When developing your performance within Motorsport, every competitor – at any level – should consider the development of an action plan, designed to motivate and guide them towards an identified goal(s).  In this resource you will find Motorsport UK Academy’s top tips.

GOAL SETTING

Goal setting is identifying the steps to your success.  When you achieve one, you must start another, but you need a strategy to get from A (current ability), to B (short term goals), to C (medium term goals), to D (long term goals).  To help you achieve this, the ‘SMARTER’ goal setting principle will enable you to have an anchor on which to base all of your focus and decision-making.

Specific – Individualised to you and your sport

Measurable – Allows your improvement to be monitored

Agreed – So that you and your coach are working effectively together

Realistic – Keeps you motivated to achieve your goals

Timed – Deadlines keep your training effective

Exciting – To keep you interested and working hard

Recorded – To help evaluate and design your training programmes

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLANNING

• If you haven’t got a plan, how can you be organised? It is important to know where you are going and when you will get there
• It gives you control of your development – you have a vision of what you want to achieve.
• A plan is a measure of success – you have goals to achieve within the plan
• If you fail to plan, you plan to fail

Within the Motorsport UK Academy, we use Performance Profiling which is a tool to assess your current strengths and weaknesses. It’s a powerful tool because it allows you to better understand how to capitalise on your strengths during competition, as well as identifying areas for improvement.

A performance profile should highlight all the factors necessary to succeed in Motorsport and achieve your goals. You can then rate yourself (1 being very poor and needs a lot of work and 10 being world class) in each of these areas to identify where you believe your strengths and weaknesses lie.

The Academy use common factors that most drivers believe are relevant and group them into four areas;

• Technical and tactical
• Physical
• Psychological and social
• Commercial

YOUR INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN (IDP)

Your Individual Development Plan (IDP) can be presented in a way that is individual to you.    When building your development plan, you should consider the following points;

• Strengths (3 highest scoring factors from your performance profile)
• Areas for improvement (2 lowest scoring factors from your Performance Profile)
• Goal setting (short, medium, long term)
• Cover driver development, personal development and commercial development
• What are you going to do?
• How are you going to do it?

TOP TIPS FOR GOAL SETTING & IDP’s

Top tips to developing Team You, is to keep in mind the Performance Improvement Cycle;

• Set Goals – think SMARTER
• Make a plan – your IDP
• DO IT!
• Evaluate – consult your coach, teammates, fellow competitors, video analysis