3.1 Establishing Objectives

ESTABLISHING OBJECTIVES

(MOTIVATION AND SELF-CONFIDENCE)

This is the main tool with which the player must work on his motivation. As we saw before, motivation is like the car engine and gasoline, you have to take care of the engine, but also refuel frequently. You have to take care of it on a day-to-day basis.

Although positive thinking is essential, and motivational videos can be used, more is needed to work on motivation properly. Each dream or goal must be accompanied by a strategy and specific actions.

We can compare this technique with the steps we have to build to reach our goal.

Source: own elaboration 

With this technique, in addition to working on motivation, you will be working on your self-confidence (since every time you set a goal and meet it, you are reinforcing it) and your attention/concentration (you are taking your focus to what is most important to achieve as soon as possible your goal).

Earlier when we discussed motivation we concluded that motivation can be explained as the direction in which an athlete works towards. That direction is what you have to specify, the end goal.

🤔 3-year Vision (Long term)

In the first place, you are going to work on your long-term vision, the big goal that you would like to achieve in about 3 years. This goal should be realistic, but it can also have a crazy edge. Something that you are more likely to not achieve, but that would not be an exaggeration if you did. It is about writing how you would like to be in 3 years, what your ideal day-to-day would be like. n which team are you playing, in which city, what is your apartment like, who is part of your day-to-day life (family, friends, etc.), what hobbies do you have.

The more details you have, the better. You can do it in writing (more or less 1 page), but it is also advisable to do it visually, with a collage or with clippings from photos or newspapers that represent what you want to achieve. If you have it visible on a mural, it will be much more useful.

🤔 Season Objectives (Mid-Term)

Once you have established the goal that you would like to achieve in 3 years, now it is time to start detailing the “journey”. That is to say, shorter stages, which if you complete them will take you in the desired direction. These medium-term objectives have to do with the season, and must be minimum objectives.

This means that if you meet them at the end of the season, you will have achieved the minimum goal that you have set for yourself. But it does not mean that you settle on just that. It is about defining what the objectives of the season are for you, which, if you meet them, would be a “pass”. After you’ve achieved the basic goal set, as an athlete who wants to be high level, you should continue and work for new, more ambitious goals.

They must be objectives that motivate you, aspects that you want to improve in your game, but that also benefit the team, with the approval of the coach. We will present below an example for each position of individual improvement objectives for the season.

Source: own elaboration 

The objectives you choose will be the ones that you will work on in training.

🤔 MONTHLY OBJECTIVES (Short term)

Third, these are the goals you are going to work on a day-to-day basis. The challenge for you is that you go to each training session with specific improvement goals.

In the following table you should use the objectives of the season and convert them into weekly tasks or actions. Tasks or actions that make you improve that section. We will use the objectives of the season in the Forward/striker position that we saw in the previous section. Imagine that you are in the first month (preseason), and that for this month you will work on your file the technical, tactical and mental objective (since the physical will be the objective of group work in preseason and the load will be sufficient). The table could look like this:

Source: own elaboration 

The table is just an example.

We assume that you train Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. You can choose to work one more part of a day and you can arrange it as you prefer. The most important thing is that you train different tasks and actions that help you improve with your main objectives. And that you write it down too.

If you are able to improve each season and work In depth on 1 or 2 objectives in each section (technical, tactical, physical and mental), you will be much more likely to have a good career as a footballer.

If you want to be better every day, it is not advisable to go to training with a scattered mind or without specific goals. Training should be prioritized when focusing attention. Just like when you go to the supermarket, you are going to buy something you need, something specific. You will not pass the time. You go to concrete improvements. To improve as a player at a general level, you need to focus on specific aspects, detail by detail. In this table you are anticipating what the main objectives for the month are.

Source: https://rampapublicidad.wordpress.com/2013/12/

So, once you have the objectives for the month, you should you should spend 10 minutes before going to training to mark 1 or 2 individual objectives for that session, and another 10 minutes after training to evaluate whether those objectives have been met or not. Evaluating the objectives on the sheet can be done in a simple way. For example, mark with a check or an X depending on whether it has been fulfilled. Another way would be to mark by colors. Green if it has been achieved, orange if it has been half done or has been worked on (even if it has not been achieved), and red if nothing has been achieved or has not even been worked on.

The important thing is to dedicate at least 20 minutes to that task and to get a good habit of always doing it. After a while, it will become natural and at the same time you will also be working on attention-concentration and self confidence as well!

Source: own elaboration