Goal Setting!!

GOAL SETTING

I am fairly certain most of you have seen the movie “Meet the Robinsons”. At the end of the movie there is a quote by Walt Disney “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.“ Walt Disney was a great innovator and visionary of making the impossible possible, and I think that one can apply this forward thinking attitude toward our progress in swimming and in life.

One of the toughest aspects of developing young athletes is the concept of goal setting. Most young swimmers have no rhyme or reason in getting from where they are time wise to where they want to be, The art and science of Goal Setting is figuring where you are and setting a course for where you want to be in the future. Goals can cover a wide variety of areas: long-term, medium-term, short-term, technique, training, attendance, and attitude. The object is to set a destination in the future and plot a course to reach that destination. Goals must be time sensitive both in term and in performance. Example, Billy Bathwater is an 13-14 Boy and goes 1:12.00 in the 100 Breaststroke. He wants to go the Age Group State Cut (1:09.49) by March. So already Billy has a destination, and a term for his goal. This is a great start, but Billy still has work to do to make his goal a reality. If you are not sure what your goal should be ask your Coach. Few swimmers recognize the close correlation between two key elements that work together in goal setting. First, is the training component. Second, is the racing component.

First let's address the Training component. When it comes to training, too may swimmers think—if I show up a lot I will improve. This strategy will work to a point, but there will come a time where just showing up will not be enough. Back to our teammate Billy Bathwater for a moment. Billy realizes that he is only coming to practice 5 out of 8 times per week. He thinks to himself YIKES!! If I really want to go this time I need to come to practice more. Well, I have religious class once per week, but I could start coming to Friday and Saturday practices. Great Call Billy—you have just went from 60% attendance to 87%! Billy then sits down and figures out that he has to be able to race each 25 at 17.25 seconds in order to make his goal. Jinkies—I need to be able to swim 51 seconds on 12x 75s and I am tin like Flynn. Another Gold Star! Once you know how fast you need to go in the race and begin to train at that speed in practice you have just significantly increased your probability to go your goal time. To truly have consistent and long term success swimmers need to have exceptional attendance as well as focused effort on their goal. When one's effort in practice is related directly to the desired outcome that outcome will become exponentially more likely.

Second is the Racing component. Some athletes just dive in and go all out, others just try to beat the person next to them, still others allow themselves to be nearly paralyzed by the fear of failure. It is not just enough to come to practice or to train the parts, one has to get up on the blocks and apply what they have learned in practice every day into a racing environment. Our good friend Billy gets up his first race with his new goal and goes a 1:10.00, his coach tells him what an awesome best time that is and how he was right on his goal time at the 75, but really struggled on the last 25. Billy is really happy with his improvement, but irritated that he did not go his goal. After the meet he evaluates his swims and figures out that he really needs to focus on finishing his sets faster to be able to finish his swim properly. Every practice and every race he stays focused on his goal and how he can do better. RIGHT ON BILLY!!

In the end our Teammate Billy swam a 1:05.67 100Breast. When I asked Billy at the end of the season if the “juice was worth the squeeze” without hesitation he said “ABSOLUTELY”, but what he learned about goal setting, dedication, hard work, and self-evaluation will help him “Keep Moving Forward” long after his competitive swimming is done.

Billy is a real swimmer of mine. not his real name, in Florida, he was Team Captain of his high school team and led them to a season where they broke 9 of 10 team records in one season, and scored points at the state meet for the first time in school history. Remember, Amat Victoria Curam --Translation: "Victory loves preparation"

Attached is a Goal Setting Sheet to Help get Everyone Started Just Click Here