Goal Setting

Last night we had our first team meeting where we laid out our goals for the season. I find this to be extremely crucial for every team to do but I found myself asking why? I've done this every year I've been on the team and people tell me its something good to do - but really why is that? I ventured into the inner depths of my mind to come up with some answers to that question.

Without realizing it sometimes, setting goals allows you to assess the personnel you have on your team. Your goal cannot be to win Nationals realistically if you have an extremely inexperienced team with not the largest skill set. While you should always try to reach for the highest possible outcome, there is something to be said about being realistic while doing so. Flycc (our coaches and captains) came up with the goal to make it at least to semis of Nationals. We were able to even come up with this goal because we realized who we have on our team and potential we possess. Last year, in contrast, our goal was to just MAKE it to Nationals. We had only 6 returners on our team (and as much as I loved everyone on the team, none of them were self-proclaimed stars) and only 7 rookies by the beginning of April to round out our roster to 13. Unfortunately during sectionals, Tots tore her ACL dropping our roster to 12. When discussing our team goals we realized we were full of potential but realistically could not make it extremely far at Nationals because of the team strength/size. While I was definitely hoping to prove that wrong, we did have to be honest with ourselves. We ended up tying for 11th place and boy, that was an accomplishment! So long story short - creating a final team goal helps you analyze the players you have while allowing you to create a plan in order to achieve that goal. Also, make sure your goal is measurable. "My goal is to have our team do well". While yes, I would like that, it is not an effective goal at all. Instead change it to something like, "My goal is to have our team place first at Regionals so we get a bid to Nationals". Make sure its measurable

At the end of the day, you are either going to achieve your goal or not achieve it - in layman's terms: Fail or Win. I always get nervous when setting goals, especially team goals, because what would happen if we fail? If we don't make it to semis at Nationals, does that mean our season was a fail? Obviously the answer is no, but that is a common thought that goes through most people's mind (Well, I'm assuming here that people think a certain way. Of course, I could be extremely wrong and instead of making an ASS out of U and ME, I would only be making an ASS out of myself). But would does happen if you don't reach the goal? Throughout the whole season your team is working towards a certain level. Even if you never reach that, at least you tried - and got better on the way there.

Goals hold you and your teammates accountable for something. You can have many many goals throughout the season such as: Our goal is to make sure the girls understand ho stack at the end of this practice, OR Our goal is to kick everyone's butts showing them how out of shape they are, etc etc. It is important to have a lot of goals to keep everyone (especially the team leadership) on the same page and focused on a specific outcome.

At the end of the meeting, I asked all of the girls to write down four goals - two for offense and two for defense, one tangible and one intangible thing. These are not necessarily meant to be shared with everyone but I extremely like it. For one, like I said previously, it holds me accountable. If I am not working hard at achieving my goals, I am letting down my teammates. Additionally it allows me to track my progress throughout the season. If my tangible goal were to get better at low release I/O flicks and I saw myself throwing them in games (and completing them!!) then I would know I have been doing a good job at it. And then obviously if I'm not throwing them in games then I know I still have to work at that, etc.

So moral of the post is to create goals with your team and by yourself. They are good. They will bring good things. Your team, as a result, will do good things. You will feel good.

Good. Good.