Goal Setting Principles, Part I

By John Trehearn LTA National Coach (East Area)

“By having milestones or benchmarks you’ve got a way of measuring your progress. Lots of people want to do things; win this, win that. OK they are big things, so how are you going to break it down and plan for them? Don’t be a dreamer, be a planner.”

Adrian Moorhouse, Olympic Gold Medalist

Every champion, every top player will set goals for themselves. Without goals no-one fulfils a dream to be the best. Coaches therefore have a crucial role to play in helping junior players set their goals. Goals which are too hard to achieve can be soul destroying whereas goals that are too easy can lead to underperformance. That is why it is so important to understand what goals are and how to make them part of the coaching process.

In addition teamwork is fundamental to create the environment where a player has the opportunity to flourish and improve. In the modern tennis set up, players have input from a number of different coaches as part of their support team. They may have an individual or key coach, squad coaches, practice hitters, fitness trainers, physiotherapists, nutritionists, psychologists and so on. Even if all these people are working together as one team it can be difficult to keep track of what each particular player needs to be working on and ‘who’s doing what’.

Coaches are busy people and primarily earn when they are on court coaching, and not when in meetings or making telephone calls. Hence it can be difficult to keep ‘up to speed’ with what each player is doing at any one moment in time. An ability to communicate effectively is essential but not always easy to do.

It is common practice these days for a player to have a number of professional people involved in their programme that may or may not be formally linked together as one organizational team. There is an increasing need therefore for someone to ensure that these different professionals are pulling in the same direction. It has to be a team effort and the right planning goes towards making this happen. Make sure everyone is ‘singing from the same song sheet’. As Matthew Pinsent, Olympic Gold Medalist believes, ‘In order to create a successful team everyone’s noses must be pointing in the same direction’.

With this in mind it is now essential that all performance players should have a formalized Goal Setting Sheet and an Annual Planner. These two documents are the player’s passport to success. Done well they can set out a route to steer the player forward in the right direction. If not the player can easily drift along without really addressing the important areas of their game, lose motivation and ultimately be lost to tennis.

By encouraging players to take ownership of their goal setting and planning, a much higher chance of achieving success is likely. With older, more mature players this is sometimes a little easier. With others, and particularly young players, the key coach has a pivotal role in driving this process forward.

Outcome Goals

Outcome goals are what the player wants to achieve – the end result. Players might have a dream of perhaps becoming Wimbledon champion or playing for their country. There is certainly nothing wrong in that. It might be the reason why a junior first picked up a racket – to try to emulate their role model. But can a coach help a junior player set some more realistic and attainable ‘outcome’ goals that are not so far ahead in the future! Winning Wimbledon is so far away for a young player; it remains just a dream - something mystical and distant. Better then to offer them something a little closer to their reach. Something they could achieve within a year or less.

Outcome goals might concern a certain player that they want to beat, tournaments they want to win, teams they want to be selected for, or rankings they want to reach. Remember that what an adult might view as insignificant might be everything to a junior. Most younger players will need help in setting the outcome goals in order that they are realistic but listen to what the player has to say.

Process Goals

Great accomplishments are built on a series of little successes. This is what goal setting is all about - breaking down a final goal or dream into individual building blocks of success that can be achieved every day, week, month, and year. By setting goals the coach can monitor the development of a player. Is the player really making progress? Are they achieving what they set out to do? Process Goal Setting is about making a written commitment to the process through which a player will (hopefully) reach their Outcome Goals - the things they want to achieve as a player.

The great thing about goal setting is that the coach, player and parents can measure progress. It’s easy to see when the training is going well – goals are being achieved and can be replaced with new ones! It also becomes clearer to everyone when things are not going well. Coaches can then analyze why that is? Is the player training enough or too little? Are they committed to achieving the goals? Does the approach need adapting or changing. By setting down agreed goals the player also learns to be more intrinsically motivated. They can attribute more relevance to their training and coaching. Coaches know that building confidence in a player is hugely important. When goals are re-evaluated and players can see those goals being achieved it boosts their confidence and helps to keep them focused on developing their game.

Process Goals are centered on the Four Performance Factors involved in tennis;

1. Technical development – the biomechanical execution of how players hit their shots, e.g. how they hold the racket, position their bodies and swing their racket. How well a player develops their strokes, particularly at a young age can have a big impact on their future development. Sound technical skills are the foundation that underpins a player’s long term potential for success.

2. Tactical development – how a player manages to find a way to win matches by playing to his strengths and exposing the opponent’s weaknesses. It’s no use having a great forehand if the player doesn’t know how to use it in a match. Remember that the best players are usually the most tactically astute, not necessarily the ones with the best looking strokes. Good players are able to find ways to win by ‘reading the game’ and are able to make subtle changes in their strategy to improve their chance of success.

3. Psychological development – how a player is able to hold himself together mentally to bring out the best in his game especially ‘under pressure’. Mental skills are often described as ‘the glue that knits together the other areas of your game’. In other words a player is only as good as his mental skills allow him to be. Playing tennis matches always requires an ability to maintain self control. Things will not always go smoothly! Being able to think clearly is a fundamental requirement of a good player. Don’t forget to set goals in this key area.

4. Physical development – building up a player’s strength, speed, agility, flexibility and stamina are crucial to long term success. Players may well be blessed with some natural skills in one or two of these areas but every player will need to work on all aspects to become a top player. As well as becoming physically fitter, injury prevention is also a key aspect of the modern game. As world standards continue to increase, more and more stress is being placed upon young athletes’ bodies. Tennis involves a large number of very repetitive movements and keeping muscles balanced within a young athlete’s body is hugely important to them being able to stay on court and avoid long lay-offs due to injury.

John Trehearn
LTA National Coach (East Area)

We would like to thank John for his input and look forward to next month when John will take a look at planning the goals in a yearly planner.