Every athlete starts small, they must all learn the lessons required to be a professional, your only small until your big. It all happens at a linear rate, the constant practice and gradual improvement built over repetitive small increase over time. This is where you set small achievable goals that will build the solid foundations of your larger long term aspirations.
Achieveable Goals
To set achievable goals, you want to honestly consider what it is you want to achieve first, these can be something physical like a specific competition, speed, score etc… You generally want your goals to be something semi-tangible, actually achievable, not too abstract like I want to be the possible footballer I can be, whilst it’s a nice sentiment, it doesn’t give you a specific target to aim at.
A simple process of building multiple level goals:
- Find your long term goal
eg. make your club’s senior team - Work out what you need to do to get there
eg. Improve fitness, express interest to coach, train 20% more, learn 3 new skills - Set a completion date
eg. Start of next season
You can break it down to a simple plan of smaller tasks that build into the long term goal within a set time range.
Using All Available Options
There are many ways of gaining exposure to new opportunities and the people who make pertinent decisions within organisations. Word of mouth, approaching clubs, getting an agent/manager, training and trialling with clubs are all ways.
Athlete Profiles are a mechanism for athletes to build a professional online presence for their sporting endeavours. Verlete provides the tools needed to actively promote themselves to an open pool of worldwide contacts at an elite level at no cost.
Build Professional Contacts
Be consciously aware that the people you meet whilst playing and training day to day are additions to your constantly growing list of professional contacts. Verlete profiles provide opportunities to build your contacts worldwide with other members of the elite athlete community in a professional manner.
Training & Development
Set long and short term your goals, then you can plan your training and development structure in a manner that will put you in a position to achieve the long term goals.
