Creating an Environment To Increase motivation
From taking the principles of Deci and Ryan’s 'Self-Determination Theory', coaches, trainers, psychologists, and even parents can increase the motivation of their athletes to dedicate themselves to training regimes and group training sessions. This can be applied to other fields to enhance motivation, such as patients adherence to rehabilitation, students commitment to education, and employees motivation to work for a company.
What does the theory suggest?
The theory suggests motivations runs along a continuum. The most advantageous form of motivation is when individuals are training and engaging in action as it has personal value to them. However, further down the continuum the athlete's motivation to train is controlled be external factors such as keeping other people pleased or receiving money. This is a weaker form of motivation because when these external factors are taken away the athlete won’t engage in the activity, or put in the same amount of effort in the activity.
How can I facilitate stronger and deeper levels of motivation?
To shift the athletes motivation, the session should be created to address three different needs:
The need to be connect with people (relatedness)
The need to feel in control (Autonomy)
The need to feel competent in the task at hand (Competence)
To address relatedness, the coach can create a training environment where other athletes are present and allow these athletes to talk to each other. This is easier to do in team sports, such as football, since tasks normally require individuals to work together. For individual sports (e.g., swimming), the introduction of another member when training can improve this need (e.g., another swimmer performing at a similar level). Coaches can also set tasks where the athletes compete against one another, which adds an element of competitiveness where the athletes push each other through the session.
There are multiple ways of increasing an athlete’s sense of control (autonomy). As a coach, you are in control of the session and the athletes themselves may not have much jurisdiction over what goes on in the session. But this may be why some players decide not to train with a certain coach as their leadership style seems more like a dictatorship. Therefore, to increase this need without taking away the coach's control over the session, the coach can give the athletes options to choose what the training session should focus on. For example, the coach may have a list of certain aspects of play that should be addressed and lists them down, then the players can pick which aspect they want to address in the session. This shifts the responsibility from the coach to the performer. By doing this the athlete feels as if they have a form of control over the session, and the coach can give options that still focus on areas the athlete needs to address without taking away their control over the session.
Another method is for the coach to explicitly explain why they are training a certain area. If athletes are merely told what to do at every training session, then they will lose a sense of control as it will feel as their opinion on what to train doesn’t matter and they are being talked down to. Contrarily, if they are told why they are focusing on a certain aspect of training then their sense of control is unscathed as they understand why they are training the way they are and value the training session more.
Finally, an athlete’s sense of competence can be increased by creating tasks that are within their reach but still challenging enough to push them and master certain skills. Obviously, as a person you wouldn’t want to turn up to a place that gives you a task that is well out of your reach you can’t complete it. Contrarily, creating sessions that don't challenge the athlete would compromise the goal of enhancing and maintaining player performance. Therefore, being able to set appropriate training sessions is another key component to keeping athletes motivated to turn up with maximum effort in the next training session.
Summary
Being able to create a training environment that keep athletes motivated can be challenging. It is important to maintain deeper levels of motivation to ensure progress within athletes, especially when faced with a talented athlete who has a history of not turning up to training sessions. By addressing the three basic needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence, stronger levels of motivation can be instilled in the athletes. However, this is not the only theory related to motivation and other factors such as psychological stress, burnout, and maladaptive goals can be the source of lower levels of motivation within the athlete(s).
Article by Edgar Chekera