SETTING GOALS

In swimming, as in all athletic endeavors, it is important to give yourself something to strive for. You should set both interim and ultimate goals, and they should be both difficult and realistic. If your best time for the mile swim is twenty-six minutes, an ultimate goal might be twenty-two minutes. But you must face that you are not going to get there all at once. Set an interim goal of, say, twenty-five minutes, and make sure to savor that feeling of accomplishment when you achieve it. Then set out to reach your next interim goal—say twenty-four and a half minutes.

Your goal can be much more modest. If you haven’t exercised for years, and were never much of a swimmer to begin with, your ultimate goal the first season might simply be to swim a mile without stopping. If you can only make two laps (50 yards) before becoming winded the first time out, don’t be discouraged. Set an interim goal of twenty laps, or 500 yards. Each time you work out, say three times a week, decide to do a nonstop swim in which you try to go one lap farther than you did the previous time. It will be difficult at first, but eventually adding that lap will not be difficult at all. In just a few weeks you will have reached your first interim goal. Then set your next interim goal, 1,000 yards, without stopping.

Whatever your level of swimming, keep your eye on the prize—your ultimate goal—but enjoy that delicious feeling of success at each small step along the way.