessity in order to get a view of and indication of which direction you which to move.

These techniques, which are described here, could easily be used outside the field of cycling. Structuring your objectives, intermediate goals and plans are very effective working tools in planning your activities in relation to a given goal.

Any objective consists of the following elements:

1. Overall motivation factor
2. Overall objective
3. Goal
4. Intermediate goals

You should track down your overall motivating factor, which is the main thing that drives you to train on your bike. After this, you should set yourself an overall objective. Seldom are the overall motivating factor and the overall objective the same, but it is more the exception than the rule.

The overall objective is split into smaller objectives, which have the purpose of taking you further towards your objectives during the individual cycling season. This is how you continue to break your goals into smaller and more manageable portions.

Many people do these things subconsciously during an entire lifetime. Some people even become successful without the use of objectives, but are not able to explain exactly how this success has been achieved.

By writing your goals and intermediate aims down and making the goals visible to yourself, then you become much more aware of, which direction you are moving. On top of that you can at any time go in and correct the factors, which you believe are important in order to achieve your next (intermediate) aims. Goals can be broken down to small actions on a specific day.