It is not always easy to train hard, but without training there is no success. Reflect on this for a moment. Great swimmers never give up in practice. However, the faster you swim in practice, begins to build upon your confidence and skill that culminates in your desired goal ! You must continue to build on your past swimming practice and if you build on the previous practice daily you will achieve your goals.
Practice Attendance
- Swimmers are expected to attend each practice from start to finish. Please do not make plans to arrive late or leave early.
- Late arrivals cannot be tolerated. Please ensure ample “buffer” time with your commute. Bronze swimmers needing assistance with caps and goggles are required to arrive at the pool in time to get assistance prior to practice start time.
- Tardiness may result in disciplinary action.
- Swimmers must be behind the blocks with proper equipment on and ready to swim 5 minutes prior practice start time. Timeliness is a skill that will be used for a lifetime so let’s start now!
- Swimmers unable to get to practice on time due to transportation must discuss this with Coaches
- To avoid disrupting practice a new policy will be enforced. Our general rule is that we will no longer tolerate late arrivals or early dismissals. If there is a pressing priority that is more important than swimming practice, it should be attended to and training will be missed that day.
- The coaches understand that there are other family obligations, and we will be understanding and respectful of those obligations. In return, please be understanding and respectful of our need to have a consistent training environment.
YES YOU CAN!
The importance of “Self Confidence" in Achieving Your Swimming Goals
By Wayne Goldsmith
"Belief is the knowledge that we can do something. It’s the inner feeling that what we undertake,
we can accomplish. For the most part, all of us have the ability to look at something and know
whether or not we can do it. So, in belief there is power: our eyes are opened; our opportunities
become plain; our visions become realities." - unknown.
Have you said (or thought) any of the following in the past few months???
• “I can’t do it"
• “They are much faster than me. I’ll come last."
• “I’m hopeless"
• “I’ve never been able to do that, so I know I can’t do it now"
• “It’s just too hard. It’s impossible"
You are not alone. Many swimmers have these thoughts and say these words from time to time.
Most swimmers (and people generally) have times when they get a little negative and lack faith in
their abilities.
When swimmer’s say “I can’t or “it’s too hard" what are they really saying?
Swimmer says: "I can’t do it."
Swimmer means: "I am not prepared to try because if I fail I will look like a loser and people
might think less of me."
Swimmer says: "They are faster than me. I’ll come last."
Swimmer means: “If I can’t win there’s no point trying."
Swimmer says: “I’m hopeless."
Swimmer means: “I have no faith in myself or my ability to succeed. I have no confidence."
Swimmer says: “I’ve never been able to do that, so I know I can’t do it now."
Swimmer means: “I’ve never really prepared for this or learnt how to do it correctly so the chances of me doing it now are not very goodý or “I tried once and failed, so I am not going to try again."
Swimmer says: “It’s just too hard. It’s impossible."
Swimmer means: “I’m not prepared to try."
Confidence is believing in yourself to do what has to be done. To do what needs to be done, with
faith in your ability to achieve it. To meet new challenges with an expectation that anything is
possible. To accept failure as an opportunity to learn from the experience and try again.
And try again. And try again if necessary.
Confidence is trying to achieve and if you fail knowing that it was the nature of the task or the
circumstances or just plain bad luck not your lack of character that is to blame. Confidence is
learning from that failure and trying again with more energy, more commitment and greater
determination than before. What do some of Australia’s most successful people say about
CONFIDENCE??
"Confidence comes from accepting a challenge and achieving it using the best of your ability.
Confidence builds through training to meet your challenge." - Phil Rogers (Commonwealth Games
and Olympic Medalist).
“Confidence is about believing in yourself and your ability to do something - not necessarily
believing in your ability to do it perfectly or better than other people, but believing that you have as
good a chance as anyone to achieve something. Confidence is having the courage to get up and try
and face whatever the outcome is - good, bad or something in between." - Chloe Flutter (Australian
Representative Swimmer - now Rhodes scholar).
“In my experience, confidence is best achieved through controlled independence. If a young athlete
is constantly challenged to be independent (within reasonable bounds), they will learn to rely on
themselves and know how to thrive without the assistance of others in moments of greatest need.
The ability to follow good decision making processes is a crucial part of this. For young athletes,
teach them to take personal responsibility (control the controllable and develop a chameleon-like
ability to deal with the rest). Confidence is the ability to believe you can do something and the
courage to do it - if others have made the hard decisions for you and you have never had to live
with the results of your own actions, you can never be expected to know full confidence and the
power of the self." - Marty Roberts (Dual Olympian, Commonwealth Games Gold medalist,
University Graduate, father of two).
"Attitudes such as belief, optimism, high aspirations, and anticipation of the best possible result---
all these positive states of mind add up to confidence, the keystone for success. But of course it
pays for all of these to be built on the firm rock of a sound preparation."- Forbes Carlile (Legendary
Coach, successful business man, author, leading anti-drugs in sport campaigner).
Confidence it seems, is a skill – a skill that can be learnt. You learnt to swim. You learnt to tumble
turn. You learnt how to do butterfly. You can learn to be confident.
Leading Melbourne based Sports Psychologist, Dr Mark Andersen agrees: “Many people believe that
confidence is something that comes from the inside, but we probably develop confidence from the
models we have around us, that confidence really comes from the outside. If we have coaches,
parents, teachers and instructors that model confidence in our abilities and let us know that they
think we can do good things, slowly their confidence in us becomes internalized".
This is called the Ladder of Achievement. It shows how your attitude towards a goal or task can
impact on your ability to achieve it.
Ladder Of Achievement
100% I DID
90% I WILL
80% I CAN
70% I THINK I CAN
60% I MIGHT
50% I THINK I MIGHT
40% WHAT IS IT?
30% I WISH I COULD
20% I DON’T KNOW HOW
10% I CAN’T
0% I WON’T
The ladder of achievement suggests that an attitude of “I can’t has almost no chance of success
whilst “I wont is no chance at all. Change “I can’t and “I wont " to I CAN – I WILL – I DID!!
A few tips to develop confidence:
Accept who you are and learn to like and respect yourself.
Nothing helps build confidence like learning the 3 P’s:
• Practice to the best of your ability.
• Develop a Positive Attitude to trying new tasks.
• Persevere, Persevere, Persevere.
Understand what motivates you to do well then you can harness your energy in the right directions.
Failure is a race or a meet or a task – it is not a person. Failure is not the person: it’s not you – it’s
the performance. Learn to separate who you are from what you do.
Learn to talk to yourself…..positively. When the negative thoughts come, learn to replace them with
positive ones. I can’t = I can, I won’t = I will, I will try = I did. Remember the old saying, “If you
think you can or think you can’t you’re probably right".
“The greatest achievement is not in never failing but in getting up every time you fall". Keep trying
and it will happen.
What you believe, you can, with effort and persistence, achieve.
Dream a dream, believe in that dream, work towards achieving it and live the dream.
Anything worth having is worth working to achieve.
Talent is important, but there are many talented swimmers who don’t make it to the top. TOUGH,
TENACIOUS TRAINING makes up for most talent limitations.
Successful people are not afraid to fail. They have the ability to accept their failures and continue
on, knowing that failure is a natural consequence of trying.
The law of failure is one of the most powerful of all the success laws because you only really fail
when you quit trying.
Speedo Tip of the Week is an excerpt from the January-February 200This week’s 8 issue of Splash, in which correspondent Linda Hass writes about the potential effectiveness of New Year’s Resolutions.
The Tip:Turn your New Year's Resolution into a tool that adds excitement to your swim experience and power to your performance in the pool. If you haven't thought of a resolution yet – or even if you have and you want to fine tune it – the new year is the perfect time to aspire to your best in the water, on the deck or with the team. "Athletes should set goals anyway. Jan. 1 is the perfect time to take that to the next level by making a formal announcement," said Pam Braseth, head coach for the USA Bluewater Barracudas,
Other keys to successful resolutions include strong commitment to a few attainable goals, plans that measure progress and taking action daily, according to a 1997
Once you've made a resolution, create a plan to achieve it.
"Each day brings a series of choices that can move you closer to your goal, whether it be making a special effort to streamline turns or going out of your way to encourage teammates," Braseth said.
