How to Help Your Athletes Set Goals That Actually Stick

On the Strong Girl Talk podcast, Molly Hurford and Dr. Sasha Gollish talked about how to set goals for athletes, and here, we’re breaking it down for coaches who are trying to help athletes set early season goals.

What is goal setting?

Goal setting is the practice of identifying something you want to achieve and creating a plan to get there. But it’s not just about outcomes like medals or personal bests. It’s about building direction, purpose, and progress in a way that aligns with your values, your well-being, and your own definition of success.

We believe goal setting isn’t about perfection—it’s about intention. It’s how you learn, grow, and celebrate who you are along the way, not just when you cross the finish line, finish a big project, or meet a big team goal.

Start with FUN

However, coaches of young athletes need to remember that goal-setting should look different for kiddos. Goal setting in an adult context might be harmful to kids, especially those under 12. We highlight this work from the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Goal setting in youth sport: are we unintentionally contributing to dropout, (PS it’s open access!). We also recommend these great resources from ILoveToWatchYouPlay and TrueSport.

This one is worth putting on a poster in your gym. If you want kids to succeed, they have to keep coming back. And they only keep coming back if they're having fun. The actual question to ask your athletes — especially under 12 — isn't "what's your time goal?" It's "what makes this fun for you? What makes it not fun?"

Ditch the "Right Decision" Mindset Around Goals

SMART goals aren't always the answer. Depending on the type of goal or where an athlete is in their season or life, rigidly measurable goals can set them up for weekly feelings of failure. Think about a post-surgery athlete — the goal is to recover, and that's a valid goal even if it doesn't fit a tidy framework.

Consider the Three Types of Goals

We love this framework from Skadi Sports Psychology, which emphasizes the use of these three types of goals for effective goal setting:

Outcome Goals: These are your major achievements, such as winning a competition or qualifying for a championship.
Performance Goals: These focus on improving individual performance metrics, like increasing a training pace or earning a personal best.
Process Goals: These are the specific, controllable daily tasks and habits that support your performance and outcome goals. For example, sticking to a specific training schedule.

But here’s the thing: For athletes going through puberty (roughly 12–18), outcome and time-based goals can be actively harmful. Bodies are changing in unpredictable ways. Pushing specific performance targets during this window can lead athletes to try to manipulate their bodies, which is a road no one wants to go down.

The Pyramid Framework

One useful structure for coaches working with athletes on annual planning: think of goals as a pyramid.

Big outcome goal sits at the top
Below it, the two or three things that would need to happen for that goal to be achievable
Then quarterly milestones, monthly targets, weekly priorities
The base of the pyramid is made up of the daily behaviors and habits that support everything above

This helps athletes (and coaches) see that the big goal isn't something you chase directly. It's the result of consistently doing the smaller things underneath it. And it helps keep athletes working towards the big goal even when they may not be seeing numbers move in the direction that they want.

Goals Have a Past, Present, and Future

Before setting new goals, it's worth doing a honest review of past ones — both the wins and the misses.

Help your athletes ask:

What went well and why? (Can we repeat it?)
What didn't go well and why? (What was in our control?)
What am I bringing into this next goal from my history as an athlete?

Goals don't exist outside of who a person is. When athletes connect their goals to their own story, the goals become more meaningful and more sustainable.

Practical Notes for Your Team Goal-Setting

Goals need to be written down (or recorded) in some form: a note on their phone, post-its on a mirror, a voice memo, or a weekly check-in with you as the coach. The format matters less than the consistency of revisiting them.

If an athlete hits every single goal they set, they're probably not setting ambitious enough goals.

When athletes fall short, they're allowed to sit in the disappointment. 24 hours is a reasonable window before redirecting toward what comes next.

And always, always remember: Your words carry enormous weight. Athletes remember offhand comments from coaches for decades. You have more power to create a positive or negative moment than you probably realize.

Listen to the whole episode here: