Sustaining Motivation
As an athlete, coach, parent, or even a fan of sports one of the lasting questions is ‘how do athletes become and stay motivated?’ Throughout the history of sports we have seen some of the greatest athletes like Serena Williams, Lance Armstrong, LeBron James, and Tom Brady highlight motivation as being a vital aspect of their success. However, the question remains ‘how’ do athletes like these sustain motivation over such long periods of time and even through failures and disappointments?
Different sports provide different types of motivation for a prospective athlete. However sustained motivation hangs on to the concept known as goal orientation. According to research this concept is the understanding of how athletes interpret and judge success along with their ability/skill. There are two types of goal orientations within sports - ego orientation and task-mastery orientation. Athletes with ego orientation are typically focused on outperforming competition, increasingly motivated by social comparison and statistics to measure their competence. On the other hand, those with task-mastery orientation measure success by the ability to improve on specific skills and knowledge from their past performances. Simply put ego is focused on outcome, while task is focused on the process. The ability to identify which process closely relates to each individual athlete is the first step to building insight and the mental edge to high performance.
If you are interested in working with our sports psychology providers to learn more about sustaining motivation for your sport reach out anytime!
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