With two-a-day practices and fall camps gearing up around the nation, most coaches will be looking for ways to motivate their athletes and for ways to improve their commitment and performance. With that in mind, it’s important that coaches discuss goal setting with their athletes and how goals can lead to improved performance. Goal setting is something that is often overlooked by coaches and athletes but if it utilized in the right way, the possibilities are endless for athletes reaching their full potential.
As a coach, when you discuss goal setting with your athletes, it is important that you make sure your athletes understand how goal setting will help them. In addition to that, there are a couple of things you want to keep in mind when setting goals with your athletes. First, it is important that your athletes set their own individual goals. Setting their own goals keeps athlete intrinsically self-motivated which is important when talking about reaching their potential and accomplishing their goals. Second, your athlete’s goals need to be as specific as possible, something they have complete control over, and something you can measure. Most kids will set a goal that they want to win. Winning is good and something we all want as coaches, but that is a goal that in a team sport and a sport that involves officials and human error, is something our athletes do not have complete control over. So we want to sure our athletes go into more detail and find ways to set goals that will give them a better chance or opportunity to win.
There are three different types of goals that you want to have your athletes set. These can be used for both the field as well as in the classroom. Process, performance, and outcome goals are the types of goals that you want to have your athletes set.
Process goals are goals that involve the process of accomplishing something. So, in other words, if my ultimate goal is to Get an A in algebra or gain 1,000 yds rushing in a season, what are the steps needed to take in order to accomplish those things. These types of goals should be very small and specific. Examples of process goals would be to attend practice every day, run five wind sprints every day after practice for two weeks, or to spend two hours on algebra homework three days a week etc…
Performance Goals are goals that should be the results of accomplishing your process goals. These involve how you want to perform in a given situation. An example of performance goals would be to earn an A on the next algebra test, finishing first every time in team conditioning drills, gaining 100 yards rushing every game, etc These goals involve performance and if your athletes accomplish their process goals they will be more likely to accomplish their performance goals.
Outcome Goals are the bigger goals your athletes want to accomplish. Outcome goals should be the product of accomplishing both their process and performance goals. These goals are goals like – I want to get an A in algebra, or I want 1000 yards rushing this season, and want to Win 8 games, etc. In order to have a chance to accomplish your outcome goals, it’s important to set and accomplish the process and outcome goals first.
We, as coaches, can use this method of goal setting when setting our team, offensive, and defensive goals. Remember – make sure they are specific and measurable, make sure they are obtainable, then make sure you start with the process, and end with the outcome. Hopefully, this helps you unleash your athletes’ and teams’ full potential this season.