Setting Achievable Goals

Benchmarks should stretch, but not break, your team

By Ed Kingston

If done the right way, goal-setting can often give a season a purpose and define a team's legacy. Common goals can bring a team together; realistic goals can increase individual and team effort; and specific, measurable goals can provide that spark that drives a team to reach its potential (Gould, 2006). Investing the time and effort to set goals the right way can provide a team a clear road map from where it is at the beginning of a season to where it wants to be at the end of a season (Cook, 1996).

None of this should be ground-breaking news for many coaches. In fact, most teams set goals at the start of their seasons. Unfortunately, many teams will fail to reach their goals during their season, not from a lack of talent or quality coaching, but from setting goals the wrong way. Too often, teams seem to follow the "set-it-and-forget-it" principle of goal-setting - players set goals at the beginning of the season only to forget them by the middle of the season. Don't let your team's goals hanging in the locker room become monuments to your team's good intentions. The key to setting goals the right way is keeping your team's goals connected with your team's performance on the field.

Setting Team Goals the Wrong Way

Here are a few common mistakes coaches and players make when they set team goals for the season:

Goals are unrealistically high or too easy to reach. Effective goal-setting is always a delicate balance between your team's ambitions, its talent and its potential. Unreachable goals can sap a team's motivation and energy throughout the season. Likewise, easily-reached goals will do little to motivate players to work hard. Effective, realistic goals should stretch your team without breaking it. (Ravizza & Hanson, 1995).

Goals are too general. Teams and athletes often set goals without thinking about how they would measure their progress towards these goals (Ravizza & Hanson, 1995). Players might want "to get better throughout the season" or "play together as a team." These are good goals to work towards, but teams and players often stop there. Consequently, they have a tough time later in the season recognizing if they met their goal or not. For every goal your players set this season, they have to ask themselves, "How will we know if we met this goal?" Straightforward and specific goals will help your players answer this question.

No ownership by the players in the goal-setting process. Many well-meaning coaches often devise team goals and dominate the goal-setting process at the start of the season. Consequently, players won't feel like their goals belong to them. In effect, players would be renting their goals from their coaches. Players want to own their goals. You take care of something you own. You attend to it because you recognize its value. It's no different with goalsetting. Players are more likely to attend to and work hard towards reaching their goals if they believe those goals belong to them.

Focus is on the outcome and not the performance. Outcome goals give us a sense of direction, but they don't help us focus on the present or the task at hand (Vernacchia, 2003). When setting team goals, teams ask themselves, "Where are we going?" Unfortunately, most teams never ask themselves the next, more important question, "How do we get there?" Answering the latter will enable a team to identify the steps needed to take to reach specific goals for the season.

Setting Team Goals the Right Way

Setting goals the right way is an investment of time and energy that can reap rewards in the form team accountability, respect, and trust (Janssen, 1999). At the start of any season, time always seems to be in short supply. Coaches can be tempted to short-change the goal-setting process. Resist this temptation. To be effective, a team may need more than one quick goal-setting meeting to hammer out where they are going as a team and the best way for them to get there. Once player selections are finalized, coaches should set aside time for the team to meet to discuss their goals for the season. The coach can determine how to structure goal-setting meetings and provide basic goal-setting information, but it's important that captains and players have ownership (Gould, 2006). Once your team is assembled it's time map out a goal strategy.

Start with a realistic dream. Your players' motivation to work towards a goal will depend on a combination of their ability, skill and desire to put the work in to reach that goal (Janssen, 1999). Your players should ask themselves what they could achieve if everything came together during the season, but more importantly, what would they want to achieve. In Championship Team Building (1999), Jeff Janssen recommended that teams balance the "could achieve" and the "want to achieve" in order to increase motivation and minimize frustration over the course of the season. Your team's dream goal has to be set high enough so that your team will want to stretch to reach it, but realistic enough so that your team stays focused on the goals without giving up. Above all, your players have to believe they are capable of reaching their goals for the season.

Create a game plan for your team goals. Reaching one's goals requires more than just desire and belief. It also requires a plan - a set of steps to get a team from where they are to where they want to go. Can you imagine walking up to Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho after winning his second straight Premiership title and asking, "How did you get here?" And he would say, "I don't know We just showed up every game and started kicking a ball around and now we've won it twice." Chances are Mourinho and his players had developed and practiced a well-thought-out game plan before they ever stepped on a pitch. Your players need a game plan if they want to reach their goal for the season. This requires that your team break down your long-term goal, that realistic dream goal discussed above, into smaller outcome goals for the season. Short-term goals identify the specific steps your team needs to take to reach its long-term goals. Each outcome moves you closer to your final destination. Like a road map, it keeps your team moving in the right direction (Cook, 1996). Let's break down a conference championship in college soccer:

Outcome Goals for the Season

• Dream Goal: Win conference championship
• Qualify for conference tournament
• Undefeated at French (home) field
• Win 7 of 9 conference games
• Have at least +10 goal differential by season's end
• Take advantage of set piece opportunities
• Limit soft goal opportunities by opponents

Focus on the W.I.N. (What's Important Now) Once your team has a set of outcome goals for the season, the focus needs to shift from "where are we going?" to "how do we get there?" This requires breaking each outcome goal into smaller, more manageable performance goals. Performance goals focus on how the team can be successful each game. Players have more opportunities to meet success when their coaches emphasize the "how" instead of the "what" of competitive performance (Could, 2006). Now let's identify the performance goals for some of the outcome goals we listed earlier:

• Win Conference Championship
• Qualify for conference tournament
• Undefeated at French (home) field
• Win 7 of 9 conference games
• Outcome Goal: Have at least +10 CD by season's end
  • Performance Goals: Put 70 percent of shots on frame. Final pass success - 50 percent good service to beat back line or keeper. Limit opponents to three shots or fewer
• Outcome Goal: Take advantage of set piece opportunities
  • Performance Goals: Accuracy - 70 percent dead ball service within shooting range. Earn a shot on goal, corner kick or goal 40 percent of time.
• Outcome Goal: Limit soft goal opportunities for opponents
  • Performance Goals: Limit balls played behind our back line to one per game. Win 60 percent more loose and air balls than opponent.

These performance goals should be written out and placed in an area where players can be reminded of them every day. As sport psychologist Ralph Vernacchia reminds athletes to do with their goals, "Think `em and ink `em, view `em and do `em, believe `em and achieve `em."

Coaches and players can work together to further break down each performance goal into specific techniques and skills necessary to put 70 percent of shots on frame or limit the number of balls played behind the back line, etc. These smaller goals are called process goals. Process goals, specific techniques and skills keep your team's focus in the present moment and give your team a chance to reach its performance goals for each game (Vernacchia, 2003). Process goals allow players to focus on the very things they need to do at the very moment they need to do them.

From charting their success at meeting each outcome goal and its corresponding performance goals, a coaching staff can outline specific process goals to focus on in training throughout the year. Simultaneously, individual players can look at the team's goal chart hanging in the locker room and create daily goals for themselves to focus on in training throughout the week (see Table 1). Most importantly, a wall chart gives up-to-date evaluation and feedback on how close the team is to achieving its goals (Could, 2006).

		OPPONETS
OUTCOME GOAL	PROCESS GOAL	SFU	UM	UMBC	BU	UNH	SBU	UV
Have at least +10 goal differentials	Put 70% of shots on frame	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
	Final pass success 50% or better	X		X	X	X	X	X
	Three shots or fewer by opponent			X	X		X	X
Take advantage of set piece opportunities	70% or better service within	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
	Earn shot, corner or goal 40% of time	X		X	X		X	X
Limit soft goal opportunities by opponent	Limit balls played behind back to one per game			X			X	X
	Win 60% or more of loose and air balls	X		X	X		X	X
WIN!!		W	L	W	W	T	T	W

Table 1 - Example of Team Goal Chart

Of course, we don't know what the season will bring and there are a lot of variables we don't control (injuries, quality of opposition, etc). Be sure to revisit your goals throughout the season and adjust your outcome and performance goals to keep them realistic and achievable (Could, 2006). With a little effort, your team's goals can stop being a forgotten "wish list" and start being a valuable part of your team's success throughout the season.

Editor's note: Ed Kingston holds a master's degree in sport psychology from Western Washington University and is currently a doctoral student in sport psychology at Boston University. He has consulted with club, high school, and college soccer teams. He is currently a sport psychology consultant with Boston University men's soccer.

References

• Cook, D. L. (1996). The composition of confidence. In R. A. Vernacchia, R. T. McGuire, & D. L. Cook, Coaching mental excellence: "It does matter whether you win or lose... ", (pp. 81-89). Portola Valley, CA: Warde Publishers.
• Could, D. (2006). Goal setting for peak performance. In J. M. Williams (Ed.) Applied Sport Psychology: Personal growth to peak performance, (5th ed., pp. 240-259). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co.
• Janssen, J. (1999). Championship team building: what every coach needs to know to build a motivated, committed, and cohesive team. Tucson, AZ: Winning the Mental Game
• Ravizza, K., & Hanson, T. (1995). Heads-up baseball. Chicago, IL: Masters Press.
• Vernacchia, R. A. (2003). Inner strength: the mental dynamics of athletic performance. Palo Alto, CA: Warde Publishers.

 ______________________________________________________________________________

 

 

This material has been copied under license from the Publisher. Any resale for profit or further copying is strictly prohibited.

Contact us | Read our Policies | Terms and Conditions | Copyright © SIRC