John Danaher recently shared his framework for setting effective Jiu-Jitsu goals – arguing that vague ambitions like “get better at Jiu-Jitsu” carry little practical value compared to specific, behavior-changing targets tied to realistic timelines.

For Danaher, the starting point is specificity, as a goal only matters if it actually shifts how someone trains:

Some goals are extremely general “get better at Jiu Jitsu” is so general that it’s of little value as a goal.
Try to make goals specific enough that they change your behavior in noticeable and beneficial ways.

So for example, get better in top positions gives a more specified and narrow goal that immediately suggest certain behavioral changes that would help that goal – spending a greater percentage of your sparring time in top positions is an obvious way to facilitate the goal.

From there, Danaher connects the appropriate timeline to how close a goal sits to a practitioner’s existing skill set.
As skills adjacent to strengths a person already has tend to develop faster than those built from scratch:

So for example if you’re already strong at outside heel hooks but want to get better at inside heel hooks, a three month plan is usually adequate to make respectable progress.

If you’ve never studied leg locks at all and will be starting from nothing you might make a one year goal to get stronger in one or two aspects of leg locking and a three year goal to be come string across the whole skill set.

Danaher recommends structuring goals across four timeframes as well:

A good way to begin is to set goal of three months, six months, a year and three years – dependent on the discrepancy between your current skill set vs your desired skill set. Structure your goals this way and you can work profitably on several projects at the same time with a good chance of really changing your game for the better over time.

 

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