Ch.

16 Summary – Goal Setting – Ryan Collins

Goal setting is probably one of my most favorite concepts as a coach/leader of athletes or others and that

happens to be covered in this book. This is really step one in starting a sports season or business is determining what

we’re going to accomplish (true step one as listed in text is actually knowing our athletes before we can set

appropriate goals). We determine where we want to end up, and if it’s a reasonable but challenging idea, we work

backwards from there in reverse design to figure out what the likely steps or processes will be to get there.

Basketball coach Jimmy V was famous for having his players practicing cutting down the nets as if they

just won the National Championship on the first day of practice. This also had to do with imagery, belief and

confidence as he needed his players to see his vision and belief in them of what they would accomplish. Before I

ever heard this story, for swimming I had a desire to have our athletes go up to our record board and pick out and

decide what records they’d make theirs. I think many kids do this on their own and mentally, but as we read in this

chapter, we must have others such as coaches and teammates understand and support our goals and the process it’ll

take to get there.

The second step and place many already get lost before, but I really enjoy too, is putting together the plan

of what it’ll take and measurable steps to get there. For example, if you want to swim some race in a certain time,

you must do…a, b, and c…. to go that fast. Or to win a team title, you’ll need someone to do…ex: have a 1,000 yd.

rusher and a defense that does not give up over 200 pass yds. a game. From these decided upon performance goals

we take another step backwards and really look at the process goals, i.e. what it’ll take to be a 1,000 yd. rusher

(more speed and power as a back, o-line blocking together as a unit, and mental aspects/discipline).

Outcome, performance, and process goals are the three differing types that all have a special role in

accomplishing what you want. Once outcome goals are set, I believe we must not dwell on them too much and begin

to emphasis the performance and then process goals as the more short-term goals to get us there. If we focus too

much and often during competition on the outcome goal (ex: going a specific time in a race, or going undefeated in

football but it’s a regular season game), we become overwhelmed and lost in the current moment.

The greatest issue I’ve experienced in my time as an athlete and coach is often this process is skipped all

together or done once at the beginning of a season and completely forgotten about or neglected until it’s finished.

Goals must be constantly evaluated and even adjusted for appropriateness as time progresses. They must be kept in a

place with a regular reminder (mirror at home or locker before practice) as they can enhance motivation and
Ch.16 Summary – Goal Setting – Ryan Collins

behavior if used properly. Great teams tend to be great goal setters and able to determine a plan of action it’ll take to

get there, determine if it’s challenging but reasonable, and stick to it and adjust as necessary. In my experiences as a

coach, we had some great teams at the high school level and some average ones. All the teams that had great goal

setting and evaluation were great teams. We had teams that leadership decided goal setting wasn’t important, and

our men’s team overcame that and did it on their own to achieve most of their goals (I believe we could’ve

accomplished even more though if we’d helped them). Our women’s team at the time wasn’t as skill and determined

on their own without leadership and didn’t in turn accomplish as much. Even here at Mount we seem to set goals

briefly at the beginning of the year without too much guidance and then forget about them. Similarly to my high

school experience, our men’s team internally set most of their own and went 11-2 this season, while again our

women struggled and went 6-6. There are other factors I’m sure too that factor into this performance, but goals give

us the guidance for where we’ll end up and without them who knows where we’ll end up. *I need to reflect more

and conduct studies and research into if gender is possibly the deciding factor in this example. I have a feeling not as

even with similar circumstances other women’s teams have overcome to achieve positive results if they valued

them.