Here are your SMART goals as of November 29, 2023 so we can hold each other accountable. I’d love to see the rest of the team get this done:
Seton Swim Team SMART Goals 2023-24-as of Nov29,23
Trinity Meadow View SMART Goals 2023-24-as of Nov29,23
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Welcome to our first guest blog by Seton Assistant Swim Coach Col Matt Schroer.
Coach Schroer has been working with the other coaches (particularly Coach Ross Palazzo), and the captains (particularly Luke Mantooth), to set up a repeatable and trackable process to establish goals for each athlete this season. I am very pleased with the results of their work which is described in detail below.
Please review the information in Coach Schroer’s blog post and start thinking about your SMART goals for the season. Then use this form to set your goals for your lane Coach to see:
Seton Swim Team SMART Goals 2023-24 – Google Forms
Enjoy and thank you Col. Schroer! Ooh-rah!
“If you’re bored with life — you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things — you don’t have enough goals.” — Lou Holtz
You’ve all committed to the Seton swim program and the GEMS that make it special: Gratitude, Excellence, Meekness, and Sacrifice. Let’s talk about two of the GEMS specifically that make many good athletes great: Excellence and Sacrifice. What makes these two (2) character-traits special:
Excellence: We focus on better. Good takes care of itself.
How do we become better you might ask? We don’t become better by simply training harder – we become better (and great athletes become better) by training with a purpose and a goal. A great Marine once said: “A goal without a plan is simply a dream.” God didn’t give us our gifts or our “talents” just to try harder; he gave us talents to invest and do so smartly in order to improve ourselves and those around us.
At Seton Swimming, we invest smartly by setting goals, mapping out our path to achieve our goals, and executing our plan over the course of our swim season, over the course of our time at Seton, or within our family and our Catholic faith. To be successful, we must have a well-documented goal, and we must have a plan, or we will end up as directionless dreamers who lament the fact that we wasted our talents. We are here not to be good but to be Excellent!
Sacrifice: We offer it up. We love all of our teammates.
How do we achieve our goals? If your goals are well thought out, worthwhile, and are not overly simplistic and facile, they will stretch you and challenge you over the period within which they are set. They will stretch you to accomplish them. They will require sacrifice. This sacrifice could include extra time in a pool, more and more difficult dry land, a better diet, etc..… and ultimately, the support of your teammates to help push you.
At Seton Swimming, it takes all of us to make each other better…. to make our team better. At Seton Swimming, we love our teammates, and love is “willing the good of another.”
It will take all of us if we want to be excellent and live our GEMS. It takes swimmers to set goals that require sacrifice and will elevate their performance. It takes teammates who exude love. Teammates that coach, mentor, and teach their fellow teammates. It takes coaches and captains that demand excellence, that correct us when our stroke is not perfect, or we are not demanding the most of ourselves. It takes all of us to hold each other accountable for excellence and the sacrifice it requires!
To help all of us define goals and create an effective plan to achieve them we will use the SMART goal methodology:
A SMART goal is:
- Specific: Clearly defined and detailed. What do you want to accomplish? Who needs to be included? When do you want to do this? Why is this a goal?
- Measurable: Easy to determine whether it’s achieved or not. How can you measure progress and know if you’ve successfully met your goal?
- Attainable: Something you can accomplish with effort and consistency (like breaking 1:00 in 100 Free) as opposed to something not realistic (like making States this year as an 8thgrader).
- Relevant: Aligned with your other goals and to the activity.
- Time-based: Linked to a time frame. What’s the deadline, and is it realistic?
Setting SMART goals is one of the most popular strategies for psychologically sound goal setting. That’s because they help athletes define and accomplish their goals and allow others (coaches, fellow teammates, and captains) to hold them accountable for the work necessary to achieve their goals.
At Seton Swimming, we will set
- Three (3) swimming-related SMART goals,
- One (1) school-related SMART goal, and
- One (1) faith-related SMART goal during the swim season.
Our swimming SMART goals will be balanced and not simply focused on our best event. The swimming goals will include goals for our weakest event, our strongest event, and the 500 Free, and they will include a milestone goal for half-way through the season. For example:
Swim Goals:
- (Weakest) 100 Fly – 1:10 (final); 1:20 (mid-season)
- (Strongest) 50 Free – :31 (final); :33 (mid-season)
- (500 Free) 6:00 (final); 6:30 (mid-season)
For our other goals, you can specify one goal on any timeframe that is meaningful for you. For example:
School Goal:
- Maintain an A- average in Latin IV through the 3rd quarter
Faith Goal:
- Perform a Corporal work of mercy at least once a month.
At Seton Swimming, your lane coaches are going to track your goals to ensure we are accountable. Our friends, teammates, captains, and coaches can also hold us accountable. Our written goals will allow us to keep our path in sight, allow our Captains to keep us honest, and allow our Coaches to push us.
As we approach time trials, I want all of you to think through the following:
- What is my weakest and strongest event? What could my school and faith goals be?
- How did I swim at time trials? What should I strive for by the end of the season?
- What are my interim goals to reach my end-of-season goals?
- How do my goals conform to the SMART methodology, and if not, how do I need to describe my goals to be SMART.
We want everyone to enter their goals into the Google form no later than the season’s first meet so our coaches and captains can review them with us and refine them if necessary. Here’s the form again:
Seton Swim Team SMART Goals 2023-24 – Google Forms
Let’s be Excellent and make the GEMS our way of life!