Setting Yourself Some Goals For 2012
We hope you had a peaceful and rewarding Christmas with your family and friends! After a pleasant break and with the new year coming, now is the perfect time to reflect on 2011 and set yourself some goals for 2012. Here are our five tips on goal setting:
1) Make your goal something real and measurable, for instance successfully completing a certain event or swimming a certain distance or split. This helps highlight how far you have come and gives you an actual 'Yes I've done it!' moment. More vague goals such as 'I want to become a more efficient swimmer' never give you a finish line to celebrate on.
2) Make sure your goal is something important to you, something you would love to achieve and are excited about. This positive emotion will help you ride through the inevitable bad session along the way.
3) If your goal is too easy you won't be motivated to achieve it but if it is too hard it will feel completely out of reach. Set your goal right between these two points so it will be a real challenge but is still something you feel your can just achieve, this will keep you motivated and on your toes. (This is the "Sweet Uncertainty Principle" - more in a future post.)
4) Give yourself a target date long enough to make some good improvements but not so long that you become stale or risk burnout. A period of four to eight months ahead is about right. If you have an important target further away then set yourself one or two sub-goals along the way and get focused on those first.
5) Tell someone else your goal to help commit you to it. In fact, why not tell us yours in this post's comments here?
Happy New Year and Swim Smooth!
 Swim Smooth Waterproof Training Plans! Everything you need to achieve your goal in 2012 - 35 sessions with the perfect blend of training, technique work and optional open water skills sessions! find out more here |
2) Make sure your goal is something important to you, something you would love to achieve and are excited about. This positive emotion will help you ride through the inevitable bad session along the way.
3) If your goal is too easy you won't be motivated to achieve it but if it is too hard it will feel completely out of reach. Set your goal right between these two points so it will be a real challenge but is still something you feel your can just achieve, this will keep you motivated and on your toes. (This is the "Sweet Uncertainty Principle" - more in a future post.)
4) Give yourself a target date long enough to make some good improvements but not so long that you become stale or risk burnout. A period of four to eight months ahead is about right. If you have an important target further away then set yourself one or two sub-goals along the way and get focused on those first.
5) Tell someone else your goal to help commit you to it. In fact, why not tell us yours in this post's comments here?
Happy New Year and Swim Smooth!