Goal Setting

It was a wonderful experience meeting with all of the teams outside of practice this past month.  The main purpose of meeting was to discuss goal setting, but it was also just nice for the girls to spend some quality time together outside of practice.

RECAP OF THE EVENING

First, I had each of the girls write down an individual soccer specific goal in their log books.  They all traced their left hand onto a blank page and wrote in the palm:  Goal   "I want to...

All the players wrote what they wanted to achieve, and we talked about the difference between an outcome goal and a performance goal. 

OUTCOME GOAL

An Outcome goal is a goal we don't have complete control over.  Example: "I want to be the fastest person on the team" 

This is a great goal, but no one can control the speed of their teammates.  If the fastest person in the world is on their team, this might be an unattainable goal no matter how hard they work. 

PERFORMANCE GOAL
We can turn this goal of getting faster into a performance goal by setting parameters we can control.  Example: "I want to decrease my mile time by 30 seconds"      

THE REST OF THE HAND

After deciding on a performance goal, we went through the following steps:
 - In the pinky finger of the hand, each player wrote their goal out as specifically as they could.
 - In the ring finger they wrote WHY they wanted to reach this goal.  This is a very important step because knowing why we want something really helps motivate us to put in the work necessary to achieve the goal. I asked the girls to think of and write down as many reasons "why" as they could.
 - In the middle finger they wrote the date by which they wanted to achieve their goal.  This makes the goal more concrete... and with the age of the girls we want them to concentrate on short term goals (within the next 6 months).
 - In the index finger they wrote HOW to achieve the goal.  This is the step by step plan of what they are going to do to get from where they are to where they want to be.  Example for improving mile time:

1. Run mile and time it

2. Set up a varied 5 day a week  running schedule
(some days run more than a mile,
some days run sets of 100-200 yard sprints)

3. Run and time my mile every 2 weeks (using the same course)

4. Drink water and hydrate well on all running days

5.  Two weeks prior to goal accomplishment date,

assess how much time I have taken off and

modify my running plan or date by which I reach my goal.

 - And in the thumb we wrote MODIFY or SET NEW GOAL (something like step 5 above).  It is important for the girls to always be tracking their goal and modify it if it is too easy or too difficult to accomplish by the date they set to achieve it.  This way, no matter what, they are successful.  This builds confidence and makes the idea of setting a new goal a positive experience.    

MY PERSPECTIVE

The meetings were very enlightening for me. It was a happy surprise to find that the majority of the girls have a genuine sense of what they need to work on to make more of an impact in games.  A number of players even had long term goals of making varsity as a freshman, playing in college, and some even want to play on the women's Olympic team. 

FOLLOW THROUGH

To help the girls follow through with their goals, inquire about them and what their plan to reach their goal looks like. 

Encourage the girls to post their goals up in a place they will see them often.

Help them make a new hand in their journal with a different goal (possibly something to do with school or another area of their life).  The more they practice setting goals and making plans to reach them, the better they will get at it.

Setting a goal for yourself along with them could make them more invested.  Then you can help each other track progress and modify... and maybe have a reward you both can do together when the goals you have set have been achieved.   

If you could write to me or reply to this post with any feedback from the girls about the meetings, it would be very helpful.  If I know more about their experience, it will help me to make future meetings like this even better.   Thank you so much for your help and support!!

Coach Eric