The Importance of Goal Setting and Planning
Setting goals and planning for the season are critical parts of having a successful season as well as achieving longer-term goals such as fencing for a college team, making the international travel teams or making a national team.
For someone with competitive aspirations, a successful season starts with goal setting and “planning with the end in mind” and in this series of articles we will delve into an overview of the types of goals students can and should be setting at the start of the season and what types of planning should be happening based on those goals.
Setting Good Goals For Yourself is a Team Effort
Setting goals and planning are a team effort that starts with the student and what they want to achieve and involves coaches and parents for younger students.
There are Many Different Types of Goals You Can Set, depending on the aspirations, experience level and situation of each student there are different ways to approach goal setting. You don’t need to necessarily use or set every type of goal for yourself right now but having a good understanding about the different ways you can set goals is essential and below are a list of just some of the goals that are important to think about and set for yourself.
THE 13 TYPES OF GOALS YOU CAN SET FOR
YOURSELF THIS FENCING SEASON
Level: 1 The “Base Camp” Goals
Deep Joy and Passion Goals: If you love and have passion about what you are doing then you will always be a winner! Sounds hokey but enjoying what you are doing is critical and loving the sport and enjoying the process of working hard at it on a regular basis and all that comes with it including both winning and losing, success and frustration is a must have. Please note: this doesn’t mean that every day will be fun(!) necessarily. There are always ups and downs in a learning process and a student needs to have that deep passion for what they are doing to sustain them in the long term.
Learning Goals: These are small and often not necessarily tournament results oriented goals. These are the small victories of learning and gaining experience that are especially essential at the outset of a fencer's competitive career. Learning something, even through a difficult experience, is always a victory!
Hard Work Goals: How much you are training, that you are training consistently, how many practices you are attending etc. It is also important that your competitive and results goals align to your hard work goals.
Participation Goals: Being at tournaments is already a victory that requires bravery and putting yourself “out there” is necessary to get the experience you need to be successful.
Planning and Knowledge Goals: This looks different also depending on where you are in the process, but is critical for a successful season.
Some big “Planning and Knowledge' Goals for competitive fencers:
Knowing generally how things work and how the “The System” works in fencing
Making a plan at the start of the season for what tournaments to attend, what goals you want to achieve and what things you want to qualify for during that season. (Summer Nationals and Junior Olympics are the big qualifying goals for competitive students and which events to qualify for at the start of the season)
Based on a student’s goals: how much should they be training to achieve them?
What essential experiences such as camps, college visits, videos to watch etc. are essential for a student depending on their goals in both the short and long term?
Level 2: Essential Competition Success Goals
Commitment Goals: Committing yourself to compete in a certain number of tournaments, length of time and/or a regular competition rhythm such as 1 tournament per month and sticking to it! You never want to stop or give up midway a commitment and committing to a certain # of tournaments allows you to have different moments to assess and reflect progress.
One of the worst mistakes people make is stopping after a bad tournament or a few bad tournaments or experience. Everyone goes through a run of bad tournaments in the same way you can go through a run of good results. You want to give yourself enough of a data set to accurately evaluate. You probably aren’t as good as your best best day although this can show you your potential and you are definitely not or as bad as your worst day!As mentioned, you want enough tournaments to give yourself a good feel for where you are and it is a best practice to make bigger decisions about things with some space and time away from your tournament results so you can have some perspective. Involve others in your evaluation process.
Results Goals: Certain level of finishes at tournaments and different Levels. You want to finish in the top-8 of all tournaments in your age-category or finish in the top-32 in at least 3 North American Cups. You can also set these result goals with easily achievable, where I should be and reach goals in mind.
Measuring Progress Goals: Setting time to reflect on your progress and sitting down with your data and getting feedback from your coach and others about your progress at least 2x during the season is a goal that is easy to achieve and will have incredible benefits. BUT you can’t do this without first setting goals in the first place and ideally your goals should include measurable ones. If you have fenced multiple seasons, you can measure your progress against where you finished last year at similar tournaments. etc. Measure your progress in a similar age or level grouping over-time. Taking the time to reflect on progress and make adjustments when they are necessary is a winning move!
Qualification Goals: Qualifying for things such as the Summer Nationals, Junior Olympics, traveling to international tournaments or making a national or Olympic team.
Level 3: Pathway to Long-Term Success Goals
Ranking Goals: Wanting to be ranked at a certain level in various age/level categories.
Long Term Goals: Fencing For a college team, competing internationally, making a national team
Long-Term Progress Goals: Tracking progress over a longer range
“Extra Work” Goals: If the only time you are working to improve is during a lesson or class and you aren’t an active participant in your improvement then you won’t be able to achieve your best. These goals can include things like doing 20 minutes of footwork on your own 3-4x per week, doing 20 minutes of target work at home or the club 2-3 times per week. Working out x # of hours per week. Etc. These are goals you should also discuss with your coaches. Watching fencing videos, doing video analysis etc. are all things that you can do to put yourself over the top.
The “Make It Work” at Every Practice Goal: (This is a big one)The key element to a very effective practice starts with the individual fencer having the mentality that they will make the most out of practice. As you start to get more experience, you will begin to see that your club or certain practices or coaches have strengths and “weaknesses”. This is normal!
here is no such thing as a “perfect practice”, coach or perfect training system for fencers to achieve success. There are only effective and ineffective practices and if a fencer is thinking about what is missing from a practice then they aren’t thinking about how they are going to get better or what they need to work on.
Our Olympic team members have come from varying different backgrounds and experiences. They didn’t have perfect practices or coaches. They made the most of what they had and never used what they didn’t have as an excuse to not succeed.
Effective practices can look very different but the key is that the individual fencer takes all the things they have around them and makes the most of it. If you spend your time worrying that you don’t have the perfect this or that and spend your time chasing things you think are “missing” instead of using all that you have around you then this will ultimately hold the fencer back from achieving things. Not practicing because you think there aren’t “good enough” people to fence with or not enough people or your main coach is traveling to a tournament and there is someone leading practice are all examples.
Footwork is a HUGE part of an effective practice and there is nothing that should ever stop a fencer from working hard on their footwork.
GOLD MEDAL GOALS: (BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOALS): Dreaming and thinking as big as you want about your future. Don’t put any limits. Envision it, feel it and think about it.
Personal Goals:
There is one final category which is the “Personal Goals” group and these can come in all shapes and sizes from wanting to beat a certain fencer, to executing a different move successfully to really anything!
What NOT TO DO with Goal Setting and Planning:
Just Measuring Yourself Against Other People: Your main goal process should NOT be based around beating certain people or finishing ahead of certain people or competing with a certain person or club but based on where you want to go and measuring progress against yourself over-time at tournaments. There might be a fencer that has your number but you can
Other People Messing Up Goals: Don’t wish other people to lose or do badly. This takes your focus away from YOU achieving success and will hinder your success. Jealousy and feeling bad about other people will lead to your joy being diminished and worse results. Be happy for other people’s success and just push yourself to be the best you can be!
“I Am Missing Things' Mentality: This just takes away from having a goal oriented process. As mentioned above, chasing the “perfect” practice and always worrying about what you don’t have will ultimately destroy your joy for what you are doing and lead you to not achieving your best. This will also take away from your thinking about what you are working on at practice.
The next articles will explore specific fencing goals to set based on your aspirations, provide you with some tools and resources to set goals and key resources for your planning.
Good luck with your upcoming season and make the most of it by setting goals and planning for success! Did we miss anything? Things you’d like us to write about? Let us know in the comments section!