Set Goals Not Resolutions
Millions of people across the globe are taking the opportunity of starting a brand new year to reevaluate their lives and to establish some New Year’s resolutions. They are going to come up with things like lose weight, make more money, be happy, or be a better parent or student.
Many basketball people will undoubtedly list resolutions such as win more games, score more points, become a starter, etc. Unfortunately, resolutions such as those usually turn out to be mere wishes and usually end up tucked away in a drawer somewhere. (Assuming they are written down in the first place!)
The Internet is full of goal setting programs, worksheets, acronyms, and advice for those who are genuinely interested but the whole process is extremely simple and straight forward. In order to give yourself the best chance of achieving your goals they need to be specific, measurable, timely, and written. For example, instead of saying “I want to shoot better,” the goal should be written down to state, “I want to increase my shooting percentage by 5% by the end of the season.”
That’s the easy part! The next two steps require a lot more commitment. The first is to determine exactly what needs to be done to accomplish that goal. (Hint: you need to do something different than what you have been doing up to this point. If you do the same things you’ve always done you are going to get the same results that you have now!) For example, you might list shooting 50 3′s, 25 free throws, and 25 mid range jump shots off the dribble every day after practice when you are tired.
The second step is to DO IT every day without fail.
On our team, it seems that our best shooters are always spending extra time in the gym working on their shots. Now think about this for a second – are they spending extra time shooting because they are our best shooters, or are they our best shooters because they spend a lot of extra time?
Follow the same formula of setting specific, measurable, timely and written goals then decide what needs to be done and DO IT and you’ll be amazed how many of those “resolutions” become realities.
