Solution focussed coaching - Goalsetting

Once the athlete, with the help of the coach, has determined where they want to go (Benchmark) and where they currently stand (The Gap), the athlete can begin to decide in which areas they will make progress.

As mentioned earlier, small steps lead to big changes. It is important to identify the right small steps and translate these into goals. The following section will describe how the athlete, with the coach’s help, can turn the analysis of The Gap into concrete goals during Goalsetting.

The Gap – Goalsetting

The step from The Gap to Goalsetting is crucial because it leads to the points the athlete will work on in the upcoming period. The athlete creates a plan based on their analysis.

To make this step, the coach can again help by asking the right questions. The coach should review The Gap with the athlete once more. It often helps to start with a general scaling question:

• Where do you currently stand as an athlete compared to the Benchmark you set?

The athlete has already answered this in The Gap phase, and the coach and athlete can build on it. Further questions help the athlete identify the first steps toward the future:

• If you had to say how to move from a 7 to a 7.5, what would be the first thing you would tackle?

• Suppose you scored a whole point higher—so instead of a 7, you would score an 8—what would you notice first?

These are examples of scaling questions combined with other types of questions. In the second, a “Suppose that…” question is included to activate the athlete’s imagination.

The answers to these questions often contain the first goal or multiple goals. Later, we will explain how the athlete, with the coach’s help, can formulate good goals.

Outcome Goals

An outcome goal literally asks the athlete what they want to achieve. At this stage, it does not yet involve all factors underlying achieving it. Outcome goals often depend on more factors than the athlete alone controls. Thus, the athlete does not have full control over whether the outcome goal is achieved.

It is important for athletes to realize that outcome goals are not only about winning a medal or competition result. Another example could be:

• I want to improve this year from a 7 to an 8 on The Gap scale relative to my Benchmark.

In this method, the athlete sets several (up to 3) outcome goals and decides the timeframe for achieving them. There are three options:

• Short term

• Medium term

• Long term

The timeframe is important when the athlete checks whether the outcome goal is realistic. After stating the timeframe, the athlete estimates how likely they think achieving the goal is. The combination is important because winning an Olympic medal in the short term may be unrealistic, but over the long term, the goal can be realistic.

Process Goals

A process goal is one over which the athlete has full control—they can achieve the goal if they adhere to certain behaviors. The athlete has much influence on the process goal's success, independent of external factors. This does not mean that external factors (coach, opponents) cannot support goal achievement.

Process goals in this method are almost always short-term focused. The work is done in periods of weeks, followed by evaluation. The length of these periods depends on agreements between coach and athlete. Typically, this period ranges between 4 and 8 weeks. Setting the period makes the goal time-bound.

It is important that the athlete formulates the goal with the end in mind. For example, the end could be mastering a particular technique. However, it is also essential that the athlete knows what mastering that technique leads to—what it looks like when the athlete has mastered it. This makes the goal more specific and measurable for evaluation.

The coach must be aware that every person formulates and thinks in their own way. This means that goals are difficult to codify into fixed rules. The most important thing is that the goal describes something the athlete wants to achieve and that it brings the athlete closer to the Benchmark they described. To do this, a (mutually agreed) period is dedicated to working on the goal, followed by evaluation. The athlete understands the importance of describing the goal specifically, and the goal must be measurable.