Setting Goals For Yourself, or How To Feel Better About Sucking

I approach skating the same way I approach learning any new skill. I break it down into a series of goals that I can measure my progress against. Sometimes I have to amend the goals as I learn more, but flexibility is ok. I remember being told once that all goals should be SMART. That is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed. You can apply this to skating really easily, and it'll help you by giving you that little boost of confidence that you really need at the beginning.

Specific - instead of going into a skating session with no aim, find something each week to concentrate on. Want to skate backwards? Make that your goal. If you don't have specific goals you won't have any focus.

Measurable - Instead of saying "today I want to practice skating backwards" try skating backwards for a whole lap. Or maybe gliding on one foot for 5 seconds.  Pick things that you can define and measure, if your goal is "get better at skating" you'll never really achieve it, which is self defeating.

Achievable/ Realistic - know your limits, and set yourself a goal that is just outside of your current reach. When I started my goal was to to stand still without rolling away. Once I had that under control I could mentally hi five myself and move on to something trickier, like gaining forward momentum. What I didn't do was try to run before I could walk.

Timed - try to say "I'm going to learn to do this today", or this week, or over two weeks. Set yourself a challenge each week so it never gets too boring.

Setting goals really helps to break down the learning process, which for me makes it a lot less daunting. Look at what other skaters are doing to get ideas of what you can aim for!