Goals
are important any athlete can tell you that. Whether it’s long-term or
short-term, goals help shape our actions and drive us to become better than we
are now. They are especially important in swimming. Swimming, like running, is
one of those unusual sports that while you competing alone; you participate as
part of a team. Relays are the only real exception. Baseball, basketball,
football, volleyball, and most other spots it is essential to work as a team. You’re
not allowed to volley the ball twice in a row someone else has to bump it. But
in swimming if your dive is delayed or you mess up your turn there is no one
there to save you. While how you do does affect your teems points, really it’s
up to you how hard you want to work. That why goal setting is so important.
If
you want you can goof of, your own sweet time with the work out, or even just
skip practice. Yes you coach may yell at you but really the only one you have a
substantial impact on is yourself. When I was on swim team I noticed there was
a huge difference between the kids how wanted to be there and the ones who were
forced to be there by their parent. Obviously the swimmers who were forced to
come did as little work as possible. They didn’t what to be there so why try?
But if you took a closer look at the other swimmers you would find yet another
difference. While they all participated, for some reason, some of the kids
would go above and beyond the requirements while others were satisfied with
just doing what they were told. After talking to several people I realized that
the difference was what goal they were focusing on.
Everybody
seemed to have the same two goals. Get first place in the meet, and move up to a
faster level. Sometimes there were more specific goals like; I want to get 27
seconds on my 50meeter free, but those were the two over all goals. When I
talked to the swimmers who just did what they were told they were completely
focus on either keeping up with the group they were in now or doing well in the
meet. My conversations with the over achievers however, want a lot more like
this. Yes I want to do well in the meet, but I really just want to move up a
level. So it’s not just setting goals it’s which goals you’re aiming for.
My last couple of months in swimming
I had a friend who finally got tired of being on the same team. So he changed
his goal from doing well in the meet to moving to the next team. Within two
weeks he went form the middle of the pack to one of the more formidable
members, and he continued to progress.
I had to leave not long later because I graduated, but I would be
extremely surprised if he hasn’t moved up yet.
Short-term goals are excellent to
have because they can serve as mile markers on your journey to your long-term
goals, they motivate you and give you a sense of accomplishment that everyone
needs. But you’re trying to get to your long term goal. So maybe you should
stop focusing solely on your project at work and start gunning for that
promotion you really want. Yes, try to get an A on your paper but an A in the
class is why you want to do well on that paper any way. Writers aim not just to
have a well written paper but to inspire, inform, and entertain there audience.
The big goal for beginners is to get published. So what have you been aiming
for?
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