Relevance. In recent years, the level of sport results in elite sports and the intensity of training and competitive loads has been steadily increasing. Consequently, new methods for increasing the effectiveness of the training process should be discovered, one of them is the goal-setting process improvement, or the competitive goal setting. The aim: to substantiate the expediency of applying goal-setting in sports and to form an implementation algorithm for improving the effectiveness of competitive activities. Results of the study. The issues of increasing the effectiveness of competitive goal setting and its types are considered. The main components of the goal-setting process in sports were studied. An implementation algorithm of the goal-setting process has been developed. It includes tasks and methods of psychological influence for the goal-setting process optimization and increasing the effectiveness of competitive activities. Conclusions. The conducted researches show that the formation of the ability for effective goal-setting changes the athlete’s attitude towards achieving a specific sporting result and makes his life strategies more rational and energy-saving. It contributes to the optimization of competitive activity