Why Emphasize Process and Performance Goals?
In sport, achievement is usually measured by one criterion: Winning is success, and losing is failure. Even the youngest athletes quickly learn this lesson But when athletes base their self-confidence on winning rather than on attaining process and performance goals, their self-confidence is likely to be very unstable in any contest or competition, there is only one winner. You have probably seen athletes who become overconfident after a win or two, only to have their bubble burst by a loss. Such instability becomes a source of uncertainty, anxiety, and frustration. Athletes who base their self-confidence on winning usually feel helpless to do anything about their unstable self-confidence. They have become so convinced that winning is the only criterion for evaluating their competence that they are unable to separate their performance from its outcome (See The Problem With Outcome Goals for an example)