As the new year rolls around many start making resolutions, but according to an international coaching expert, this might not be the best approach.
Wayne Goldsmith, who has over 30 years of experience working with coaches, athletes, teams, and sports organisations worldwide, suggests athletes and coaches, from the grassrootsto professional level, are more likely to achieve results by first taking a step back.
“We know that by the end of January, about 50-70% of those resolutions have been abandoned,” he told Weekend Sport with Jason Pine. “If I said to you, ‘Hey, let’s go and do something, but there’s a 70% chance it’s not going to work’, you’d probably want to take another approach. There’s a much, much better way of reflecting on what’s gone but being better focused on the achievement of change and implementing change going forward.”
Goldsmith emphasises that many coaches tend to abandon too much too soon. He quotes the saying, “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything”, and encourages a more analytical approach: “Sit down for a minute [and ask]: ‘What actually worked, what didn’t work, and what can we do differently?’”
Goldsmith advises coaches to sit down with players, parents, committees and other coaches to get an “objective assessment” of what worked and what didn’t. Change doesn’t need to be major.
“Success could almost blind you. You can look back and say, ‘Okay, the performance was this, therefore we know everything’. Even at the other end of the scale, you could have come last in the competition. It doesn’t mean that every single thing is wrong. Sometimes it’s knowing what to tweak, what to change, what not to change, and how to go about changing it. Quite often, the evidence is right in front of you.”
Wayne Goldsmith urges thoughtful reflection over hasty New Year's resolutions for lasting change. Photo / Andrew Warner
The power of small, consistent change
Goldsmith points out humans want to see results, and when they don’t, they stop. For instance, if someone wants to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, they aren’t going to achieve that after one day in the gym. Instead, people can get into a good routine by breaking up their goals: Aim to be at the gym on time the first day and do 10 minutes of exercise you enjoy. The next day, extend that to 20 minutes and end with five minutes on the bike or treadmill. Slowly increase your efforts, and the results will follow. Goldsmith calls this the “cumulative effect”.
When working with swimmers who want to improve by four seconds to join the national team, Goldsmith advises them to break their goals down and improve by one tenth of a second every session. The smaller steps slowly add up.
Another common mistake, according to Goldsmith, is people make is trying to follow what worked for others.
“[That’s the] wrong way to go about it,” Goldsmith said. “It’s not about following trends and saying, ‘We’re going to change by following what’s working for other people’. We’re already doing some things that are great. Let’s hang on to those. Some things we know just did not work. And then – what did we learn, though? We’ve got to introduce some smart change to make things better.
“You can’t buy success. A story I like to tell is that if I’m a terrible driver and I brake too late or too early and don’t accelerate the right way, and I don’t know how to corner, giving me a Ferrari doesn’t make me a better driver.”
Goldsmith concludes by urging coaches to first figure out what’s working and what’s not.
“I think there’s a lot of coaches that go: You know what, the skills are not great. There’s not a lot of motivation, the culture and the team aren’t really working; a lot of problems with parents. We need a new gym, or everyone needs to get a new uniform, or we need some new goalposts. No good coming up with a great solution to the wrong problem. So first of all, figure out what’s working, figure out what’s not working. And then, what did you learn that you can systematically implement [to] make it better?”
