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.