There are traditional times, birthdays and New Years, for people to evaluate their lives, their goals, their past and their future. For gymnasts who wish to, more successfully and specifically, direct their gymnastics career, evaluation and planning needs to take place every week.

A Weekly Review

Gymnasts and coaches need to look back on their week and review what happened (and what didn’t happen). They need to see their last week and what it has done to change their place in achieving their short term competition and skill goals and where they are now in terms of their long-term career goals.

Highs, Lows and Lessons Learned

Looking back over the past lets you know what you need to do in the future. Sometime every Saturday or Sunday, you should review your past week – the highs and the lows and evaluate where you are, what you still need to do and what lessons you learned.

20 Questions That are Not a Game

To maximize the benefits of this process, you need to ask yourself at least these 20 questions.  Reflection, evaluation and adaptation are the keys to progress and success.

1. What new skills did I learn last week?
2. How many skills did I learn?
3. Did I learn at least one new skill every day?
4. What was my greatest accomplishment over the past week?
5. Which was my most memorable moment last week?
6. What was my biggest improvement this week?
7. What did I waste the most time on last week?
8. What mental barriers interfered with my workouts/competition last week?
9. What did I avoid doing last week that I needed to do?
10. Did I review and improve all my current skills?
11. Did I make progress this week on improving for competition this year?
12. Did I learn skills and make steps of progress for my future gymnastics career?
13. Where am I on my preparation for upcoming meets?
14. Where am I now on my annual plan?
15. Did I accomplish all my goals last week?
16. Is there anything I need to ask my coach about?
17. What’s the next daily step of progress for each of my goals?
18. What was my biggest problem last week?
19. What is my biggest failing in achieving my goals?
20. Did my actions last week move me closer to my goals?