Derby Diary

Things have been very busy since my last post, I tried to find out what date my “New Things” post was but I can’t (grumble grumble tumblr where is the date grrr). I have completed the first phase of training for my new job and after a holiday in Barcelona for Primavera (Eeeeeeeeee!!) next week I will start my first one year placement- it’s a good 40 minute drive away from my house but they offer flexible working so I think I will still be able to make it to training on time!

Our Tiger B Brawlers game against Bristol wasn’t victorious for us with a score of BHH 231-191 TBB B, but the rankings had predicted a much lower score and as a result we moved up four places in the rankings! So I was happy and proud of the team for that. We played well on the day and I’m looking forward to watching the team progress (and captaining again if they’ll have me).

Our Tiger A Brawlers game against Middlesborough Milk Rollers the week before was a great experience for me as I jammed. From watching back the footage from both of these games though, it was clear to me that I still have a lot to work on jamming-wise and it was definitely the right decision on the bench team’s part not to jam me in our game against Lincolnshire Bombers yesterday. We came out of that one with a score of TBB 193-66 LBRG which we are all proud of, as LBRG were one of the teams we looked to when starting out as a league. It also shunted us up the rankings nicely too!

Goal Setting

One thing that resonated with me yesterday was that although we beat our opponents by nearly 130 points, we didn’t meet our team goal and this had a bigger effect on the bench than the win. We are an extremely competitive team and this isn’t for everyone, in which case we offer other options for playing. But I chose this team for this reason- I want to train and play hard, I want to win, and this ethos is shared by every single girl on our travel team. I can’t speak on behalf of  my team, but I take our goals seriously and I focus on them before and during every game. I try to set personal goals, but sometimes they take a backseat to the team goal. This is perhaps detrimental to my play, as I could be more specific in how I can help to achieve our team goal and set a personal goal in that way. 

In work and in training, we try to set goals that are SMART: Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. This makes sure we are setting goals that are realistic and that allow us to track our progress visibly. The next step is SMARTER goals: ones that are Evaluated and Re-evaluated so that they become achievable the next time, and it is really important to do this to avoid feeling disappointed if we do not achieve it. But something that is not addressed is “how important is this goal?” or “Is this our most important goal?”. Our most important goal really, is winning! And I feel I have lost sight of this in the last couple of games, to the detriment of my enjoyment of the game itself. 

So next time, fun is my first goal. Winning is my second. After that I will set some SMARTER goals based around our team goal. We can’t possibly lose ;)