Goal Setting For an Athlete Psychology

Psychology: Goal Setting For an Athlete

A long-term goal that I would like to achieve is: Take part in the next Olympics games coming in two years 

Three short-term goals with process goals:

1. Focus on fitness and physical exercise (The goal is to join a gym and exercise regularly, at least six days a week). The assessment measure would be daily punctuality for adhering to the fitness plan. 

2. Focus on a diet that would help give strength and vigor to the body for training (The goal is to follow a diet plan usually provided by the gym instructors in the beginning and then move on to the professional trainer’s one). The assessment measure would be the daily intake of each day’s specific food items with a combination of all nutrients, proteins, carbohydrates, good fat, calcium, etc. 

3. Please search for a trainer that would guide the games and the relevant training session required (Check the background of the trainer who should have knowledge or a little experience of the Olympics). Assessment measures would be conducting online research and asking friends and family who know anyone professional and ensuring about the trainer’s professional experience. 

· Specific: The desired result would be to become one of the candidates for swimming in the Olympics

· Measurable: Being able to beat my competing swimming fellows in the training center and be confident that I can secure first place in Olympics

· Achievable: The skills needed to become a strength, speed, aerobic endurance, dexterity to sustain resilience in water, and muscular as well as mental strength (Pyne and Sharp, 2014)

· Realistic: The goal does not violate any laws since it is achievable with training and consistency

· Time-bound: Two years

A long-term goal I would like to achieve is to become a public speaker, influencer, and mentor after participating in the Olympics. I would have experience with the games and the skillful knowledge that other learning athletes might need. 

Three short-term goals with process goals:

1. Ensuring I have a social media account, especially a running channel on YouTube (Process goal would include setting up an account if there is none). Assessment measures would be an official guarantee from the company that my channel is officially running. 

2. Ensuring that I have a suitable number of subscribers who would like to watch my videos for motivation and learning (Process goal would be to share and ask people to subscribe to your channel, especially athletes; finding them on social media groups would be an easy way to do so). The assessment measure would be an increasing number of subscribers each month. 

3. Ensuring that I upload at least one video each week (The process goal would be to make a video and edit it to make the educational content more engaging and useful (Traboco et al., 2022); infographics and images would be more captivating for the viewers to get more views and likes). The assessment measure would be to ensure that the video is uploaded on all platforms it should reach, either YouTube or social media platforms. 

· Specific: The desired result is to provide education and training tactics to those who want to become the next candidates for the Olympics games

· Measurable: Getting 1000 subscribers each month would indicate the success of the channel and that it is reaching the maximum number of people who want to learn 

· Achievable: Consistency, extensive knowledge of the Olympics, and relevance to swimming. Also, the educational content should not look obsolete with old training techniques and provide the latest information that might have changed over time to keep the viewers updated. 

· Realistic: The goal does not violate any laws since it is achievable with consistency.

· Time-bound: After having participated in the Olympics, soon after two years.

Factors Shaping Performance (Intrinsic)

  The summary of setting my long-term and short-term along with process goals, reflects the factors that would impact the entire development course. The “intrinsic” factors that would help me achieve the stated goals are choice and direction, as I know where I want to be in two years and even after that. For an athlete, keeping a close eye on the competitive environment (Ives et al., 2021), which would influence my entry into Olympics amidst several other stronger and more suitable candidates for swimming all over the world, would instill within me an intensity for achievement. Therefore, it would positively impact my commitment, effort, and passion for attaining my long-term and short-term goals. 

It might sound amusing, but research suggests numerous benefits of self-talk for athletes, especially regarding high performance (Bulbul & Akyol, 2020). It would give me a boost to myself and reinstate the fact that I can do it. I sometimes plan to practice mental detachment (Balk et al., 2019), like stopping thinking of becoming an Olympic swimmer all the time and becoming obsessed with it. It would be a type of medication technique I can practice while lying in bed at night. The ten minutes of relaxation would be more conducive to my physical and mental recovery with peace and calmness in my mind rather than thinking about sports-related issues that might cause extra stress or mental burden. I must realize that I must wake up fresh and fully prepared for the next day’s challenges. 

The significance of persistence and tenacity cannot be overstated, as these attributes help an athlete become resilient and gain endurance over time, which are major requirements (Diotaiuti et al., 2020). Outcome analysis would give me an overview and continuous appraisal of the decisions I would make each day, whether it is about eating fruits and vegetables in my diet or doing a specific strength-training exercise in the gym. It would weightage to my daily plan that would add up to attain short- and long-term goals and meet future expectations for entry into the Olympics. 

Factors Shaping Performance (Extrinsic)

  Certain extrinsic factors would affect my performance too. For example, leadership is the most highlighted one of my coach’s instructional methods; democratic traits would allow me to participate in the decision-making about my personal goals and depict concern for my well-being along with constructive feedback for my professional development (de Albuquerque et al., 2021). In this process, rewards and punishment might be helpful in the reinforcement of techniques that I would use for my Olympics entry and my further gaining of knowledge for becoming a mentor myself. However, I feel positive reinforcement with effective criticism would be more effective for encouragement. Incentives could be effective for other athletes, but for now, I feel I need more verbal praise and feedback rather than financial incentives. 

Comments from my coach, especially when he would facilitate it with examples of excellent swimmers in the past Olympics, might help as a reinforcer for my motivation and consistency. They appear as a role model for me to regain the strength at points I think I might be losing. 

I want to meet the expectations of my coach as I know it would help me reach my goal of the Olympics entry. Since he would be a professional and following his instructions would help me guide the way to the end of the tunnel, it would remain one of my top priorities. 

The complexity of instruction might prove to be a hurdle and could be time-taking, and I vow not to be afraid of the challenges and accept them as my learning milestone toward achieving goals. Overcoming complexity regarding skills training, learning strength and flexibility, and correct body proportions for swimming would positively affect my athletic performance. 

I believe in learning cues my coach would provide me, and I would use them further in my second long-term goal of becoming an Olympic coach. The learning strategies would remain an external motivator since I have to empower them with updated techniques and modern styles of body mechanisms for speed and efficiency in swimming. For this purpose, my gym and my coach’s training centers would provide an environment and ambiance for improving my skills- a perfect practice setting. I would closely keep an eye on my technique analysis from my coach in his comments and my analysis of how I did today. 

Difficult to Change

Some factors might be challenging for me that I would find difficult to change, such as the primary ones being information processing and attentional. It could be applied in two ways: first, my trainer, who would help with Olympics entry, would give verbal instructions that would teach internal and external instruction. Internal instructions would be for my body joints’ movements, angles, and actions to do exercises, while external instruction would be to achieve the intended outcomes or goal (Kershner, Fry & Cabarkapa, 2019). My information processing would depend on how clear his verbal instructions are and the strategies dissemination for my faster working memory. Secondly, the same I would have to apply for my won second long-term goal to coach and mentor through my videos. I would have to gain my viewers’ attentional focus by being clearer in my instructions and being more assertive. 

Challenges do not cease to occur, and stress is one of the concerns I would naturally face when practicing for the Olympics or standing in a queue for a swimming competition. I can combat that stress arousal with deep breathing exercises and other relevant muscle-relaxing techniques that my trainer would teach me.