Don't Dream It, Do It - Baseball Goal Setting Part I

Goals and are important for everyone even kids. In fact, you should be making new goals all the time in order to move in a particular direction. As a baseball coach (or parent) you should also help your young person learn how to make goals that are meaningful and implement plans to help them follow through with these goals during the year. How is it done? Let's take a look.

Without goals we will accomplish nothing. I tell my teams that "Goals are dreams with feet and direction".

Dreams become goals when we write them down and make plans to accomplish them.

Here are some ideas to help you keep your commitments this year:

• Make goals for shorter time periods - like thirty days.
• Re-evaluate at the end of the thirty days and make adjustments as needed.
• Add new ones every week or at least once every month.
• Make short term (daily) goals that can be accomplished by the end of the day.
• Keep a schedule of your activities. Write them down and prioritize them.
• Have a plan of attack for accomplishing your goals.

For example:
I plan to lose ten pounds over the next 30 days. To accomplish this I will walk two miles twice each day in order to loose one pound every three days.

I would like to be more appreciative of others. In order to accomplish this I plan to write a thank you note or send an appreciative email to one person daily.

Accomplishing a goal is easier when you break it down into a shorter segment of time.

As a coach, I have short term and long term goals. We have goals for our team to accomplish this season, but they are broken down into three parts:

• Preseason
• Mid season
• Post season

(We even keep this in mind in how we schedule games in the early season, mid season, and late season)

In addition to season goals, we have longer range goals for our program:
Three (3) year, Five (5) year, and ten (10) year goals.

We also have goals for our parents (in building and expanding our program). That's how we built (and paid for) a player locker room, a two story press box, and a 2500 square foot covered hitting facility with lights.

If we don't have goals to accomplish then no one has a direction to GO. Without direction no one is MOVING!

Would you run a race without an idea where the finish line was or how to get to it? Coaches without resolutions for themselves, their team, and their parents will not accomplish much, period.

Don't Dream It, Do It: Baseball Goal Setting Part 2, coming to Ezine Articles soon.

"CP"
Coach Mike Posey
Tips from a championship coach's perspective and experience, offering creative insights into helping others learn the game of baseball.
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