Training Programme 1 - GOAL SETTING

Week Number = 2
Date = 27th March 2014
Aim of the Week = To develop your goal setting skills in order to reduce your anxiety and boost your confidence.

Goal Setting Technique

Hi X, this is Hubert. I wanted to inform you about the 1^st week training session of our 6 weeks programme. In the 1^st week we will work on goal setting as I have looked at the results from the questionnaires that you have answered and I found out that on one of them you have only scored 1 on the Goal Setting and Mental Preparation, therefore we will work on that to start off with as I really think you need to improve on that. 

Introduction of the Technique

Goal Setting basically means that you set yourself an aim or goal, that you want to achieve. 

Uses of Goal Setting

Goal setting is used because it will give the wants and desires of a specific outcome and also it will give you the steps you need to move towards this outcome. Goal setting should give your daily actions a meaning to work within and gives you the directions that you may follow, especially whilst playing football. Goal setting will be very useful to you and it could really help you with reducing your high level of anxiety that you get when playing football and also it hopefully will boost your confidence that you seem to be lacking whilst performing.

Types of Goal

Outcome – An outcome goal will focus on the outcome of an event, for example winning the football match or winning the league. Outcome goals are usually more long-term goals and they will usually run from few months to several years.

Process – A process goal will focus on the actions that you must produce to perform well, for example training few times a week so that you will enhance your performance in football. Process goals are normally more short-term goals and they are set over a brief period of time, usually from one day to a month.

Performance – Performance goals will give a way of analysing your own strengths and weaknesses when performing in football. With them you can also monitor your improvements in psychological skills, but also they may motivate you to trying your best.

Goal Setting Principles

When you want to set yourself a goal you need to remember about the SMART principle to make them workable. The SMART stands for:

Specific 

Measurable 

Achievable 

Realistic 

Time-constrained

Specific means that your goal must be specific to what you want to achieve. Saying that you want to get better at football will not be good enough; you should say I want to improve my passing, heading or tackling.

Measurable means that your goals will be stated in a way that is able to be measured so that you can state the figures. For example saying that you want to improve your successful slide tackles by 20% it will be measurable.

Achievable means that your goal must be possible to achieve.

Realistic means that you need to be realistic in your goal setting and look at what factors may stop you from achieving your goal.

Finally, Time-constrained means that you must give yourself a deadline on the goal so that you can review your success. It is best if you set yourself a date by which you wish to achieve your goal. 

The best way for you to set a goal is by answering three questions:

What do YOU want to achieve? (desired state)

Where are YOU now? (present state) 

What do YOU need to do to move from your present state to your desired state?

Exercises for You to Complete

Long term goals tell you where you want to go (final destination) and short term goals tell you how you are going to get there (journey). Both are extremely important for effective goal setting. I will give you two exercises that you will have to answer with the goals that you want to set yourself. Make sure that both goals that you choose, long-term and short-term, are SMART goals.

General Exercise

I want you to complete the following exercise so that we can see your long term goals:    

• What is your goal for this season? (e.g. winning the league or having the most clean sheets in the league)  
• What are the skills you need to achieve your goal? (e.g. good communication with your teammates or organised defence)
• What can you do between now and the end of the season to develop the skills needed to achieve your goal? (e.g. training)
• What will you do this week to develop these skills in order to achieve your long-term goal? (e.g. training)
• What can you do in the next training session to develop these skills? (e.g. practice defending set pieces)

Specific Task

The second exercise is a bit different as now I want you to complete it so that we can see your short term goals: 

• What is your goal for your next game? (e.g. scoring a goal or keeping a clean sheet) 
• What will you do in order to achieve this goal? (e.g. train harder in training)
• What skills will you need to achieve your goal? (e.g. organised in defence)

When you finished the exercises could you please evaluate it and give me a feedback of how it went. 

Athlete's Feedback

I have met my athlete and asked him about the tasks that I gave him to do. I wanted to find out whether he found them task easy to do and useful and also if they have helped him in boosting his confidence and reducing the anxiety. This is what athlete X has said about the goal setting tasks:

"Hello coach, I wanted to give you the feedback on how the goal setting tasks went for me. To start off with I wanted to say that the information which you gave were really useful and I have got now a better knowledge of goal setting. The tasks that you gave me to do where not that hard, but I must admit that at the beginning I had to think hard about what I want to achieve as I have never done goal setting before and it was a new experience for me. In the general exercise section I have answered the questions with the following answers: 
1. My goal for this season is to score at least one goal and also to try and concede the lowest number of goals in the league. 
2. The skills that I will need will be good and organised performances at the back, so that we can have a better chance of conceding little goals, and also the shooting skills with either my legs or header so that I can score at least one goal this season. 
3. Between now and the end of the season I can train very hard on every aspect of football, especially the defence and shooting, so that I will get a chance of achieving my goal for this season. 
4. This week I will concentrate mostly about defending during training sessions. Scoring one goal isn't that hard and I can score it at any point during any game, but having the less number of conceded goals in the league will be harder and therefore I will try my best to practice the defending more and also developing the cohesion with my partners in defence so that we can all play well and work hard to concede little goals. 
5. In my next training session I will practice the tackling and the offside line. This will hopefully help me in achieving my goal. 

The specific task was easier to answer as this is what may happen in the next game. The goal that I have set to myself is realistic and I really hope to achieve it. 

1. My goal is to improve my percentage rate of successful slide tackles. At the moment, my overall percentage rate of slide tackles is only 40%. I hope that in the next game I can make more slide tackles so that my successful slide tackles percentage rate will increase by at least 5%. I know that the increase I have chosen is not too big, but this is because I know that you don't always get a chance of slide tackling someone during the game. 
2. In order to achieve this I will work really hard in training session practicing the slide tackles. 
3.  The skill that I will need to achieve that goal will be the timing of the slide tackle. 

I have answered them questions before my game. Now, after I have played my game, I can tell that the specific task was very useful and the goal which I have set myself I have achieved. My overall percentage rate of successful slide tackles have increased by 7% and therefore I am really happy with this. The goal that I have chosen was also a SMART goal therefore I hope that I have fulfilled your demands coach. The general exercise task I can't really do yet as the season is not over yet, but what I know now is that if I could achieve the specific task for short-term goal I can also achieve the long-term goal. 

I have found goal setting really useful as now before the game I have an goal that I am working towards and this motivates me more and also gives me more confidence! This means that one aspect of this training week has already been achieved as your aim for me was to boost my confidence. I still can't reduce my anxiety but I am hoping that if I continue with the goal setting technique I will achieve it at the end of the season. 
Thank you coach!"

Athlete X has fulfilled the tasks well and I am very happy with his attitude towards it as well. I am hoping that in the upcoming weeks he will manage to improve his performance by improving his psychological skills. 

Introduction to the Athlete

This is the introduction to the 6 weeks psychological training skills programme of my chosen athlete. I have chosen athlete X and on this blog I will write information of each week programme including the strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities of athlete X. To start off with I will introduce the personal profile of athlete X.

Personal Profile

Athlete X in action

Athlete X is quite a sporty person. He plays several sports, with his main one being football. Athlete X attends St Mary's College and that's where he gets the most opportunities to play his main sport. He regularly trains on Monday afternoon, and Friday afternoon, with the games being played at Wednesday afternoon. Athlete X  plays for St Mary's 2nd football team, although he had played one game for the 1st team in which he played as a goalkeeper. Football is a sport that athlete X has been playing for quite a long time, although always at an amateur, but competitive level. His main position on the pitch is centre back, although he sometimes used to play as a right-back or even a goalkeeper. Athlete X shows good understanding of the tactics, and can easily adapt to them wherever he is playing on the pitch. However, athlete X does not have the drive and mindset that an athlete needs to become a professional and play at a top level. Athlete X is highly motivated and never gives up, but what is stopping him from moving off the amateur level is the fact that he does not believe in his own abilities. In his mind he always worry a lot about his performance. He is not confident that he can go out the pitch and play good, even though in most of the games his performance is a top standard. This athlete to start believing in himself and feeling more confident on the pitch needs to have a psychological plan that does not take too much time and includes relaxation techniques, such as music, so that athlete X can improve his confidence and, what comes with it, his overall performance on the pitch.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths - 
Athlete X has got quite a lot of strengths in football, most of them comes from his physical ability when playing that sport. His main strength is the fact that he never gives up. Although athlete X has got to work on his self belief and confidence, one aspect of his mind is that he never gives up, even if he is having a very bad game. His will to succeed is pushing him forward and also the feeling of letting his team down is making him work harder on the pitch in order to put a good performance. Even though his technical skills in football aren't the best he always plays with his heart, and that makes him the type of player who will never give up whilst playing football. His physical strength is athlete X's another big strength. He is quite a powerful and strong lad who isn't afraid of going into tackles or fighting for the ball, (this could link with him never giving up). In many games he got a slight injuries because of him fighting for every play, especially when he plays as a defender. His strength and power is an advantage for him as he can easily fight with the opposition's strikers for the ball and, most of the time, he manages to win that ball.

Weaknesses - 
Athlete's X main weakness is in his mind. Like I have mentioned before, he does not believe in his ability and has not got the confidence on the ball. Athlete X is the kind of player that worries a lot about how he perform and what would happen if he fail, before the start of the match. This is very bad for him as it stops him from improving his performance and moving up to another level. He is not very confident on the ball. He can go into tackles, and win headers, but when he has the ball in his feet and has to pass it, he fails. Most of the time he rushes to pass the ball as quick as possible because he doesn't like it and therefore when he plays football he mostly concentrates on stopping the oppositions attack and does not want to get his team attacking play started; he leaves that to his partners in defence. The mind aspect is the most important thing that I will need to work on with athlete X, but other than this he also needs to improve on his tactical skills as maybe than it would be easier for him to feeling more confident on the ball.

Opportunities - 
In the 6 week psychological skills training programme I will provide athlete X with an opportunity to get his main weaknesses becoming his strengths. I will do everything possible to make athlete X worry less about his performance before the game and also feeling more confident on the ball. In order to do that I will provide athlete X with some training programme that he will have to follow of the 6 week period. Hopefully after that his performance will improve further and he will be able to get rid of the bad emotions that he has got in his head at the moment.

Threats - 
The main threat that could stop athlete X from improving could be the fact that athlete X is 18 years old and he has been playing football for over 10 years now. If he didn't manage to belief in himself and improving his technical skills on the ball, than I think it could be too late now as it could harder for him to learn something new when he has been playing like that for a very long time and got used to it by now. However, I will try everything possible and hopefully at the end of this 6 week training programme athlete X will be a completely different player.

When I first met athlete X I gave him some questionnaires to fill in. I wanted to see his mental aspects of the game and some of the results that I got have indicated to me that his mental aspect of playing football is very bad as it includes a very low self belief and confidence. The first questionnaire that I gave athlete X was to assess his sport psychological skills. There was no right or wrong answers and X had to answer 28 questions by choosing the score out of 3 where 0 was almost never and 3 being almost always. At the end I have recorded down the results and they are as follows:

* The higher scores indicate greater strengths - the scores are up to 12

Coping with adversity = 2 - This has assessed if the athlete remains positive and enthusiastic even when things are going badly, remains calm and controlled, and can quickly bounce back from mistakes and setbacks.
Coach-ability = 12 - This shows if an athlete is open to and learns from instructions that his coach gives him.
Concentration = 7 - This reflects to whether an athlete becomes easily distracted.
Confidence and achievement motivation = 7 - This measures if an athlete is confident and positively motivated, consistently gives 100% during training's and competitive games, and works hard to improve his skills.
Goal setting and mental preparation = 1 - Assesses whether an athlete sets and works toward specific performance goals.
Peaking under pressure = 6 - Measures if an athlete is challenged rather than threatened by pressure situations.
Freedom from worry = 7 - Assesses whether an athlete puts pressure on him by worrying about performing poorly and making mistakes.

After that I have asked athlete X to write down what motivates him. I have created a table which had intrinsic factors and extrinsic factors, and under the extrinsic whether they are tangible or intangible. For the intrinsic factors athlete X has put that improving his performance and the joy of playing football are motivating him. For the tangible X has put that winning trophies will motivate him and for the intangible he said that instructions from the manager and praise from the manager will motivate him more.

In the attribution analysis I have asked athlete X to think about any recent sporting events that have been successful or unsuccessful for him. For the successful event athlete X could only think of one, winning 11-2 against Bolton College. He said that in this game the team was organised, he has put 100% and had a good communication with his teammates. For the unsuccessful events he has said that loosing 5-3 to Oldham College was bad as he unperformed and was worried that the team may loose because of him.  Also, he said that going to a volleyball tournament with college and loosing all 3 games was an unsuccessful event as they had no enough training's and were lacking the knowledge of the rules.

In addition I have asked athlete X to fill in the SCAT Test (Sport Competition Anxiety Test). The athlete had to read each question and answer rarely, sometimes or often. His overall score was 19 which indicated that athlete X have an average level of anxiety.

Also, another questionnaire that athlete X had to fill in was about the competitive state anxiety. In this questionnaire athlete X had 3 different results. First one was for a cognitive or mental anxiety and the result should have been between 9 and 18, however athlete X got 21 in that which is quite worrying. The next score was for somatic or physical anxiety and the result should have been between 19 and 26, with athlete X getting the score of 19. The last score was about the self confidence and the result should have been high between 27 and 36 but athlete X only got 19 which again is worrying.

Finally, at the end I have asked athlete X to complete the performance profile wheel in which I have told him to think of some attributes that he shows whilst playing football and rate them between 2 and 10. The attributes and results that athlete X had are as follows:

Belief = 6
Focus = 7
Mental toughness = 6
Concentration = 6
Confidence = 5
Self control = 6
Awareness = 8
Motivation = 9
Effort = 10
Strength = 9

Now I know exactly all about athlete X when he is participating in his main sport, which is football. I can create a 6 week training programme that will improve his psychological aspect of playing football.