Goal setting for young athletes: a coach's guide

Most goal setting for young athletes goes wrong in the same place. The coach, or more often the parent, fixes on a result: win the county, get selected, make the final. Then the player loses in the quarters, and the goal becomes proof of failure. A goal that can only be met by beating someone else is a goal the player does not control.

There is a better way to do this, and it starts with what the player can actually change.

Outcome goals demotivate juniors

An outcome goal is a result. Win the tournament. Reach the regional squad. Beat the kid who always beats you. These feel motivating to adults because adults can hold a long arc in their heads. A twelve-year-old cannot. They feel the result, win or lose, on the day, and they read it as a verdict on whether they are any good.

The deeper problem is control. A young player can train perfectly for six weeks, play their best match of the season, and still lose to someone older, taller or simply further along. If the goal was “win”, they failed. If they keep failing at goals they could not control, they stop caring about goals. That is how a motivated junior becomes a shrug.

Process goals give them something to win every day

A process goal is the controllable behaviour underneath the result. Not “win the match”, but “split step on every one of your opponent’s contacts”. Not “get selected”, but “play the high serve to a length eight times out of ten in your next three sessions”.

The player can meet a process goal at training on a wet Tuesday with nobody watching. They can meet it in a match they lose. The result stops being the scoreboard and starts being the behaviour, and the behaviour is the thing that, repeated, actually produces the wins later. You are not lying to them about winning. You are pointing them at the only lever they can pull.

Draw the goal from their weakest pillar

The best process goals are not invented, they are found. If you assess your players on a framework, the goal should come straight from the assessment, specifically from the pillar where they are furthest behind.

A player who scores well on technique but poorly on movement does not need a goal about their smash. They need a goal about getting back to base, or their split-step timing, or their recovery after a lunge. Naming the weakest pillar turns a vague “get better” into a specific, trainable target. It also stops you setting goals around the skills a player already enjoys, which is the comfortable trap.

Make it age-appropriate, controllable and reviewed

Three things separate a goal that works from a goal that gathers dust.

Age-appropriate. A nine-year-old does not need a periodised six-month plan. They need one thing to think about this month, in language they can repeat back to you. An older junior can hold a longer arc and a couple of layered goals. Match the horizon to the age.

Controllable. Test every goal against one question: can the player meet this through their own effort, regardless of the opponent or the draw? If the answer is no, it is an outcome dressed up as a goal. Rewrite it as the behaviour underneath.

Reviewed. A goal you set and never mention is a note, not a goal. Tie the review to your block structure: set it at the start of a block, check it at the end, then set the next one. The review is where the motivation lives, because it is where the player sees the line moving.

The parent’s role: cheer for the process

Parents are the loudest voice a young player hears, and most of them have been trained by sport to ask about the scoreboard. “Did you win?” teaches a child that the result is what matters and that losing is failure. It quietly undoes the work you are doing.

Give parents the process goal and tell them what to ask instead. “Did you do your split step?” “How many of your serves found a length?” When the parent reinforces the behaviour rather than the result, the player gets the same message at home and at the club, and a controllable goal becomes the family’s definition of a good day. Sharing what you are working on, and only what you choose to share, keeps everyone pointed the same way.

Track it, then adjust

A goal is a hypothesis: do this, and that skill improves. The only way to know is to look. Reassess against the same framework at the end of the block and put the new score next to the old one. If the weakest pillar has moved, the goal worked, so retire it and pick the next one. If it has not moved, the goal was wrong, the dose was too small, or the player needs a different cue, so change it.

This is the loop that makes goal setting real instead of decorative: assess, set a controllable process goal from the weakest pillar, coach it, review it, reassess, adjust. Do that for a season and a young athlete does not just have goals. They can see themselves arriving.