The Motivation Myth
“Areas for Improvement”
Much has been postulated about motivation in sport and in training settings. This week I posted a question on Twitter about weaknesses in coaching or what coaches think they could improve on that did not involve technical and tactical aspects of sport or training. Some of the responses were thoughtful and introspective but many were disappointing.
Externalizing Responsibility
The tenor of the question was to draw coaches inward to reflect on their own shortcomings and areas for growth and maybe predictably, many turned that focus outward and onto their athletes without realizing it. “I’m not a great motivator if someone isn’t invested in their own development,” was a comment that drew plenty of support from others. On the surface, this statement appears to be somewhat introspective, but the qualification externalizes the responsibility for this “weakness” of not being able to motivate athletes.
Let’s look at what motivation is and what it’s not.
Motivation Doesn’t Work: Here’s What Does
Susan Fowler wrote a great book called Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work and What Does: The New Science of Leading, Energizing, and Engaging. In it, Fowler talks about how everyone is motivated, but maybe not in the way you want them to be motivated. In a training setting, this dynamic could be as simple as an athlete being prescribed an exercise they don’t like by an inflexible coach and not performing it to movement standards and the coach would be quick to blame the athlete for being “lazy” or “non-compliant.”
Fowler breaks down how to get to the root of what people are motivated to do using the ARC acronym: autonomy, relatedness, competence.
Autonomy, Relatedness, Competence
Autonomy is a word that keeps coming up in the research I’ve been reading on coaching theory, mental toughness, and yes, motivation. Autonomy is essentially a person’s ability to self-govern or make their own decisions. One simple way to give an athlete autonomy using the exercise selection example above is to give them a menu of 2-3 exercises to choose from so they can have ownership in the process thereby increasing their motivation to put forth a better effort.
Relatedness is something that coaches probably overestimate their proficiency in as it implies a personal connection with their athletes that, statistically speaking, the majority of coaches cannot have. Regardless, using a skill like empathy mapping to reframe your perspective to one more aligned with the athlete’s perspective or worldview.
Personally, I keep a spreadsheet with the following data on every athlete I train:
Hometown and high school
Parent(s) occupations (unless I get info from their sport coach that they may be disadvantaged)
A colloquially specific factoid about where they’re from that only a local would know
The third one is particularly powerful because I’m making a concerted effort to learn and know something significant about the area they’re from in an attempt to understand them on a deeper level than just their name and the sport they play.
Competence is a piece that can tie in easily with autonomy and relate to training seamlessly as well. The more competent an athlete feels in performing a specific exercise or drill, partly through repetition, and partly through positive reinforcement, the more motivated they will be to put forth their best effort. Personalizing feedback and framing it in a manner that emphasizes what the athlete did right instead of what they could improve on gives them confidence to continue putting in progressively stronger efforts.
Setting Up the Conditions
Put simply, giving athletes autonomy, making deeper efforts to relate to them, and making them feel competent is a formula for successful “motivation.” It’s incumbent on the coach to have processes and systems in place in order to maximize the effectiveness of the individual athlete’s motivation just as much as it is to have the program periodized in a way that maximizes performance.