Goal setting for success.

This one is strictly speaking off topic for this blog but as it is quite relevant I thought I'd share it anyway.

What ever you plan to achieve increase your chances to succeed, by setting yourself goals with targets that involve actions that you can control.

"Score more next season than this season" is not a goal that is entirely within your control. You may not get enough good passes. You may be up against a goalie that knows your shoting habbits really well. You may be injured for a really long time. There are all sorts of reasons why this may not happen. And that can negatively impact your motivation to really go for it.

"Improve shooting accuracy by September 15th" is not a S.M.A.R.T target. It is not measurable. It is also not entirely within your control.

But you can combine the targets and the goals in "I want to score more goals next season than I did this season by making my shots more accurate"

Next you have to take a little more time and look at what it would take to be more accurate. Technique, strength, muscle memory. Technique has to be monitored and possibly corrected by a coach. They have to give you feedback on your execution of your shot.

Which leaves strength and muscle memory. And there is only one way to improve both of these: Repetitions! And the number of repetitions you execute are 100 per cent within your control.

If you practice strength training for 2.5 hours a week and set yourself a goal to shoot 50 slaps, snaps backhands and wristshots every day, your accuracy will improve.

THAT! IS! HOW! YOU! SET! GOALS! TO! SUCCEED!!

It doesn't matter exactly what the goals are, but I think that if you give yourself or your players specific actions to work on they can't help it - they will improve.

You could for instance put a card board box at one end of the driveway and ask your kid (or yourself) to pass 10 tennis balls into the box every day, and then give them a little treat as a reward (reading time, 5 minutes extra before bed time, a magazine when they have done 100 passes. etc etc)

Now how to put this into practice for my weightloss? hmmm.