Why swimming goals die by October
I have written the same bad goal more times than I will admit. “Drop time in the 100 free.” No course. No number. No gala. It felt serious in week one. Then the 5:45s started and the sentence sat there like a team motto.
The other version is worse: “win my heat at regionals.” That has a date. It also depends on who else is in the water. You can PB and finish fourth, or swim poorly and still medal if the field is thin. Either way you learn the wrong lesson.
Irish age-group swimming rewards a number you can check after a licensed gala, and a week you can count. If you cannot tell on a Sunday whether the goal happened, it was a mood.
Outcome, performance, process
Sport psychology has used this split for decades. Damon Burton’s season with collegiate swimmers found that chasing your own times sat better in the head than a diet of winning. Later work settled on three labels. They tell you what you actually control.
| Outcome | Performance | Process | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A place, a medal, a qualifying spot | A standard you swim — a time, a split, a PB | How you do the work — technique, sessions, habits |
| Example | Final at Leinster SC | 1:06.50 100 free, 25m, Regional SC | Five sessions this week. Three kicks off every free wall |
| Who else decides | The rest of the heat, the QT list, the conversion | Mostly you, plus the clock and the tapers | Almost entirely you |
| Useful for | Direction. A reason to care about a particular gala | A number you can put beside last best | Tuesday night, when there is no board |
| Fails when | It is the only goal. Anxiety eats the race plan | You pick a fantasy drop, or mix SC and LC | You write twelve of them and keep none |
Edwin Locke and Gary Latham’s claim, which sport borrowed from work, is short: specific, reasonably hard goals beat “do your best.” They point your attention, ask for more effort, keep you going, and make you invent a way. “Get faster” is do-your-best in a latex cap.
Use all three; outcome on its own is the problem. Swim Ireland’s National Programme even writes it down: athletes set process and performance goals with the home coach at the start of the season, then review them in December and April. Club squad, same idea. You do not need the pathway paperwork.
Process is the Tuesday base. Performance is the time. Outcome is the thin top — useful, not load-bearing.
SMART that fits a gala, not a poster
SMART is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. Clubs love it on a whiteboard. In the water it is narrower.
Specific is the event and the course: 100 freestyle, 25m. Irish sheets say SC or LC because they are different races — extra turns make short course faster. Skip the course and you will “fail” an honest long-course swim in March.
Measurable is an official time or a session count. “Better underwaters” is a cue. “Three dolphin kicks off every free wall, every session this month” is a goal.
Achievable is not easy. Locke’s point was challenging-and-specific. A 14-year-old on 1:08.4 SC does not write 59.9 for December unless the coach has a reason. Two seconds over a short-course cycle can be a push. Four seconds because a rival is on 1:04 is not a plan.
Relevant is the event you actually race, agreed with the coach. If the programme is 200 IM and you secretly want a 50 fly PB, say so on Monday.
Time-bound is a named gala — Regional SC, the club Level 2 in November, Irish Winter if you are on that list. “By the end of the season” in Ireland can mean August. That is a year, not a deadline.
“Get faster.” “Win more.” “Train hard.” “Make nationals somehow.” None of those have a course, a number, or a Sunday check. They are how you feel in September.
The Irish season is two clocks
Swim Ireland splits the year. Short course (25m) runs from late August through 31 December — club galas, Regional SC Championships, Irish Winter Nationals for those who qualify. Long course (50m) runs from 1 January: McCullagh in February for the faster end, Irish Open in April, Regional Age Group and Senior LC Championships, then Summer Nationals.
Most age-groupers live in the club and regional layer. You still need the split. A time goal for “regionals” with no SC or LC is two exams. Qualifying windows are dated — McCullagh and Irish Open cut-offs sit on the calendar. If the goal is a consideration time, write the window. QT versus CT in parent English is qualifying vs consideration times.
Period 1 is 25m through December; period 2 is 50m from January. Set the SC time for an SC gala.
January long-course times often look slower than December short-course PBs. That is the pool, and often the work. If you treat every Saturday as a verdict on the year, read why mid-season times look worse before you rip up the goal.
Example season goals — one swimmer, two cycles
Made-up numbers. A 14-year-old club swimmer, 100 free as the main event, coach on board. Steal the shape, not the times.
| Short-course cycle (to Dec) | Long-course cycle (to Regional LC) | |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | 100 free 25m 1:06.50 at Regional SC Champs | 100 free 50m 1:09.80 at Regional LC Champs |
| Process / habit | 5 of 6 club sessions each week through November. Log the main set | Same attendance. Two dryland sessions a week. Breakout past 6m off LC walls |
| Outcome (quiet) | Swim the Regional SC final if the time puts her there | Post a licensed LC time inside the next qualifying window she actually needs |
| Not the goal | “Beat Aoife from the other club” | “Drop 4 seconds because LC felt slow in January” |
A worked example — Holly’s 100 free
Same invented club as the heat-sheet guide. Holly Ryan, 14, EXSC. Short-course PB 1:08.42. Coach wants 100 free as the winter event; Regional SC Championships are the date. The card I wish I had at her age:
Holly Ryan · Regional SC Championships, December
Last best: 1:08.42 SC (club Level 2, October last season).
Performance goal: 1:06.50 SC, official, that meet. Same course. About two seconds — a push, not a fantasy, if the weeks are real.
Habit goal: 5 sessions a week, logged. Cue: three underwater kicks off every free wall, including warm-up.
Outcome, in pencil: make the Regional SC final. She warms up on the breakout, not on lane 4 in a final that may not happen.
In Finzy tonight: time goal 100 free SC → 1:06.50. Sessions goal 5× / week.
November club gala: 1:07.6 SC, still heavy training. Checkpoint, not a fail. Sunday: 5 of 6 made. If she is on 3 of 6, the 1:06.5 was never in the water.
One time goal, one habit goal
You can care about more than two things. You cannot track more than two without lying to yourself. I built Finzy around the pair that moves: a time goal on an event, and a sessions / consistency goal for the week. A distance target is there if the coach lives in kilometres. Start with time and habit.
Holly’s pair is 1:06.50 and 5× / week — or dryland 2× if attendance is already solid. “Three kicks off the wall” still belongs in the log note. The bar in the app should be something you will not inflate: sessions made, or a time that dropped or did not.
Open Finzy. Put in one time goal (event, course, number, gala in the name if you want). Put in one habit goal (sessions this week). Then log tonight’s main set. The goal without the log is still a poster.
Parents: sit there while they type. Do not pick the number. A goal a parent entered is a chore.
The Sunday check
Goals do not fail on Saturday. They fail on the weeks you did not count. Ten minutes, phone on the table.
Did the habit happen? How many sessions of the plan? Last official time, right course? One question for Monday — then leave the programme alone. The log is evidence, not a licence to rewrite sets. For the 60-second week, see why swimmers should log training. For event, course, and official vs WhatsApp, see how to track swimming times.
A time goal without a habit goal is a wish with a stopwatch. A habit goal without a time is just attendance. Hold both, on one course, until the gala you named.
When the clock stalls
Sometimes the habit is honest and the PB is not moving. Growth, a heavy block, a new stroke, long course after a short-course winter — all of that can sit a time down. If the weeks look real and the number does not, read why you might not be getting faster before you invent a new personality. A plateau is a pattern over weeks. One slow gala is a Saturday.
Write them tonight
Kitchen table, not the pool balcony. Twenty minutes, including the argument about which event.
- ✓Pick one event and write SC or LC beside it.
- ✓Write last best, then the target time, then the named gala.
- ✓Show the coach. If they wince at the number, change the number — not the sport.
- ✓Write one habit you can count this week: sessions, dryland, or a skill with a number on it.
- ✓Optional: one outcome in pencil. Do not warm up on it.
- ✓Put the time goal and the habit goal into Finzy. Leave the rest off the home screen.
- ✓Log the next session in 60 seconds so the habit has somewhere to live.
- ✓Sunday: count sessions, glance at the time, ask one question. Do not redesign December because Tuesday was heavy.
I wasted seasons on sentences I could not check. The fix is one time, one habit, the right course, a date with a heat sheet. Put both into Finzy today, then go swimming.
