SETTING PERSONAL SWIMMING GOALS

By Michael Collins

Although most of you don't consider yourself to be "competitive" swimmers, this is not an excuse for not setting goals in your swimming. Doing anything without some sort of purpose will become dull, boring, and repetitive before too long. Goals are necessary to keep one motivated to continue - especially on very cold days, early morning workouts, etc.

I'm sure you've been told many times, maybe from parents, teachers, bosses, or even a swim coach, to set goals. What's so important about setting goals? "It seems so silly to spend the time to sit down and write the things you already know you want to do. "I just want to swim" you may say. "I set goals for my career, but I don't need to set goals for my recreation." This sounds reasonable, but is not true if you take a closer look.

Deep inside, we all need justification for everything we do. It's human nature to feel the need for accomplishment. The reward of completing a task worked hard at, is something we all strive for, whether it's in the working world or in our personal life. What are you trying to accomplish by swimming?

Make some short and long terms goals for this year. Try to set many goals. If you only set one or two simple or wishy-washy goals it probably won't help to motivate you. The more goals you set, the more chance for success you have. Remember, you haven't lost anything if you don't reach a particular goal, but you have accomplished something when you do achieve one. Be specific whenever possible, including number (distances, times, places, dates, etc.) Many of you don't realize how much progress you have made. If you record your times or mileage you may be surprise by how much progress you've really made.

Overcome the Fear of Failure: I have noticed that many swimmer's don't set goals to improve swimming skills, or enter events to check their progress due to a "fear of failure." When asked to do a timed swim in workout, or to enter some other event (such as the One Hour Postal swim), do you say "Oh no, I'm not in shape! "I'm too slow." Or "I don't think I can do as well as last year." These are fear of failure answers. So what if you don't go as far. So what if you're not the fastest. It's the process of trying to improve that's important. A great quote I like to refer to goes like this: "Failure is not the worst thing in the world. The very worst is not to try." However, chances are you'll be quite please with the results, and occasionally reach your goals.