Youth Athletes Are Wired to be Self-Motivated by Two Things
Nearly all youth athletes get their self-motivation from two areas:
1) Developing new skills.
2) Demonstrating those new skills.
Contrary to popular belief, winning in youth sports is not how you motivate a young athlete. If a youth athlete cannot make the connection between practice and competing with these two things, they will not embrace the sport.
Unfortunately, this goes over the head of many youth coaches. For these coaches, winning trumps developing the self-motivation in their young athletes. Therefore, when these coaches figure out how to win consistently by only teaching their athletes one or two skills that allow them to exploit the competition, they no longer emphasize skill development. Instead, these coaches focus on repetition.
While repetition may be the best way to develop a winner, it’s not the best way to make an 8-year-old fall in love with a sport.