Setting Your Specific Bowling Goals

GOALS IN BOWLING

I just presumed that every bowler sets goals but the more I talk to younger the bowlers the more I realize that they nothing about goal setting. Here are tips, hope they help........

1. Deciding your goals

* understand your commitment to the sport - sit down with your coach and/or parents, decide on mutual and beneficial goals

* understand the level you want to reach within the sport - Are you happy being a league hack or do you want to be World Champion?

* knowing the skills that will have to be acquired and the levels of performance that will be needed - what part of my game do I need to develop and improve

* know where this will fit into your overall life goals - is bowling your life? What are your career goals, how will bowling fit?

2. Setting effective goals

* Be Precise: if you set a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that achievement can be measured, then you know the exact goal to be achieved, and can take complete satisfaction from having completely achieved it.

* Set Priorities: where you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.

* Documentation - write down all your goals and keep them in a place where you see them every day! This helps you keep focused

* Goals - Short, Medium and Long term goals should all be included in your Goal Map.

3. Set Performance Goals not Outcome

* This is VERY important, goals based on outcomes are extremely vulnerable to things beyond your control. Make sure you have direct control of performance. All goals should be tangible and measurable

eg. Performance goal - 'I will hit my target 7 out of 10 shots'
Outcome goal - ' I will avg 230 every game '

* One difficulty you will face is that people who are ignorant of sports psychology. Coaches, parents, media, fans, etc. base their assessment of success on winning. This completely ignores the effect of raw luck on high quality performance. As with many things, stick with what you know is right rather than what uninformed people think.

4. Rewards and Failure

* Failure in meeting goals is useful in improving technique and long term success as long as you draw useful lessons from it and feed these back into your training program.

* You should allow yourself to enjoy the achievement of goals and reward yourself appropriately. Lessons should be drawn where appropriate, and should be fed back into training.

Here some quick examples of Short, Medium and Long Term Goals (I have set and met)

Short (3 month time frame)

1. Bowl 10 games per week (including league)
2. Hit my target 8 out of 10 shots
3. Exercise regularly - run 2-3ks 3 times a week
4. Clean and Maintain bowling ball coverstocks on my arsenal after each bowling session
5. Bowl 6 tournaments each quarter (as outlined in my schedule)

Medium (6-12 month time frame)

1. Bowl 24 tournaments per year (as outlined in my schedule)
2. Conduct 4 clinics in Australia and 1 Internationally
3. Bowl at least 4 International events (as outlined in my schedule)
4. Participate in Local, Queensland and National Championships

Long Term and Life Goals

1. Represent my country at Asian and World Championships
2. Attend and participate in the AMF World Cup
3. Win a Nationally rated tournament in Australia
4. Finish no.1 in the Australian Rankings

I hope this gives you some insight to goal setting, its a huge part of our game which people tend to forget about. If you need a good starters guide to improving your bowling, then you can check out the Bowling For Dummies, there is a small price for it, but it's well worth it in my opinion. Hope this helps........