Goal setting is a very important aspect towards being successful. It is taught at many different levels of life, and with swimming I try to teach it as well. Sometimes there is a kid who is tired of hearing learn this and learn that at school, and will learn the process better at a sport, which they can then apply later once they realize the power in it.
I have written before that there is a time and place for goals. It is the beginning of the season, and remembered throughout the practices, as it can be the one thing that they can hold on to when the practices get tough. Goals are not a place for swim meets though. This can make a swim meet even more pressure filled, and soon this pressure makes swim meets not fun, and the swimmer begins to dislike the meets. Meets provide enough pressure and stress for the swimmer, we don't need to add on to their natural pressure moments.
The next part is to understand about short and long term goals. It is important to have both. Make sure that they are reasonable yet challenging at the same time. A swimmer that doesn't have a B Cut shouldn't make their goal to have a National A Cut as a short term goal. If you are using the national motivational times, then say the goal is a B Cut, then reassess (a part of the process that is also good to learn) and make the next cut a BB Cut, reassess again, and then have the goal of a National A Cut. A National A Cut could be seen as a long term goal, and the other two cuts are short term goals on the way to the long-term goal.
Understand there are other goals that can be made for a swimmer. The goal of not getting DQ'd in the 100 IM could be a goal. Time is not a factor here, but it is a great goal. A goal could be that you want to have a meet where you have great streamlines off every wall of every race. The times may or may not be faster, but the goal is very good as it will be part of getting better in the long run, and towards a faster long term time based goal.
Not achieving a goal in a specified time is not something that a parent or coach should get mad over. The swimmer should care about there goals enough that it bothers them. They need to know that failing to miss a challenging goal is part of the process. They need to look at there attendance, their effort at each and every practice, their attention span of each and every practice, and the amount of other socializing they mix into practice that could be a distraction from them putting directions together. It's a tough sport, as life is also tough, and learning how to deal with failure is something that they need to learn to cope with.
As a coach it is hard to not see your swimmers achieve their goals, as it is probably hard on the parent as well. As a coach I constantly go over in my head the yardage, the intensity, the amount of stroke work, the amount of attention to detail; and wonder if it all was enough. Did I balance it all out well enough this season for it all work. I get caught up in looking at results on a meet to meet basis, but that is not a good thing to do. I catch myself many times, and tell myself that you need to follow through. In the end, you look at a seasonal analysis of the progression. Was it there? Last Spring compared to Early Winter is normally what I like to look at as we get ready for WAG's. It is always nice to see how much the swimmers have improved. Sure we always hope that they achieved more, but to see the progress is very good. Even a swimmer that is struggling in this span of time normally can see some kind of turnaround or breakthrough times.
Now if you are looking at Senior Swimmers, this may be very different. Senior Swimmers truly only swim fast four to five times in a year. This is due to the Mesocycles of training that consist of rest to work ratios dictating their performance ability, and a Microcycle of seasons that allow for peak performance really only once a season. This training is to get peak performance from the swimmers. "In Season" meets are dress rehearsals for the meet that they prepare for at the end of the microcycle. OK, gone too much on a physiological tangent here.
Goal Setting is very important, and can be very important tool to achieve full potential. Understand that is also provides some hard times as goals can add pressure to the swimmer. Understand that goals are setup to be a ladder if done properly, and that only have one big goal, can become very difficult on the psyche of a child.
No comments:
Post a Comment