How to Follow Through With Your Soccer and Athletic Goals for the New Year

Let’s face it–staying on track with your New Years’ resolutions can be challenging for anyone.

The good news is athletes and soccer players know just how much goal-setting can benefit them in the long run. Commitment and focus are essential tools athletes use every day to better themselves.

Those very same tactics can help you follow through with your New Year athletic goals.

Whether your New Year athletic goals are to get stronger, smarter, or fitter, we can help. Here is a guide to following through with your soccer and athletic goals for 2023.

Create a Habit

Experts say the best way to motivate a new habit is to tie it to an existing part of your routine.

If you already go for a run every morning, and your goal is to be more flexible in the New Year, maybe you tack on a minute of stretching before or after your existing routine. Then, after you feel comfortable with one minute, you increase it to two, and so on.

You don’t need to make massive changes; building small, sustainable moments in your daily life will help create a new routine around your desired goals. You’ll be touching your toes before you know it!

Focus on Performance, Not Outcomes

If you focus on what you’re doing (or, more precisely, not doing) when trying to achieve a new athletic goal, you’ll probably start off disappointed.

Try this: every time you practice your goal, notice what you did better. It doesn’t always have to be physical. If you are aiming to run a sprint in a certain amount of time, but you don’t get it the first few weeks, notice what did change.

You could recognize that you felt stronger, breathed more evenly, self-corrected your self-talk, or bounced back at the moment.

By self-reflecting and keeping your focus in the present, you are allowing yourself to fail—an essential tool for growth. Remember, a goal is something you want to improve on, and perfectionism can kill your goal before you even give yourself a chance!

Get a Buddy

Having a friend who has their sights set on the same goals as you can be a great motivator. If there is someone on your team or in your community who has a similar goal as you, it’s a great idea to partner with them in order to stay on track.

Or, if you’re a soccer player with a teammate who wants to improve their defensive work and you want to work on 1 v 1 situations, you can partner up to challenge each other and stay motivated.

Trust the Process

No one, not even Carli Lloyd herself, was born a perfect soccer player. Patience is key to following through on your soccer goals.

Something that can help with this is setting short-term goals and long-term goals. For example, your short-term soccer goal might be to master a step-over move, and your long-term soccer goal might be to make it your go-to move in a game situation.

From there, you can give yourself small daily goals. Maybe your short-term goal is to master the footwork required without the ball first, drop your shoulder more, or increase the speed of the trick.

Tracking your progress this way can help you feel more accountable and increase your sense of accomplishment over time.

Takeaways

How to follow through with your soccer and athletic goals for the New Year:

• Create a daily habit so you create the space needed for your New Years’ athletic goals.
• Focus on performance and track small wins.
• Find a buddy who can help keep you on track with your athletic goals. Soccer players usually find this can help improve their teamwork skills, too!
• Be patient with yourself. Learning something new is an excellent opportunity to identify your own strengths and weaknesses, and achieving a goal takes time.

Featured image via Adobe Stock Images

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