Daily goals work just like any other goal except they are used for training. Goals enhance performance through directing your focus, enhancing motivation, learning, and building confidence. Broken down it looks like this:
- Focus: Goals help direct your focus during training to emphasis skill execution in a particular area.
- Motivation: Goals directly motivate us if the target is challenging yet realistic. A goal that is too easy is not going to push us to improve and a goal that is too difficult is going to ask too much from us, ultimately diminishing confidence and motivation and could possibly lead to burnout.
- Learning: When we achieve goals, either daily, short-term, or long-term, we learn from the process of achievement. How did we problem solve along the way? What skills, strengths, and values did I use get better? Also, you learn how to set good goals that push you!
- Confidence: When more and more goals are achieved, your performance is bound to improve. Reaching goals builds confidence in your ability to control your performance enhancement and it multiplies when you see how it improves your performances in competition.
Set a daily goal either directly after a practice for the next day or in the morning before training. Make sure that your daily goals are in-line with your short term goals so you are improving in the most needed areas either physical or mental. The most important part of setting any goal is deciding what processes you are going to use to achieve goals.
Examples of daily goals:
- “Shoot 20 extra free-throws after practice.”
- “Use the mental cue ‘move through the ball’ to make sure I am in position fielding ground balls.”
- “Complete full pre-shot routine for every practice shot.”
- “Have a save percentage 2 points higher than my competition save percentage for the entire practice.”
- “Cut .5 seconds off my 400 meter sprint by pacing myself on the first 100 meters by saying ‘build up’ to remind myself to start slower.”
Use daily goals to get more out of your training, enhance your performance faster, and know when and where you want to improve your game.