The leaves are turning and falling to the ground, and for many of us, snow is right around the corner. But you’re a racer, and this is your chance to close out the season with a plan for 2017
With racing just about complete, now is your opportunity to set the groundwork for success by planning your 2017 racing season.
Use a multifaceted approach to this success by getting your mental and physical conditioning in line, get you machine dialed in and put together your social media and content calendar for 2017. We’ll discuss the need for a content calendar in another post but start giving some thought to what you want to do for 2017.
Take the time today to plan what each portion of your racing looks like. You can create the plan digitally, or in print, it doesn’t matter. It’s the process of planning, setting goals and then creating the framework to achieve them.
Let’s begin the process with your goals. You’ll need goals for mental and physical conditioning as well as your results so plan accordingly.
Stephen Covey always taught to “Begin with the end in mind.” That means, pretend it’s October 2017. What did your season look like? Did you compete at the level you knew you could? Were the results what you wanted? Imagine you had the greatest racing season of your career. What steps were required to get there? Write them down and work backward to the beginning.
Success Magazine has an article on setting goals (HERE) with four easy steps.
Evaluate and Reflect – Look back at 2016. What was good and what was bad. Think about what you could have done better but do take some time to think about the successes you had.
Define your Dreams and Goals – Take this time very seriously. Use the power of visualization to map out the success you want to achieve in 2017.
Make your goals SMART – (S)pecific, (M)easurable, (A)ttainable, (R)ealistic, (T)ime.
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- Specific – Be very, very clear on what you want to achieve. Down to the detail. Example -“I want to win the track championship by winning ten overalls this season.”
- Measurable – # of wins or podiums. How many holeshots? Or how many top 10 finishes. Put a specific number to what you want to achieve.
- Attainable – now if you’re racing 250 Novice, the goal can’t be to win Anaheim 1, right? Make your goal realistic. Now if you want to win Anaheim 1, begin working back from that dream and do something this season to move toward that goal. Map it out.
- Realistic – Anaheim 1 again right? But also be very clear on your skill level. This is the time to be very honest with yourself and understand who you are. If you are a back of the pack Vet rider realize your skill set and set goals that can be obtained. Don’t short yourself and make them too easy, but certainly make them within reason.
- Time– Goals are dreams with a deadline. Put a specific time frame in each of your goals. It will make them more serious and give you the boost you need when you don’t want to get off the couch to train.
Have accountability-Share your goals, make them public. Share them with your parents or your friends. If you don’t have anyone to share them with, share them with me. I’ll hold you accountable. When someone makes goals public, they are accountable to them. Upping the chance of success.
Set goals for all aspects of your racing success. My recommendation is to set goals for physical/mental conditioning, race results and sponsor promotions. Make sure all three categories are going toward the same overall success.The method you use to map out and record these goals is secondary; the real key is the process. For me, I’d get a three subject notebook, label each subject and get to work.
As always the ideas expressed above are my own, and I make no claims to the success or failure of implementing them. They are suggestions to make you think. Please vet all ideas against your personal goals before implementing them.
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