Granted, sports psychologists usually want athletes to visualize themselves winning, but periodically you do have to make sure you're still on the same path as when you started. If it is increasingly obvious that you're not doing well in your sport, you must sit yourself down and re-evaluate what you are doing. Both are necessary and important. Therefore, you can't focus on the first without also pursuing the second. This means meeting people, asking questions, educating yourself, keeping yourself healthy, and building on all your experiences so that some day you have a successful career.
Coaches play a very important part in helping athletes set goals.
Good coaches will help you set challenging, but achievable ones. In fact, this ability is what separates great coaches from merely good ones. Great coaches know how to help you achieve more than you ever thought possible and how to do it without hurting you in the process. Richard Quick is perhaps the top swimming coach in the country right now. He served as the U.S. women's coach at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and his women's team at Stanford has won 11 NCAA national titles in 13 years.