Training Week 1 (Week Beginning 24th March 2014)

Training Week 1 (Week Beginning 24th March 2014)

*AIM: To enhance Athlete Z’s goal setting skills which will enable him to increase motivation, self-confidence and reduce his anxiety which can help him to perform to the best of his capabilities and help his team win the league which is highly achievable.

I’m back! I hope my first blog which I recently posted was useful. Last week was all about the Athlete Z’s assessment stage, this week is the first of our six week training programme for the athlete to help improve him psychologically so he can perform to the best of his capabilities during matches as we know he has the talent!

The first week of training is all about Goal Setting. Below is the Goal Setting Programme which I have created for Athlete Z to work on for the rest of the week, and you guys can follow the progression throughout the week and see if it works and if it improves his Goal Setting.

Introduction to Goal Setting

Every successful person whether that is an artist, sports person or leader has a set goal which has driven and directed their efforts in their quest to be the best they can be. Goal setting is an extremely powerful technique for enhancing performance so it is one of the most important strategies you can implement for success in any environment. Goal setting is a common feature within many peoples day to day lives; everybody has an individual aim they want to achieve in a certain period of time.  Goal setting is also the outcome they desire from their actions, and so I strongly believe that Athlete Z can set goals to help him increase his motivation and self-confidence as well as reduce the levels of anxiety. Goal setting gives our daily actions a framework to work within and gives us direction in whatever we want to achieve. This will help Athlete Z vastly improve in areas he lacks ad this will work to direct his energy and efforts.

Use of Goal Setting

1.       Goals direct attention to tasks at hand and highlights what needs to be completed. It allows you to implement strategies to develop specific elements of the business that need to be utilise to complete the goal. This will work well for the Athlete Z as then he can work towards the goal he has set by creating strategies on how he is going to get there, this is a great way for him to achieve his goal as he will make his own plan and he will be obliged to follow it to enable him to achieve his goal.

2.       Goals mobilise your efforts. You will put your efforts into moving towards the goal as you are provided with the incentive of completing the goal. This will motivate Athlete Z in to working harder than ever on the pitch which will help him achieve his goals and achieving goals leads to boosting of confidence which is essential for the player. When confidence rises the anxiety levels reduce as then the player plays with confidence and works twice as hard having a major effective on the football pitch. This is what we want from the goal setting programme.

This is what we want to get out from this Goal Setting programme as it all depends on the direction and the effort one puts in to achieve the goal. Working towards goals like mentioned above can enable the player to hit all the objectives we put down. That means the motivation and self-confidence will increase and anxiety will reduce through achieving goals.

Types of Goals

There are three types of goals Athlete Z can set: Outcome, Performance and Process.

-          Outcome– This is the end result. For example getting the order ready for dispatch by designated time.

-          Process – This is the actions needed to execute the goal correctly.

-          Performance – These are the standards independent of other variables.

Process + Performance = Outcome

 If Athlete Z follows these key principles it can give him a powerful tool to use to drive success.

It is important for Athlete Z to really focus his attention and make his goals specific. Specific to his and specific to the goal and avoid vague and broad goals like ‘I want the team to be the best’. Being specific will make the goal objective and will give him something to aim for and aspire to. Athlete Z must give himself a completion date, a deadline to complete the goal by which will enable him to play well and help his team to win the league or because the highest assist maker in the league.

Realistic and Challenging – Goals should be difficult enough to challenge but not so difficult they become unrealistic. This provides the athlete with a challenge.

Long Term and Short Term– Athlete Z must see long term goal as the top of the mountain to get to the top he needs to set and achieve smaller goals to reach the top. Achieving these smaller goals maintains motivation and attention.

I have chosen goal setting as an activity for Athlete Z to use because I strongly feel by using Process, Performance and Outcome– We have seen the different types of goal and how they fit together. If the athlete sets primarily process and performance goals then he has done all he can within his control to achieve the outcome goal. Doing this more times than not the outcome takes care of itself. Using this equation also harbours the right environment.

Conclusion Looking back at the goal setting for Athlete Z I think it has been a huge success. Athlete Z has made sure that he has kept his goal setting clear and reachable, wasn’t being optimistic and it was real. Athlete Z then worked hard in training to make sure he can achieve his goals and so he did. The hard work had paid off and now he is off and running as the season comes to a close he can keep setting minuet goals which will enable him to work towards them and finish strongly by the end. I feel this week has been a huge success both on and off the field. Cannot wait to see what next week has in store !

 

Week 1 Athlete Assessment

Athlete Z

Finally bumped in to the boy! It was a pleasure to meet the young boy and get to know a little about him before we start assessing him. Athlete Z we will call him, he is just at a tender age of 18 still learning his trade and far from his peak, so we do expect weaknesses. Athlete Z plays football at a decent level, Semi Professional to be precise. The team he plays for is Nelson Football Club where he is an attacking midfielder who operates behind the striker or even on the wing, where he trains two times a week and plays matches once. Along with this Athlete Z remains dedicated with his education at college and also remains a key influential figure at his college team. Here he plays a match once a week and trains once a week too. This takes up most of his busy week as he is developing as well as enjoying his football season. 
Every sport brings its fair share of pressures and for Athlete Z it is something he thrives off, not only the pressure of winning in big games but also the pressure on the side by his ever demanding farther. It must be difficult at an age where the youth are accustomed to the parties and night outs to remain dedicated nearly every day of the week for the whole season with the weight of pressure from on lookers as well as the physical demands of the body. Psychologically this is a battle on its own says Athlete Z, he admits to the pressure as well as the pain from the previous days training to being physically ready for the next days match which does take a colossal amount of psychological toughness. 

Already you can sense the high levels of motivation but to gather all the other information of his psychological demands I have decided to put Athlete Z through a series of Tests and Questionnaires where then we will get a larger glimpse of where Athlete Z is currently at. After evaluating the results attained by the Athlete I will create a SWOT Analysis to show the strengths he possess and the weaknesses he must improve on and how he will do just that.  

Athlete Z Performance Profile Wheel

The Performance Profile Wheel is out of 10. Athlete Z took part in this and came out with the results shown above. Athlete Z believes he is highly focused as he scored an impressive 8 out of 10 which shows he is not easily distracted and is committed. Along with this he scored 9 out of 10 on concentration which once again outlines his determination on the football pitch and training ground. However, on the belief section he scored a mere 6 out of 12 which shows he lacks belief in his abilities, this could be down to the pressure that is on his shoulders. This links well with his confidence score where he scored a lower score of 5 out of 12, this needs to be worked on.

Assessing Sport Psychological Skills 
Athlete Z came out with 5 out of 12 on 'Peaking Under Pressure' which is slightly low which shows some levels of anxiety he possesses which halt his performances due to cracking under pressure.
Athlete Z scores another 5 out of 12 on 'freedom for Worry' which once again shows his anxiety levels are low due to the fact that the athlete doesn't want to perform badly as he is afraid of what people will think of him and his performance.
Athlete Z however scored 8 out of 12 on 'Coach-ability' this shows the athlete is open to learn on the training ground and better himself at everything even the weaknesses mentioned above. You can see the commitment.

The Sport Motivation Scale
After putting Athlete Z through the sport motivation scale questionnaire we have found out that the athlete is intrinsically motivated. The athlete scored highly as the athlete admits to learn more and know more about the strategies his sport possesses and also wants to learn new ways of becoming a better player. As well as this, the athlete has a sixth sense for accomplishment as he wants to be the best and be at the top of his game all the time. In addition, Athlete Z is slightly extrinsically motivated too as he scored well on the external regulation questions. This clearly indicates that he regards himself happily as a sportsman and his happy to show people he is just that which is good as he is not shying away from who he really is, these results show his passion and dedication towards his sport.

Moving on...
Now that we have got to know a little more about this footballer we can move on to the SWOT Analysis to identify his strengths and weaknesses and exactly how we can transform his negatives to positives.

Below is a SWOT Analysis on Athlete Z

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths-

• Highly focused
• Motivated
• High levels of concentration
• Willing to learn
• Wants to succeed
• Passionate
• Committed
• Dedicated

Weaknesses-

• Belief
• Confidence
• Pressure
• Anxiety

Opportunities-

Belief- The only way Athlete Z can change this from being a weaknesses to a strength is by looking back at him previous matches where he has played well and start to say to himself that that's how good he is and that's how good he just is on his day. This is the only way for Athlete Z to believe in himself, he must look back at his games and see how well he plays and start to think and say to himself that he is the best.

Confidence- Athlete Z will only grow in confidence if he does the above, that is believe in his abilities. As his belief grows he will start to play better on the pitch and score goals and help his teams. This will enable Athlete Z to grow in confidence as one goal can really boost confidence, and this can happen if the above happens and that is believing in his abilities. This will work wonders on the confidence of the Athlete.

Pressure- Athlete Z is at a young age where he is learning his trade, there is pressure from managers and family, but the Athlete needs to turn this pressure to positive pressure and thrive off it. He shouldn't be worried about the pressure and should just go out and play to his capabilities. He is still young and still learning, he will learn from mistakes. So I believe strongly Athlete Z mustn't look in to this and just pay attention on the game and play with enjoyment and not pay attention to this, this is the only way pressure can be can be overcome.

Anxiety- This links well with pressure, too much anxiety can effect performance negatively, but it is good to have some sort of anxiety. The only opportunity that can overcome anxiety is relaxation. Athlete Z must relax before matches and play freely with not a care in the world. He must believe in himself and his abilities and step out on to the pitch and play his game and help his team to win every match.

Threats-

The only threat that can stop Athlete Z from improving on his weaknesses is his mind. Only Athlete Z can control what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. It is massively up to him on what he really wants, will he settle for second place due to the lack of belief and confidence in himself amidst they huge array of attributes he possesses that combines to form his talent, or to be number one and get to the highest level possible knowing he overcame the battle with his mind. That is really only for Athlete Z to battle with. It will take a substantial amount of effort and courage to overcome his weaknesses and it is likely to take time but it can only happen through reassurance from his close ones and his peers. Only then will Athlete Z have that belief to master his pressures and let his feet do the talking when playing football.


There you have it! It was a pleasure to talk to and get to know Athlete Z. But this isn't it! For the next 6 weeks I will be posting blogs once a week to keep you up to date with how he psychological training is going each week. Yes that's right, there is more to come on Athlete Z and you will know all about it.

Keep an eye out for the next post!

Obeid Soge.