Motivation
You won’t see any athletes fulfill their potential if they lack the proper motivation.
However, it’s completely natural to feel dips in motivation throughout your journey.
Sport psychology teaches you mental skills and mindsets that leave you feeling this dip in motivation less frequently, while also supplying you with tools to increase motivation no matter where you are in your journey.
It’s important to understand where motivation comes from if you want to tame it. So, what factors are most important in maintaining healthy motivation?
Where does motivation come from?
Some excellent research has boiled down motivation to three important factors: control, competence, and connection.
Control: athletes feel more motivated when they have control over their path to success
This does not mean total control. But, it does mean they have influence in their path to success, rather than simply being told what to do, where to go, and how to do everything.
In practice, control be seen as an athlete being able to control what they work on. You can also imagine a student athlete being pushed by their parents or coaches what college they should commit to. Lacking control over their destination undoubtedly drains their motivation to work hard.
Coaches can facilitate control in their athletes by giving them a selection of (ideally, equally effective) drills to choose to practice, and hearing their thoughts on team-strategy. Treating them more like a teammate, less like an obedient soldier, gives them more of an investment in the work to perform.
Parents can facilitate this control by asking their child what they want - where they want to play or what goals they want to strive for.
Competence: a person’s perception of their ability to perform a certain task or skill.
If an athlete is low in competence, they don’t believe they’ll be successful in their performance domain. This facilitates performance anxiety, self-doubt, and ultimately, burnout. Very few athletes are motivated to practice when anxiety and self-doubt are continuously present.
On the other hand, if an athlete perceives their ability as equal or better than their peers, they feel more excited and motivated to compete. This is especially true as competence keeps rising. The first time athletes score, win, or feel like they’re getting a hang of things, they often generate a burning desire to keep working and competing.
Coaches can facilitate competence in their athletes by acknowledging their improvement in practices and games. Many athletes get stuck thinking negatively about themselves or don’t acknowledge their progress and accomplishments. Coaches have massive influence on their athletes - maintain their motivation by affirming athletes’ competence.
Parents can promote competence in their child athletes by focusing less on the negative, more on the positive. Nothing can kill an athlete’s sense of competence like constantly hearing from their parents what they didn’t do well or should work on. Coaches fill this role! As a parent, point out what you like to see. Whether it’s a great play or a simple act of supporting their teammates, it will fuel motivation more than picking apart their flaws. Some criticism is fine if it’s coupled with praise. Try the compliment sandwich - compliment —> critique —> compliment. People are more receptive to criticism when there’s praise mixed in.
Connection: think of this as social connection.
When I ran cross-country in high school, I didn’t need much help in my motivation, partly because I enjoyed the company of so many friends throughout each season. After high school, I ran by myself for a few months before motivation quickly dwindled because the connection component of my motivation took a massive hit.
When athletes feel connected to their teammates, coaches, or others in their sport community, they’re more motivated to train and fulfill their potential. This social connection is also a great buffer to stress, which is fuel to the fire of burnout if left unchecked.
Coaches can promote connection within their teams through team-bonding activities. These can be inside practice, like drills that split the team into smaller teams with fun consequences, or outside of practice, like hosting team dinners. Additionally, coaches have a good grip on the athletes who seem isolated. While talking to athletes who have trouble making friends on the team won’t magically give them a close group of friends, they will feel more connected to the coach which is an important dimension of this connection component.
Parents can also check in on their child’s social group within their sport. You can observe this throughout practices/games, or ask them about their closest teammates and how they get along with everyone. Parents have significant power early in their child’s athletic career when there are many teams they can be a part of. If they understand their child isn’t getting along with any teammates and there are other teams for them to move to, they can take this initiative in facilitating connection for them.
How sport psychology skills increase motivation
Mental skills, like self-talk and goal setting have clear connections to motivation.
Mindsets are also important factors in maintaining motivation and avoiding burnout. The athlete who has a mindset that values themselves based on their performances and results will experience more pressure, stress, and anxiety - a recipe for burnout and lower motivation. If, however, this athlete trains their mind to be more objective about their performances and bases their value off of themselves as a whole person, not just the athlete in them, a weight is lifted off their shoulders, paving the way for effective motivation.
Every athlete has their own tricks and phrases to motivate themselves. Oftentimes, this only gets athletes so far before they enlist the help of others, like a sport psychology coach. Burnout, and lack of motivation, is much easier to prevent from happening in the first place than it is to “solve” once it does happen.
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