Goal setting can sometimes get boring and not be used to its full effectiveness. A systematic program called SMART will help coaches and athletes better achieve goals, improve performance and athletic motivation.
SMART stands for:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Time Bound
The use of such an acronym is helpful in having athletes remember some of the key elements within goal setting. Goal setting, done correctly, involves many facets to be truly effective. One can, though, still be effective with focus on the basic elements within SMART goals.
Specific ...
Continue Reading →You want your team captains to be like extensions of your coaching on the floor or field. But some players don’t always lead in a way that helps raise the play of everyone around them. Here are 4 mistakes that you should watch out for so your captains don’t make them.
The following is excerpted from the book – Championship Performance Coaching Volume 1: Legendary Coaching Wisdom on Leadership, Motivation, and Practice Plans to Achieve Your Dream Season.
1) Thinking they ...
Continue Reading →As Sergio Garcia prepared for yet another attempt to win his first major championship, his soon to be wife Angela Akin handed him a stack of letters. Each one was a hand written note on green paper (symbolizing the green jacket for Master’s winners).
The letters came from friends and family members from Texas all the way to Spain, his home country. The addressed two key points: why they loved him and why they thought they knew he could win.
The injection ...
Continue Reading →Formerly one of the best putters on the PGA tour, Brad Faxon had a success formula that helped him lead the tour in putting average multiple times. Excerpted from the book:
Good to Great Golf: Shatter Your Lowest Round with Absolute Mental Focus.
Three specific examples of Faxon’s success formula:
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“Before I start a round, I take a pen and draw a line on the ball about an inch and a half long. That line faces the direction I’m going to ...
When you are part of turning around a program or having one of those inevitable down years, sustaining motivation and a positive attitude can be a challenge. Former three time Super Bowl Champion coach Bill Walsh offered these 10 reminders to keep yourself focused and team motivation high during a losing or sub par year.
1) Concentrate on what will produce results rather than on the results themselves: the process rather than the prize of winning.
2) Exhibit an inner toughness emanating ...
Continue Reading →Every team needs to have good leadership. It is critical that your team captains are providing the bulk of that leadership. Consultant Michael Voight of Central Connecticut State lists ten “must do’s” for team captains to be successful.
Excerpted from the Championship Performance Coaching book series. Get hundreds of practical winning ideas to get your team better now!
1) Team Organization – With the busy schedules of student-athletes, captains remind players of commitments and changes in schedules and reinforce team structure.
2) ...
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In the past year, we’ve covered Super Bowl winning Seattle Seahawk http://www.seahawks.com coach Pete Carroll http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki three times in the Championship Performance Coaches Journal https://championshipperform.com/coaching-journal
In this week’s Winning Ways blog, we look at how Carroll worked to get his team mentally ready to compete ‘in the zone’. Carroll has been a long time advocate of sports psychology since his days with the New England Patriots and New York Jets where he worked with Championship Performance Advisory Board ...
Continue Reading →Right after a heartbreaking loss to Alabama, Texas A &M quarterback Johnny Manziel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Manziel talked about his team staying focused on goals such as getting to the SEC Championship by taking things “one game at a time.” That old coaching cliché is great, but successful goal setting is far more systematic and planned out. Here are 5 steps to increase the likelihood of reaching team goals.
1) State the purpose. Complete this sentence. I want to __________.
Examples: I want the ...
Continue Reading →In a recent ESPN documentary http://espn.go.com, former Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt http://www.patsummitt.org was profiled. Having lost in the Final 4 several times, during the run up to her first championship, she was committed to do things differently and leave no stone unturned.
She gathered her team on the day off before the title game and had them all lie on the gym floor. Then she took them through a guided mental imagery exercise where she asked them ...
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