Start With the End: Building Your Season Goals

# Start With the End: Building Your Season Goals

Before I plan the first practice of a season, I want to think about the last one.

Not because I know exactly what will happen during the season.

I don't.

Athletes will develop differently than expected.

Injuries may happen.

Lineups may change.

Some skills will develop quickly.

Others will take much longer.

But I still want to begin with a vision.

I want to ask:

**"What do I want this team to be capable of doing by the end of the season?"**

And just as importantly:

**"What kind of athletes do I want them to become?"**

Those two questions should guide almost everything that follows.

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Don't Start With Drills

One of the easiest mistakes for new coaches to make is beginning season planning by searching for drills.

Passing drills.

Serving drills.

Defense drills.

Competitive drills.

There's nothing wrong with collecting good drills.

But drills should come later.

First determine what you're trying to build.

A drill is simply a tool.

Until you know what you're building, you don't know which tools you need.

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Evaluate the Team You Actually Have

Before establishing goals, understand your athletes.

Not the team you wish you had.

The team you actually have.

Consider:

• Age.
• Experience.
• Skill level.
• Physical development.
• Volleyball IQ.
• Position experience.
• Communication ability.
• Emotional maturity.
• Competitive experience.

A first-year 13U team and an experienced 17U national team shouldn't have the same developmental goals.

That sounds obvious.

But coaches sometimes copy systems from higher-level teams without considering whether their athletes possess the skills necessary to execute them.

Your plan should begin with your athletes.

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Ask Where They Can Realistically Go

Once you understand where your athletes are...

Ask where they can reasonably be several months from now.

Your goals should challenge them.

But they should also be achievable.

If the goals are too easy, development slows.

If they're completely unrealistic, frustration grows.

Great season goals live somewhere between:

**Where we are now**

and

**What we could realistically become with excellent coaching and consistent work.**

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Build Goals in Three Areas

I believe every season plan should include three types of goals.

Technical Goals

These answer:

**What skills do our athletes need to develop?**

Examples might include:

• Consistent serve receive.
• Aggressive serving.
• Better attacking mechanics.
• Setter location.
• First-tempo attacking.
• Blocking footwork.
• Defensive movement.
• Out-of-system setting.

These are the physical skills required to play the game.

---

Tactical Goals

These answer:

**How do we want our team to play volleyball?**

Examples might include:

• Run a fast side-out offense.
• Develop an aggressive free-ball offense.
• Serve specific zones with purpose.
• Establish a disciplined defensive system.
• Transition quickly from defense to offense.
• Become comfortable playing out of system.
• Create multiple attacking options from quality passes.

Technical skills give athletes tools.

Tactical development teaches them how to use those tools together.

---

Human Development Goals

This is the category coaches too often forget.

Ask:

**Who do we want our athletes to become?**

Maybe you want your team to develop:

• Communication.
• Accountability.
• Leadership.
• Resilience.
• Emotional control.
• Confidence.
• Coachability.
• Independence.
• Competitive toughness.
• Better decision-making.

Those aren't secondary goals.

They're part of athlete development.

You can have technically talented athletes who collapse under adversity.

You can have great systems that fail because nobody communicates.

You can have tremendous physical ability destroyed by poor emotional control.

The human side of performance deserves intentional development too.

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A 14U Example

Let's imagine we're coaching a competitive 14U club team.

After evaluating the athletes, we might establish several end-of-season goals.

Technical

By championship season, we want to:

• Consistently pass enough balls in system to run multiple attacking options.
• Establish reliable first-tempo middle attacks.
• Develop consistent serving with increasing aggression.
• Improve attacking mechanics at every position.
• Build disciplined blocking and defensive movement.

Tactical

We want to:

• Run an aggressive three-option offense from quality passes.
• Transition quickly from defense into offense.
• Use serving strategically rather than simply putting the ball in play.
• Become capable of scoring when we're out of system.
• Defend with clear responsibilities and disciplined positioning.

Human Development

We want athletes who:

• Communicate without being reminded.
• Recover quickly after mistakes.
• Hold themselves accountable.
• Solve problems during competition.
• Support teammates.
• Accept coaching.
• Compete confidently under pressure.

Now we know what we're trying to build.

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Don't Create Twenty Priorities

Here's where coaches can overcomplicate things.

Everything cannot be the most important thing.

If you create thirty major season goals, you don't really have priorities.

You have a wish list.

Choose the developmental outcomes that matter most for this particular team.

There will always be more volleyball to teach.

The question is:

**What does this team need most?**

Prioritize those things.

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Goals Should Influence Practice Time

Your priorities should be visible in your practice plans.

If passing is one of your most important developmental goals...

It should receive meaningful practice time.

If communication is a major human-development goal...

You should intentionally coach communication.

If you say serving aggressively matters but spend five minutes serving at the end of practice...

Your practice doesn't match your philosophy.

Where coaches spend time tells athletes what coaches truly value.

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Make Goals Specific Enough to Coach

Avoid goals like:

*"Become better passers."*

That's too vague.

Better how?

Instead:

*"By the middle of the season, our passers should consistently move early, establish balanced platforms, communicate seams, and deliver enough quality passes for our setter to maintain multiple attacking options."*

Now we can teach it.

The clearer the destination...

The easier it becomes to build the path.

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Winning Is Not a Development Plan

Every competitive coach wants to win.

I certainly do.

Competition matters.

But:

*"Win more tournaments"*

isn't enough of a season development plan.

Winning is an outcome.

Your job is to identify the behaviors and skills that make winning more likely.

Instead of:

*"We want to win our qualifier."*

Ask:

**What kind of volleyball must we be capable of playing by qualifier season to give ourselves the best opportunity to win?**

That's something you can coach.

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Don't Build Your Goals Around Your Best Player

Another common mistake is designing a system around what your most talented athlete can currently do.

Maybe you have an outstanding outside hitter.

So every important ball goes outside.

It may help you win today.

But what are you developing?

Your setter isn't learning to distribute.

Your middles aren't developing.

Your right sides aren't becoming offensive threats.

Your team becomes dependent on one athlete.

Sometimes short-term success hides long-term developmental problems.

Build the team.

Not just the lineup.

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Goals Can Change

Season planning doesn't mean stubbornly following a plan that isn't working.

Good coaches adjust.

Maybe your athletes progress faster than expected.

Raise the standard.

Maybe a skill takes longer.

Give it more time.

Maybe injuries change your roster.

Adapt.

The goals provide direction.

They aren't handcuffs.

The important thing is that changes are intentional rather than emotional.

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From the Sideline

Early in my coaching career, I sometimes thought about the season one tournament at a time.

What do we need this weekend?

What lineup gives us the best chance?

What broke down last tournament?

What should we fix next?

Over time, I realized I needed to think much further ahead.

I started asking:

*"What do I want these athletes to look like several months from now?"*

That changed practice planning.

It changed how patient I became with skill development.

It changed how I evaluated success.

Sometimes we weren't ready to do something in January that I knew we'd need in April.

That was okay.

January was preparing us for February.

February was preparing us for March.

And March was preparing us for April.

That's what a season should feel like.

**Progress with direction.**

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Your Goals Become Your Filter

Once your season goals are established, coaching decisions become easier.

Someone sends you a new drill.

Ask:

*"Does this help us accomplish one of our developmental goals?"*

You see another team running a complicated system.

Ask:

*"Does that system fit what we're trying to build?"*

Your team struggles with something during a tournament.

Ask:

*"Does this require changing our developmental priorities?"*

Your goals become a filter.

They keep you from chasing every new idea or reacting emotionally to every result.

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Common Mistakes Coaches Make

• Starting with drills instead of goals.
• Copying another team's system without considering athlete ability.
• Setting too many priorities.
• Creating goals that are too vague to coach.
• Focusing only on technical development.
• Treating winning as the entire development plan.
• Building around one talented athlete instead of developing the team.
• Refusing to adjust when athletes need something different.

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Key Takeaways

• Begin season planning by determining where you want the team to finish.
• Evaluate the athletes you actually have before establishing goals.
• Create technical, tactical, and human-development goals.
• Choose priorities instead of trying to develop everything simultaneously.
• Make goals specific enough to guide practice.
• Let your priorities determine how practice time is spent.
• Winning is an outcome, not a developmental plan.
• Adjust when necessary without losing long-term direction.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How many season goals should I create?

There isn't a perfect number.

The goal is clarity.

Choose enough priorities to create a complete developmental plan without creating so many that your coaching becomes unfocused.

Should athletes know the team's season goals?

Absolutely.

Athletes should understand what they're building toward.

When players understand the purpose behind training, practices become more meaningful.

Should parents know the developmental goals?

Sharing the overall philosophy can be extremely helpful.

Parents don't need every technical detail, but understanding the team's developmental priorities can help them see progress beyond tournament results.

What if we don't accomplish every goal?

That's okay.

A development plan isn't successful only when every box gets checked.

Evaluate what improved, what didn't, why, and what should come next.

That's part of coaching too.

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Continue Learning

• Work Backward: Turning Season Goals Into Teachable Skills
• Building a Season in Phases
• Milestones: How Do You Know Your Team Is Actually Improving?
• Every Practice Needs a Purpose
• Don't Let Last Weekend Hijack Your Development Plan

Before asking what you're going to teach tomorrow...

Ask what you're trying to build by the end of the season.

**Know the destination first.**

Then start building the road that will take your athletes there.