Week 2: Training Programme - Goal Setting

Post title: Training Programme: Goal Setting
Week no. 2
Date: 28/03/14

Aim of week: to develop your goal setting skills in order to improve motivation, to increase confidence, reduce anxiety and your levels of stress.

Why I’ve chosen goal setting for you.

Hi performer X, this week we are going to be working on goal setting, this is because in the questionnaires that you filled out, you scored 0 out of 12 on the ACSI meaning that you aren’t setting goals for yourself therefore your confidence and motivation aren’t increasing and you are less likely to improve in dance. Goal setting is where you set yourself a specific goal, something that you want to achieve and try to give yourself a specific time you want to achieve your goal by, by setting a specific time this will motivate you more to try and achieve it. By setting yourself goals, this will increase your confidence which is something we said we had to address, as in the CSAI-2 questionnaire and the performance profile your self-confidence score was very low and by setting yourself goals it will increase your self-confidence because when you achieve them you will feel good about yourself and how you have achieved it therefore resulting in an increase in self-confidence.

What goal setting involves:

Goal setting is: setting targets for yourself to achieve and within a specific duration of time which will help you with your performance now and in the future.  

When setting goals, there are three different time phrases you can set them for, short term, medium term and long term.

Short term goal setting: a short term goal is set to for a short period of time, from one day to one month. This short term goal is what you want to achieve quickly within a few training sessions. For example, perfecting a certain jump or leap.

Medium term goal setting: this is between short term and long term goal setting. For medium goal setting duration of one to three months is around how long it would take to achieve your medium term goal.

Long term goal setting: a long term goal is something can affect your performance from three months for up to several years or if you set want until you retire from your sport. E.g. shouldering your leg, if a dancer can shoulder their leg then it means that they have a good range of flexibility within their hips therefore being able to do more advanced moves/tricks when performing.

A lot of short term goals that you set normally result into long term goals because once you have achieve this short term goal then you want to continue it and not lose it, i.e. a leap therefore you keep practicing this resulting it in being a long term goal.

There are three types of goals that you can use to help with the goal setting process and staying motivated to keep practicing them. The three types are: outcome, performance and process.

Outcome goal: an outcome goal focuses on the result of an event, e.g. beating a certain opponent in a competition that always seems to beat you. However, this isn’t always what happens because it just depends on what happens on the day as on the day of the competition the opponent that you want to be may be on top form whereas you may not be or vice versa and therefore this can reduce the advantages of goal setting I discussed earlier, they can be quite destructive/ negative.

Performance goal: this is a short term goal were you set yourself a goal e.g. improving your split leap and this will help you with your performance  and also achieve the outcome because it means you have a wider range of movement in the hip therefore you can do more leaps when choreographing for a performance. This type of goal setting is better than outcome goal setting because you can control this more than outcome and it is more individual to you.

Process goal: a process goal is the actions that an individual must make to perform well, e.g. go to training three to four times a week instead of one to two times a week to improve your general dancing technique and level or whether you are going to go for them extra two sessions a week to focus on something very specific, e.g. shouldering the leg.  

When setting goals, the best way to ensure that you set a good, specific and realistic goal is to use SMART or SMARTER targets.

Specific – set a specific / narrow target for yourself that you want to achieve e.g. I want to be able to shoulder my leg well and hold it for at least three seconds. This target is specific because it is saying what you want to achieve but it isn’t just saying that you want to perfect a leap it is saying what specific leap you want to achieve.

Measurable – this heading is how you are going to measure the specific target that you have set. So for shouldering the leg, we would measure how high the leg is/how far away from the shoulder the leg is in the first week then in week six we would measure it again to whether or not there has been any improvement.

Achievable – this heading is to ensure that the specific target you have set is achievable and it isn’t something that is impossible to achieve. If the target isn’t achievable then there is no point in continuing any further with it and this can increase anxiety and reduce confidence.

Realistic – this heading is to ensure that the target is realistic, (very similar to achievable), is the target that you have set for yourself realistic, can it be achieved.

Time – this heading is so that you can set yourself a time frame to achieve the specific target that you have set for yourself.

This is what you would use to help yourself write a SMART target, if you wanted to write a SMARTER target then you would use the same as above but just add the following headings:

Excitable – this heading is to ensure that the target you have set and the training that you are going to do is excitable and that the training isn’t going to be the same boring routine week in week out as this will result in you becoming demotivated and not completing the goal that you have set out to achieve.

Record – this heading is telling you to record down what you have done within each training session and whether or not you feel that you are closer to achieving your goal. It also prevents the athlete from back tracking on their goal.

Exercises for Athlete to Complete

Below, are two targets that I would like you to achieve, one is a long term target that is just getting you used to goal setting and how it works and the other is a short term one which I would like you to complete for next week.   

1. A Long Term Goal Setting Plan     

This is the long term goal that I would like to set for you and this is to improve flexibility by being able to achieve the splits on at least two sides.

You will do this by setting yourself a SMART or SMARTER target so that you can improve this and achieve the target.

To help yourself try using a diagram (to help follow the picture below).

 

Here is a running exmaple that will help you to understand a little more.

To do this you need to set yourself a goal that you want to be able to reach within the next month e.g. being a certain distance off the floor (10cm) on your left leg and a certain distance off the floor on your right leg. You then want to set yourself a goal for the end of a certain length of time, “be down in splits on both my right and left leg by …..” and set yourself a month/time you want to be down in splits by. You then need to set goal for in between the starting and finishing goal, so you need to set yourself another goal for the next month e.g. be closer into splits (you may want to give yourself a distance).    

2. A Short Term Goal Setting Plan

This is the short term goal that I would like you to achieve for next week and this is to have improved your leg height on shouldering your leg by a couple of inches. This target requires you to stretch every day and practice the skill so that it can improve.  
Again, set yourself SMART/SMARTER targets that will help you to achieve this, practice every day and if possible try to measure each day so that you can see improvements. You could also try and record your improvement each day by making yourself a diary, you could record what stretches you did, how long you did them for and whether or not there was any improvement in the actual skill itself and if improving this skill helps improving other skills.  


Good luck for this week and I hope you achieve this, feel free to comment about any progress that you have made.  

Psychology Sports Profile, Week 1

Assessment Summary Week 1

I have selected a performer to do a psychological profile on. This week I met up with this performer, performer X. We discussed psychological barriers that were affecting their performance and things we can do it reduce these barriers.

Performer X is 17 years of age, so not only do they have the pressures of training and performing but they also have the pressures of college and completing all their work. Performer X is a dancer, they do a whole range of dancing, these include; Ballet, Modern Jazz, Cheerleading, Street, Funky Jazz. The main styles that this performer competes for are Cheerleading and Street. On Sunday 23^rd March this performer has their next competition, this competition being at Blackpool Tower and this is the biggest competition of the year as schools for all over the UK come to compete in this one competition. This performer trains at least three times a week and when coming up to a competition, such as the one on Sunday, starting from a month being the competition this performer can train up to six times a week and times can vary between 1 and 5 hours each session.

This puts enormous pressure on this performer because it means that they are training near enough every day for long periods of time and the performer can suffer from mental and physical tiredness and on top of training they will have their college work to complete also. 

In the upcoming competition especially there are many pressures, these include; pressure to not get knocked out in the first round and to make it through to the final, the pressure to do this is very high because each category is very large therefore making it a lot harder to get into the next round. This competition is also very demanding because if you do something slightly wrong or your foot slips slightly then you are penalised and the penalty is not getting through to the next round as you haven’t met the standard that the judges are looking for. 

Questionnaires

Performer X completed the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory questionnaire on their experiences when performing. Their final result was under have stating that they don’t have greater strengths.

As you can see performer X has put their scores for each individual subscale, each subscale is out of 12. For Coping With Adversity performer X got 6 indicating greater strengths on this subscale this means that the athlete remains positivie and enthusiastic when things aren't going too well, Performer X is able to remain calm and controlled.
Coachability – 7, indicating greater strengths on this subscale, this means that Performer X is able to take constructive critism without becoming upset about it.

Concentration – 8, indicating greater strengths on this subscale, this means that Performer X is able to remain focused on tasks in both training and in competition even when unexpected situations occur.

Confidence and Achievement Motivation – 8, indicating greater strengths on this subscale, this means that Performer X is confident and constantly gives 100% during training and in a game situation.

Goal Setting and Mental Preparation – 0, indicating lower strengths on this subscale, this means that Performer X doesn't set herself any goals to work towards and doesn't give herslef and game plan for when she is competing.

Peaking Under Pressure – 4, indicating lower strengths on this subscale, this means that Performer X feels more threatened under pressure instead of challenged when under pressure and starts to under perform.

Freedom from Worry – 8, indicating greater strengths on this subscale, this means that Performer X worries about her performance and worries what others will think if she performs poorly.

 

This is showing that Coping with Adversity, Coachability, Concentration, Confidence and Achievement Motivation and Freedom of Worry are all strengths because they are above half way. Whereas, Goal Setting and Mental Preparation and Peaking under Pressure are both weaknesses of performer X and things that need to be developed so that performance can be developed.

 

Performer X also completed the motivation questionnaire. This questionnaire suggests that performer X is intrinsically motivated, performer X likes to know and accomplish.

 

 

 

This picture is showing performer X got the highest scores on intrinsic motivation making them intrinsically motivated. Each picture is marked out of 7. Performer X is intrinsically motivated because they scored 6 for they get “pleasure to know more about the sport that I practice”. Performer X scored 5 for “pleasure of discovering new training techniques”, scoring 5 for “the pleasure I feel while learning training techniques that I have never tried before” and 4 for “the pleasure of discovering new performance strategies. Adding all these together, it comes out at a final score of 20 out of 28, this is a high score and resulting in performer X an intrinsic motivator. This means that performer X participates in dance because she finds it fun and enjoyable, she participates because it comes from within and they don’t need a trophy or title to feel good about them.      

Performer X carried out a third questionnaire, the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT), this questionnaire measures anxiety.

As you can see, performer X got a score of 14 out of 30, this indicates that they have a low level of general competitive anxiety meaning that they can perform and feel relaxed and this will lead to an improved performance because they are feeling less tense.

 Performer X also filled out another questionnaire, the Competitive State of Anxiety Inventory – 2 (CSAI-2), this questionnaire, just like the SCAT is testing for anxiety levels.

 

This questionnaire shows that performer X has a relatively high level of cognitive anxiety compared to somatic anxiety. Whereas, their self-confidence is actually quite low, so when in the training programme this would need to be addressed.   

Performance Profile

A performance profile was also carried and this was completed by performer X on their own with no help, this is what they believe their performance profile is.

 

As you can see, there are a range of scores. Performer X doesn’t have much believe in her performance as they only scored this a 4 out of 10, this test also shows they lack in confidence and self-control, we know this because performer X only scored themselves 6 out of 10. This shows that during this programme it is my job to help performer X raise their confidence and belief and this will be done in a variety of ways which will be explained at a later date. However, this test shows me that performer X believes they have high levels of focus, mental toughness, concentration, awareness, motivation, self-belief and strength, we know this because performer X has scored this 7 or more out of 10. This shows that performer X is aware of the skills etc. that is required for their chosen sport but they don’t have much confidence in themselves and this may be due to many reasons, e.g. they never get praise for something they do well in and they are constantly receive negative feedback off people.   

SWOT

STRENGTHS ·         A low general competitive score ·         A good/moderate somatic anxiety level ·         Motivation – a higher intrinsic than extrinsic – her motivation comes from within ·         Good self: ·         Awareness ·         Motivation ·         Concentration ·         Strength ·         Focus	WEAKNESSES ·         Cognitive anxiety is very high when it should be relatively low ·         A low self-confidence level ·         Doesn’t set any goals ·         A high cognitive level of anxiety ·         Athletic coping skills – a low score signifying weaker strength
OPPORTUNITIES ·         Help from dance teachers ·         Parents willing to take you places for training/competitions	THREATS ·         College work – performer X may have a lot of course work to do ·         Money – may cost too much ·         Travel – may not be able to get to destinations ·         Lack of training – may not be able to get the correct training to improve technique

Following all this information, a training programme will be made for performer X so that they can improve all weaknesses and help her improve her performance.