5 Step Plan to Making Better Sports Goals

Goals help us stay focused and committed as an athlete. As a swimmer I know it can get a little tedious and repetitive in the pool. This is why it is essential to set goals.

Tegan MilellaCoach

Not only does it motivate you to stay active and stay healthy, it enables one to keep track of progress and development helping establish focus on priorities and expectations.

5 Step Plan to Making Better Sports Goals:

Here with our Super Family we really love to challenge ourselves and are constantly setting and striving to achieve both short-term and long-term goals. So today we will discuss setting your goals as well as evaluating and adjusting along the way.

Step 1: MAKE YOUR GOAL SPECIFIC. REAL SPECIFIC!

I want to swim fast isn’t really a goal. It’s a broad objective, like saying i want to be rich’. We all want to swim fast, fast just means something different to everyone. You cannot leaveroom for any confusion or ambiguity if you set a specific time,E.g. I want to swim faster (X)I want to post a 22.15 in 50m freestyle by next summer (✓)You leave no room for doubt or wiggle room, making it clear what you’ve set to achieve.When we have a clear goal it gives us a direction and forces us to create a plan to achieve it.On that note we led to our next step of our goals setting process

Step 2: DEVELOP A FRAMEWORK FOR SUCCESS.

So now we have our big awesome super goal! Next we are figuring out how to get there. We start from the end and work our way back. Continuing on our swimming time as the example goal, what times would one need to have between then and now, and then what competitions, times and splits you will knock down on the way?Next list the things you will have to do to become that swimmer:

Improve starts and turns?
Improve Technique?
More strength and conditioning sessions?

Write about 5-6 areas where you will improve. With an outline of where you need to improve, we can plot points of need to achieve between now and your end goal dates.This framework will also be critical in another way, it will help keep you on track for the short-term goals. Focusing on the bigger picture can sometimes be intimidating and often leads to demotivation.Keep eyes on what's next instead of discouraging yourself with the size of the bigger picture.You don’t climb stairs ten at one go, you take one step at a time.

Step 3: MEANINGFUL ACTIONS. DON’T MISTAKE BUSY FOR PRODUCTIVE!

When looking over your framework make sure to separate the actions that keep you busy versus those that actually produce results.NOT action items:

Watching swimming videos on YouTube.
Buying a new swimming gear
Emptying your swim bag after practice

These are regular activities that should be done regardless of your bigger goal and shouldn't be on your list.ACTION GOALS:

Show up 15 minutes early for practice
Breathe bi-laterally during warm up and cool down
Do 200 crunches after each evening practice.
Do 5 min vertical kicks every Monday and Wednesday

If you are unsure of which the action falls under ask yourself, will this bring me closer to my goal?

Step 4: TRACK YOUR PROGRESS.

We have goals, we have a framework and hopefully we have an understanding of meaningful action. Now we’ve got to commit to tracking the progress in the pool.The benefits to tracking your progress:

It will keep you motivated. Seeing improvement makes us proud and motivates us to keep the consistency, if not push harder to reach and achieve the goal.
It will tell you when to back off. One of the hardest things to do is to step back when you’re on a roll. You're putting all the hard work in and you've been really killing yourself in the pool with drills and endurance, but you’ve noticed your time has slowed if not begun to regress. You need to allow yourself to rest and recover, the body comes back stronger with the right amount of rest, we always say a rest day is as vital as a training day.
It will help you create smarter goals. Seeing every progress in front of you helps us understand the pace and ability we have to improve efficiently. We also see if the goals we have set are realistic! Let's Clarify by realistic we don't mean to say some boring goal that's fairly straight forward, but rather a goal that can be attained as well as give you a fair level of challenges. Setting outrageous expectations for oneself is a fast way to get discouraged. Tracking gives you insight to create better, super, awesome, goals that you are more likely to stick to.

Step 5: EVALUATE WHAT IS WORKING.

Periodic evaluations help us not slip into comfort zones and bad habits, the help us face the things we don't want to see in our progress, forcing us to notice and fix our plan.Your goal setting skills will always be a work in progress. And that's good! Simply because you followed all the steps and still ended up not reaching the point doesn't mean the process is faulty, it means there are improvements to be made on your plan. When things go awry, take a deep breath and as objectively as possible discern:

Where did my expectations fall short?
What were some things unanticipated or didn’t see coming?
Was your goal realistic given the effort put in?
What lessons can you pull and apply next time?

Use it as a learning experience to better your next goal setting and to have a more efficient next time.Now on the other hand if you completely blasted through and beyond expectations, continue to apply the things that worked the next time around. It's good to look back on a positive plan and one should ask oneself:

Was the goal too easy? Did you maybe underestimate yourself and thus should try a greater challenge next time.
In what areas did you see the most improvement? This helps you understand what has worked and what needs work and a slight bit more focus.
Which aspect of your performance had the biggest impact on your overall result?

Keep setting new goals and stay consistent, speak with your coach regularly and let them know your goals and plan help to keep a more objective view on the progresses as well as the evaluation. Sometimes we can be pretty tough on ourselves. Stay happy, stay motivated and stay healthy