Two Steps Coaches Can Take to Help Athletes Struggling with Motivation
When an athlete is struggling with motivation, a coach’s first instinct is to step in and offer an external motivator to kick-start the athlete’s motivation. A coach will either default to a carrot or stick depending on their coaching style.
More often than not this is the wrong answer. Although this may feel like the right answer when it works in the short term, it’s only a temporary solution. In the long term there is no progress in helping the athlete get to the root cause of their struggles with motivation.
If a coach wants to get to the root of an athlete’s motivation issue, I suggest taking two practical steps.
1) Hands-on Goal Setting
Setting goals at the start of a new season or to jump start progress mid-season is flat out energizing. That is why when an athlete is struggling with motivation goals are the best place to start.
However, coaches shouldn’t just encourage a struggling athlete to set goals on their own. This is a hands-on process that the coach must stick with from start to finish. This includes spending one-on-one time helping the athlete with the process of:
- Picking the right goals.
- Breaking the goals down into a progression.
- Developing a daily/weekly plan to pursue the goals.
- Measuring progress.
- Adjusting course.
2) Focus on Skill Development Instead of Just Winning
Skill development is a process, winning is an outcome. Coaches can only influence outcomes but can’t control outcomes. On the other hand, coaches can both influence and control processes. When it comes to a lack of motivation, focusing on anything other than what one can control is risky at best. Therefore, skill development should always get far more focus than winning.
In addition, building skills is an innately motivating process. Not only does building skills instill a growth mindset in the athlete, but it also builds their confidence. Mindset and confidence are major factors of motivation, and often the root cause for a lack of motivation.
To keep things simple, focus on developing two types of skills:
- Skills that are building blocks for more advanced skills.
- Skills that fix the athlete’s common mistakes or prevent common mistakes.