Effectively Setting Goals for a Sports Team
Sports is a stringent discipline in itself. The athlete, or members of a team should exude not only physical discipline, but also a combination of mental and emotional stability.
The coach or team leader is tasked with the most ardent role of providing motivation and mental and physical conditioning to the members of the team.
Be it a basketball, hockey, baseball or whatever type of sports it may be, the team members should be really given the proper and appropriate mental, emotional and physical conditioning and support they so dearly need.
To effectively set goals for a sports team, it is imperative that the team coach assist the members and make sure they come up with a collective goal or target, that is, for the advancement and victory of the team.
Any sports would require competitiveness and extreme discipline, that is why it is natural that every sports team aim for the top spot. Victory would come with fame and a sense of individual self actualization. That could provide a great motivation for each team member.
Some useful tips in setting sports goals:
Thus, the coach or team handler can make use of the following simple and
practical tips or guidelines that would surely help effectively set out goals for sports teams and each of the members.
• At the start of the training period or sessions, allot time for an initial meeting where each of the members and the coach could air their expectations, individual goals and other concerns.
Knowing each other too well could sometimes set a difference in making the relationship, and in general, the team, work. The discussion could facilitate a venue where each members can meet half way and reach a consensus about how they could effectively meet targets and goals.
• Set the goals for the team. Make sure the goals are clear and acceptable to each of the sports team member. Remember, victory and success of the team would certainly be a collective effort, that is why no one should be ever left out when it comes to the important task of goal setting.
• Set out an group or individual appointment to know each member’s situation and personal condition. Doing so would enable the coach to help increase the members’ self confidence that would eventually translate to greater and more effective focus, and ultimately, to better performance.
• Know the strengths and weaknesses of each of the team members. The team should complement each other because it is a given fact that no person would exhibit all the necessary traits, skills and talents needed in the game.
Let a person’s strength complement others’ weaknesses and vice versa. The team should collectively stand as a perfect sports entity with unified goals, though divided in weaknesses and strengths; and that would surely be the sports team’s strength.
• Set measurable, realistic, specific, achievable, timely and practical goals for the sports team. Make sure these goals are put up in a simplified and easily comprehensible manner that the team as w hole would not ever forget especially during the ardent, tedious and hard practice sessions, when patience is utmost needed and required from each team member.
Overall, when setting sports goals for the team, make sure to inspire each members to have sheer and firm determination. As a leader, motivate the team collectively so they would achieve the goals they ought to achieve.
