Skating Fridays

Competition Goals

My local competition is coming up soon, and I wanted to share my goals with you. Normally, I would be hoping for a clean program with beautiful edges, postures and extension. Secretly, I would also hope for a new personal best score.

However, none of those are my goal for this competition.

Why? Well, I am still sick! It’s been 3+ months, and my bronchitis has not improved. Don’t worry, I am returning to the pulmonologist by the end of the month for a follow-up and a more thorough examination. In the meantime, I have new goals for the competition.

After speaking with my mental coach, we’ve decided that my goal is to gather information. I want to gather information to see 1) how an inhaler affects my skating, and 2) how being sick is affecting my performance. From there, we can further assess where I need to focus my attention and how to adjust my practices and mindset so that I achieve optimal performance… given these challenges.

I like my revised set of goals and think that is a good, healthy mindset for me to enter the competition with. Rather than focusing on performance, my goal is to learn.

If you compete, what are your goals, and how do you alter them from competition to competition?

2 Comments

  1. September 14, 2019 / 11:11 pm

    Eva, that is so wise. Modifying goals to accommodate your body will help you perform better in the long run–plus it will take away that added stress of only worrying about the scores. Best of luck–looking forward to hearing what you learn.

    • evabakes
      Author
      September 15, 2019 / 7:25 pm

      That’s all I can do right now. If I worry about skating skills and posture, I will likely run out of breath and be disappointed in any outcomes. Might as well focus on what I can learn from all of this!

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