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You are here: Home / Mental Coach Articles / When Athletes Goals Become Expectations

When Athletes Goals Become Expectations

February 18, 2016 By Patrick Cohn Leave a Comment

Adhere to Mental Training

How Goals Turn Into Expectations

I’m sure you help your athletes set goals, right? The research is clear that goal setting can help your athletes improve and strive for excellence.

But when can goals turn into expectations for athletes? This was a recent question I received from one of our MGCP certification students…

First, allow me to define expectations… Expectations are the unwritten demands your athletes have about their results and performance.

I call expectations the SHOULDS that athletes maintain, such as:

  • I should not make any mistakes
  • I should always perform well
  • I should win by…
  • I should go 2 for 4
  • I should perform up to others expectations

Expectations cause athletes to be judgmental about the quality of their performance. High or low, expectations are a problem for athletes….

Strict expectations can undermine confidence, induce pressure, and focus athletes too much on outcomes and statistics. They can trigger frustration when your athletes think they are not performing up to their expectations.

So when do goals turn into expectations?

First, some athlete avoid setting goals altogether because they think others EXPECT them to achieve their goals.

Second, you might also see some athletes that set good goals, but these goals begin to turn into expectations for them.

One of my athletes said to me: “I don’t set goals because if I do, then my dad expects me to reach them.”

What’s the problem with these two scenarios?

In my view, athletes don’t really understand how goals work and how they are different from expectations.

My answer is that you have to help athletes understand the value of setting goals without the burden of expecting to reach their goals.

Goals are not expectations because goals:

  • Help athletes strive for excellence
  • Mold athletes’ attention and focus
  • Provide direction for training and practice
  • Can always be changed or modified easily

You want athletes to understand that goals are not set in stone. Yes, it feels great when athletes can achieve their goals, but goals are not “must haves.”

I suggest to my students to focus on smaller, more immediate goals that will help them perform well in the moment, such as trusting their swing, rather than become obsessed with their ranking or batting average, for example.

Focusing on season ending statistics do not help athletes focus well in the moment.

If you help your athletes understand the utility of goals and how they differ from expectations, they won’t turn goals into personal demands or avoid goals altogether.

Note: Apply for the MGCP certification program. Please contact me if you would like to enroll. Call us at 888-742-7225 or apply here.

Filed Under: Mental Coach Articles, Sports Psychology Certification Tagged With: Focus in Sports, Perfectionism in Sports

MGCP - Sports Psychology Certification Course

  1. The MGCP 20-chapter workbook including exercises to teach you how to identify mental game challenges and obstacles that influence performance; develop mental skills individual and team members; and improve teamwork and communication.
  2. The Athlete's Mental Edge workbook system to help you stay organized and accelerate your athletes learning and progress with mental skills.
  3. 12+ Real-life video and audio case studies to accelerate your learning of mental game coaching.
  4. MGCP Summaries, outlines and flow charts to help you understand the over mental coaching process and the phases of mental coaching taught by Dr. Cohn.
  5. Examples of mental imagery programs (hockey, dog handling, and golf) including how to create imagery scripts and audio programs for your athletes.
  6. A series of sports psychology e-books on goal setting, confidence, focus, pregame and preshot routines.
  7. Use of Dr. Cohn’s Athlete’s Mental Aptitude Profile (AMAP) and several sport-specific versions to help you identify an athlete’s or team’s mental game strengths and weaknesses.
  8. Use of the Team Cohesion Aptitude Profile (TCAP) to assess team cohesion; and a sports parent’s profile to use with sports parents.
  9. Examples of pre-seminar questionnaires to use before you give a seminar to a group to help you identify mental game challenges and areas to teach.
  10. How to do team mental game assessments efficiently using an online assessment tool.
  11. Over 160 mental game coaching “handouts” or one-page summaries and worksheets you can use to help you stay organized during sessions and as summaries for your student or team.
  12. 18 real-life case studies focusing on a different challenge in sports psychology and Dr. Cohn’s solution to each. You understand the real-life issues with athletes and how to address their mental game barriers.

Apply for sports psychology certification today!

Resources for Mental Game Coaches

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AMAP Assessment System

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