Goals
The Purpose and Elements of Goals
Why do we need goals? Who should set goals in youth and high school sports? What good do they do? Goals are a fantastic way to help parents and athletes focus on a desired outcome and work toward it.
Without goals, athletes and parents can get distracted, unfocused, or otherwise impede their own progress.
Goals are also good for:
• Building an awareness of cause and effect
• Teaching accountability and responsibility to athletes
• Unifying a family or team in a common desire
• Instilling a sense of discipline and motivation in athletes
Who is responsible for setting goals? We’ll discuss this more a little later, but goals are generally set by both athletes and parents. Their goals tend to be very different, based on their different worldviews. Athletes might set their sights on being the best on their team or perfecting a new move. Parents might set a goal of having their child or teen compete at a certain level by a certain age, or to improve specific character traits through their participation.
From now on, though, we will focus on the goals that a parent sets for their child or teen, and how a coach can help those goals to be realistic, measurable, and a positive experience for everyone involved.
S.M.A.R.T. Goals
Now let’s talk about the makeup of a good goal. Parents should strive to set goals that are SMART. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Let’s look at each of these characteristics in detail.
Specific – To be useful, a goal needs to be specific. Parents should strive to set a goal such as “To be eligible to move to the next higher team because of consistent good performance” as opposed to “To move up to the next level.”
A specific goal is one that is very clear. It breaks down a big vision into something small and manageable. This helps because when a parent gets confused, frustrated, or overwhelmed, the goal shines bright as a small, actionable next step forward.
Measurable – Goals are only good if they can be measured. If a parent’s goal is to “Help Johnny develop into a better person,” then there should be some metrics around that. In what specific ways does Johnny need to be a better person? What character traits can he improve on? How can those be measured?
A better example of a goal would be “Instill in Johnny a respect for teammates, demonstrated in his willingness to put others first.” By stating the measure – “willingness to put others first” – Johnny’s progress toward the goal can be evaluated.
Achievable – This one is all about putting an end-date on the goal. Is it possible to truly achieve the goal? If the goal is “Improve sprint times by 10 seconds,” then yes, it is achievable. If the goal is “Become the fastest sprinter in the country in the next 10 weeks,” then it’s probably not so achievable.
Setting goals that aren’t possible to achieve is an exercise in futility. Parents will get frustrated that athletes never meet the goals. Athletes will get frustrated that such unattainable goals have been set without their agreement or participation. They will begin to stop trying, since they believe they will never reach their goals.
This is a dangerous mindset to instill in an athlete, because it often spills into other areas of life and can cause some negative behaviors outside of sports.
Realistic – Just because a goal is achievable at some point does not mean that it is realistic in the timeframe of the goal. Let’s use the goal of “Improve sprint times by 10 seconds” as an example.
Yes, it is probably possible to improve sprint times as stated. If the timeframe of the goal is one week, however, it’s not realistic to think that such improvement can be achieved in so short a time.
Just as the ability to achieve a goal is important, so is the ability to complete it in the time stated. For goals to be useful, they have to be realistic, or athletes won’t even try to achieve them. Parents setting goals for their children should be especially careful to be realistic, because athletes will use this skill throughout life.
So how do you set realistic goals? Goals should be attainable, but only through work. If a goal is too easy, an athlete won’t strive to reach it because they know it’s possible. If it’s just out of reach, but probably attainable, they will work their hardest. If a goal is way too ambitious, they won’t even try.
Parents looking to set goals for their children should evaluate their current skill, think about where they want to be, and be realistic about how quickly they can get there.
Timely – Timely goals are ones that have a deadline. If a parent’s goal is for an athlete to improve sprint times by 10 seconds, but there is no end date, then the athlete never has anything to work for. If they are to improve those sprint times in the next 7 weeks, however, that makes things more manageable.
Deadlines encourage athletes to keep working, and it gives them the ability to measure their progress. Assuming that an athlete has 7 weeks to improve 10 seconds, by week 3 they should have improved 5 seconds. This is a quick and easy way for an athlete to see if they are on track to meet their goal and make adjustments as needed.
Who Owns the Goal
No matter who sets the goal, the person the goal is about is the true owner of the goal. Or, better stated, the person in control of actually achieving the goal owns it. This can be a tricky situation, especially in the case of parents and children.
If a parent sets a goal that a child or teen does not agree to, the goal will not be achieved. For this reason, parents must set goals in coordination with their athlete.
A good way to impart this message to parents is for a coach to draw a real-life scenario. A coach can talk to a parent about a boss who sets goals for his department that the parent is expected to achieve. If the parent wasn’t involved in the goal setting, or doesn’t agree with the direction the boss wants to take things, they won’t be very motivated to achieve those goals. As this is a situation that has faced most people at some point, it will probably hit home.
By sharing such a situation, coaches can help parents realize that the involvement and empowerment of the athlete are essential components to achieving a goal. Just as in anything else, if the athlete doesn’t want the goal for themselves, they won’t make the necessary changes to achieve it.
Building Empowerment
An athlete's empowerment is important to the success of any goal, but especially a goal that a parent sets. There’s a fine line between a parent pushing a goal on a child or teen and the child mutually agreeing to that goal. We want to focus on the second scenario, when the parent and child come to a mutual agreement on a goal and how to reach it.
Parents who set goals for their children are involved, loving parents. Such parents usually understand their children pretty well and know their strengths and weaknesses. As such, most goals that parents set are goals that the athlete would set for himself, if given enough time.
If we assume that kids and parents would set similar, if not identical goals, then all we need to focus on is how to lead athletes to their parents’ way of thinking.
What is a better way to interact with a young athlete? To tell them what they need to work on, or to ask them what they need to work on? Asking questions is a simple, powerful way to build empowerment and agreement on an issue. Here’s how it works:
1. Ask the athlete what their current goals are
1. If they already have goals, work with them to refine them into SMART goals and document them. Don’t try to change their current goals. Wait until they have achieved the goals before suggesting your own.
2. If they don’t have goals, ask what they think they need to work on
2. Work with the athlete to identify some weaknesses; this is a good time to plant the seed of the goal you’d like them to have
3. Prioritize the weaknesses. While you can suggest an order, the final decision must be the athlete’s
4. Develop SMART goals for the top one or two weaknesses. The athlete should define the specific outcome desired, as well as how long they will give themselves to achieve it
With this method, you have a positive conversation going between parent and athlete, and the athlete comes out feeling like they own and relate to the goals they defined.