Looking to improve your sailing next season? The UK Fireball Association in association with Goalscape and Sailjuice bring you an exciting winter offer - 20% discount on both the Goalscape visual goal management software and the Sailjuice website annual subscription!
Goal Setting - The Professional Approach
Have you set any goals for the coming season? If you have, then well done – you are on the right track. Of all the things that full-time, professional sailors do that the rest of us weekend warriors do not do, structured goal setting is probably the most important. Fortunately it is also one of the less demanding activities (compared to, say, completing 10,000 perfect tacks). With the right approach it can be done quickly – and it can even be fun.
It's not just about the time and money (and energy!) you have available, it's how you spend those resources. For example, practising some boathandling exercises might be a better use of a day's sailing than doing a couple of club races. Or maybe a day's coaching is a better investment than buying a new jib.
Think about what you want to achieve, then set some specific goals. Goal setting has been shown to be a major factor in improving performance in almost every area of life; yet most of us still do not set any goals, let alone reach them. Maybe we are protecting ourselves: if we do not set goals we cannot fail at them! But that is lazy thinking and it brings only frustration.
So let's look at setting some sailing goals – and working out how to achieve them.
Think about your long-term sailing goals. How exactly do you want to improve? What specific goal will motivate you to do everything you need to do to achieve it? Maybe you want to be so fit and skilled that you are 'at one with your boat' in all conditions; or maybe you just want to be able to compete in 25 knots without capsizing.
Try to stick to Performance and Process goals: those that depend entirely on your own efforts and abilities. You can set Outcome goals: winning a club series or a championship - or even an Olympic medal. But you have to accept that achieving such goals is not completely within your control.
You want to improve as much as possible with the talent, time and money you bring to the game, so aim high. Describe your goal in inspirational terms and write it down somewhere as your Main Goal. Once you know where you are going, you can start to work out how to get there. What's most important in the goal-setting process is the journey you take to reach the desired outcome.
You can do quite a lot on paper - as long as you keep it somewhere safe and easily accessible. With decent software though, not only can you define goals and plans, you can also track your progress dynamically and adapt quickly. I like Goalscape (www.goalscape.com) because it can capture an entire campaign in asingle picture (as shown in the screenshots that accompany this article) – and because it's really easy to use.
Lots of sailors in Olympic classes use this tool, but in fact it can help anyone who is serious about improving their skills - and results.......... Read the full article here.....
To start you off, the Goalscape deal includes a template of the sailing model used in the article, with double Olympian Marcus Baur’s expert notes. This will help aspiring world-beaters and club sailors alike to reach their sailing goals .Fireball Sailors get a 20% discount on both the Goalscape software and subscriptions to Andy's Sailjuice.com website.
The Goalscape deal includes a template of the sailing mode, with structure and expert notes by 49er double Olympian Marcus Baur. Sailjuice provides exclusive additional content via links in specific areas.
Fireball Sailors can take up either or both of these offers. Full details of this offer are here.
These codes apply to credit card sales only and are valid until 31 January 2010.
