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How to Create Youth Sports Goals That Get Results

CoachesEducatorsParents

Sports scoreboard.We live in a goal-obsessed society.

From school curriculums to corporate mission statements to the latest gaming apps, goals are so ubiquitous they can give people ‘achievement anxiety’ when they struggle to reach them. This anxiety is only amplified when we abandon our goals, such as the nearly 90% of people who fail to follow through on our New Year’s resolutions.

Setting goals can set a good example for our kids, but many parents don’t feel qualified to help youth athletes establish goals when they have trouble fulfilling their own. It’s not that we don’t have it in us to create real change (or to inspire our athletes to the same). Instead, the problem often lies in the goals themselves.

Taking the time to rethink and reframe common sports goals (like those below) to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) can help set sensible benchmarks for youth athletes and teams that get real results without anxiety or disappointment.

 

Setting a Specific Goal

Either a coach or a player could set the goal of: “Improve free-throw shooting this season.” While this is a good start, the goal lacks specificity. To make it more specific, we can add a parameter to define improvement. For instance: “Improve free-throw shooting percentage by 15% this season.” Setting a specific goal helps define what will be necessary to achieve it, and then a coach or player can create a plan for getting there, like adding 15 minutes of free-throw shooting to the end of every practice.

 

Setting a Measurable Goal

Parents, coaches, and athletes tend to set nebulous goals out of a fear of failure or an unwillingness to commit to change. If you can’t measure success or failure, you can’t really fail. If you don’t really want to do the work to achieve a goal, setting a nebulous goal gives you an easy out. “I want to be better at…” or “I want to be more…” is typically the start of an unmeasurable goal. How are you going to measure “better” or “more”? If you’re going to be “a more supportive teammate”, what does that mean? Being a more supportive teammate can be a perfectly good goal for a youth athlete; it just needs a measurable component. For instance: “I will be a more supportive teammate by saying something positive to at least five teammates during each game.”

 

Setting an Achievable/Attainable Goal

To be an effective, a goal needs to be something an athlete has control over. When you don’t have control over the factors that determine success or failure, the means to achieve your goal are out of your control. For instance, a youth athlete playing a team sport might want to set the goal of: “Win every game this season.” The trouble with this goal is that a single player cannot control the outcome of all the games this season. Similarly, a goal of “I want to play at least 40 minutes every game” is troublesome because a player doesn’t control his or her playing time. A basketball player, however, could set a goal around making at least 75% of his or her free throws in a game.

 

Setting a Realistic Goal

Effective goals need to be challenging, but they also need to be realistic. It is one thing for a teen athlete to increase the weight he or she can squat by 15% during summer break. In contrast, doubling the weight he or she can squat may be an unrealistic goal for that same timeframe. Many times, it is important for parents and coaches to provide guidance on how realistic a youth athlete’s goals are. While we all want to encourage kids to dream big and pursue ambitious goals. If your child has goals that are way too ambitious for the timeframe available (like going from a novice gymnast to the Olympic team in one year), encourage them to keep pursuing the larger goal, but set more realistic goals for right now that help them move toward that ultimate goal.

 

Setting a Timely Goal

Effective goals have appropriate deadlines. The timeline for a goal needs to be short enough to provide a sense of focus or urgency, but long enough for the athlete to gain the skill, strength, or speed to accomplish it. A goal with an open-ended timeline is not as effective because athletes can just keep putting it off, and they eventually lose interest or focus.

A timely goal for a youth athlete might be: “Run a sub-6 minute mile by the end of the season.” This would be an improvement over setting a less-timely goal of: “Run a sub-6 minute mile.”

 

Avoiding Over-Setting

With goal-setting, the dose truly makes the poison.

Especially when it comes to helping youth athletes set goals, avoid the temptation to become too goal-oriented. An over focus on goal achievement can come with many negative side effects, including creating a ‘win at all costs’ mentality, the inability to be flexible as circumstances change, and hindered teamwork as a result of focusing too much on individual goals.

According to Max Bazerman, author of Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Overprescribing Goal Setting, goal-setting can create greater extrinsic motivation to do something (such as keep a daily progress calendar or notebook up-to-date or seeing one’s’ name rise on a stats chart), that can in turn hurt an athlete’s intrinsic motivation. In other words, they’ll no longer want to do something for the sake of doing it.

What Bazerman recommends is to carefully examine whether proposed goals will inadvertently create any pitfalls such as unhealthy competition, decreased cooperation, or higher risk taking amongst members of the team.

Youth sports are an invaluable teaching tool for most of life’s lessons, one of them being the power of setting good goals. While encouraging your athletes to set goals and showing them how to make good ones, always keep in mind that goals are there to direct and empower us, not to make us feel bad for abandoning or altering them.

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Goal-Setting Lesson Video Transcript

Hi. I’m Trevon, Trey, Jennifer. Team USA wheelchair basketball player, paralympian, and true sport athlete. Today, I want to talk to you about goal setting. And there are three things that I would like you to know. First, successful athletes set goals and a planned roadmap. Second, goals should be written down, assessed over time, and changed if necessary. And third, goals need to be challenging in order to be worthwhile. As a freshmen at Edinboro University, I was a part of a team that made the national championship game. And at that time I recognized I was the low man on the totem pole, but I felt in my heart that I knew my dreams were so much bigger than winning a national title. I wanted to make Team USA. I knew what achieving my lofty goal was not going to be easy and that I would need to work hard every day.

So, as a reminder, I created a pyramid of goals that I kept right above my bed. This pyramid reminded me of the accomplishments that I was working towards and visually represented my need to create a solid foundation underneath me before reaching the top. In the bottom roll of my pyramid of goals I listed goals such as obtaining my bachelor’s degree, becoming a scholar athlete award recipient, and becoming an All-American. The middle row listed winning a national title and playing for a professional team. And at the top row, the most challenging of them all, I listed becoming a gold medalist for Team USA.

By understanding that there are smaller stepping stones to achieving my ultimate goal of being on Team USA, I was able to stay motivated and to stay focused on completing the smaller stepping stones fully before moving onto the next one. Now I’ll be the first to admit that not every goal that I listed on my pyramid was accomplished, but seeing my goals every day when I went to bed, I was able to push through the days that I felt like doing nothing in hopes of achieving the bigger picture. Remember, create a clear goal roadmap, assess your goals often, and continue to challenge yourself. I hope that you never stopped dreaming big or reaching for the stars. And I look forward to seeing where your roadmap takes you.

Body Image Lesson Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Kara Winger, Olympic javelin thrower, and true sport athlete. Today I want to talk to you about body image and I have three things I’d like you to know. First, healthy thoughts often lead to healthier bodies. Second, there are varying body types and no one’s body is exactly like another. And third, true beauty goes deeper than the skin. As a multi-time Olympian, I’ve experienced a lot of variation and progression in my training. My coaches and I adapt to my training frequently, all with the goal of supporting my long-term success and health in the sport of javelin. I’m talking to you about body image today because sometimes even with the best of intentions and a common goal in mind, the changes you make to your training habits can prove to be detrimental if made for the wrong reasons. In the lead up to the 2012 Olympic trials, I was told in order to improve my performance on the field, I should try to become a leaner, skinnier version of myself.

So I changed my diet. I went along with what I was being told to do, even though I’d had great success at a slightly heavier weight and higher body fat percentage, and became much leaner than ever before. It seemed like a successful change at first, but I didn’t have nearly the results I’d had before. And I believe becoming leaner than my body naturally wanted to be was what caused my ACL to tear. In the end, it cost me heavily going into the 2012 London games. The takeaway for me, and hopefully for you, is that it’s important to know what works for you and your body and to not compare yourself to others. You should do your research and experiment with your diet to find what makes you feel the best, rather than focusing on what you look like. Today, if I feel like having a chocolate chip cookie, I have one, just not every day.

I’ve learned what a properly balanced meal for my body looks like and I recognize food as the fuel that keeps me throwing. I hydrate and allow myself time to recover. And I listen to and communicate with my body so that I can be the best version of myself. In the end, you are in control of how you see, treat, and respond to your body. We only get one and it’s amazing to discover how many things our bodies can do. Be a true sport athlete. Love who you are in this moment and get excited for all the places your body will take you.

A Good Sport Lesson Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Izy Isaksen, Team USA, Modern Pentathlon, Olympian, US Army Sergeant, and True Sport Ambassador. Today, I want to talk to you about being a good sport. There are three things I’d like you to know. First, real winners act the same toward their opponent, whether they win or lose. Second, follow the rules and be a gracious winner and respectful loser. And third, sportsmanship reveals your true character.

I started competing in Modern Pentathlon eight years after my older sister and three-time Olympian, Margaux Isaksen, began competing. I soon realized that people often compared the two of us. I would overhear spectators and teammates asking, “Who’s the better athlete,” and “Who’s going to beat the other.” Instead of letting outside pressures create a negative experience for us, I chose to practice winning and losing with grace and respect. I know that it would have been easy to let our hyper competitive mindset affect our relationship, but instead we decided to support and cheer for each other, regardless of our own performance. My experience of competing against and being compared to my older sister, taught me to focus on how to perform at my best, rather than putting wasted energy into wishing for others to fail.

I believe that sportsmanship reveals true character. So, no matter what situation I encounter during competition, I know it’s important to always treat people with respect and be a good sport. Remember, be a fierce competitor, find grace in all your victories and losses. And I hope to see you out there.

What Kind of Coach Do You Want to Be? Video Transcript

Edwin Moses: You’re a coach. Maybe what you want is very simple, for everyone to just run in the right direction, score for their own team, to try and try again and again. Maybe you want your athletes to become all stars. You want them to earn trophies, medals, win titles. You want them to reach the highest height their sport allows. And wanting all of that, of course, that’s good. But as every great coach discovers, developing a great athlete means nurturing, nurturing the even greater person within. Truth is, you have even more influence than you know.

You have the ability to affect even deeper change, to take what’s in your hands and do something even more extraordinary. You can be both the coach who provides the skills needed to win the game and the coach who helps them learn and succeed beyond the sport, to become all stars wherever they land in the future, and to enjoy their lives more now, because the confidence and courage they find working with you will stay with them when they need it the most. There are games to be won, lives to change. Coaches have the power to do both.

I’m Edwin Moses, and the lessons I’ve learned through sport have challenged me, guided me, and shaped my life forever. What kind of coach do you want to be?

THE SIMPLE TRUTH: DECODING THE SUPPLEMENT INDUSTRY VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

At first glance, dietary supplements look the same. They seem safe and healthy, but just because the label says a product is a dietary supplement, that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Unfortunately, you can’t tell whether a product is safe or not just by looking at the label. Most vitamins, minerals, fish oil, and other supplements containing nutrients are probably just fine, but supplements are not evaluated or approved by FDA before they are sold. Although it is rare for vitamins or minerals to be contaminated with drugs, there has been at least one case of a vitamin containing an anabolic steroid.

At the other extreme are products that contain drugs, stimulants, anabolic steroids, or other hormones. Even though these are not technically dietary supplements, many of them are labeled as supplements. For example, body-building products sometimes contain anabolic steroids or Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators, known as SARMs, or other hormones. Some pre-workout or energy products contain illegal stimulants like DMAA, ephedra, or other amphetamine-like stimulants. Weight loss products might contain prescription drugs like sibutramine, or hormones, like human chorionic gonadotropin, also known as hCG. All natural or herbal sexual enhancement products might contain hormones or Viagra-like drugs. Products like these can harm your health and career, but they’re for sale online, in some nutrition stores, and they’re labeled as dietary supplements.

When you pick up a supplement, especially one that promises performance enhancement, you don’t know if it belongs in the “Mostly O.K.” pile or in the “Dangerous” pile. After all, two products might look the same, but one might contain just amino acids and other legitimate ingredients, while the other also contains anabolic steroids. Because of this, FDA has issued a warning about certain categories of supplements: body building products, weight loss products, and sexual enhancement products. Be extremely careful when considering a supplement in one of these categories. We strongly recommend that you avoid products in these categories.

Even when FDA tests supplements and finds dangerous ingredients, companies sometimes refuse to recall them. Sometimes, they simply repackage their product and continue selling it under a new name. Just because a product is on a store shelf doesn’t mean it is safe. You need to do your research and be an informed consumer. The dietary supplement industry is enormous. Supplements that appear to be safe could actually be dangerous products in disguise. If you use dietary supplements without doing your research, you may be taking serious risks with your health and your career. Please visit USADA’s Supplement 411 for more information about dietary supplements.