The carrot-stick school of motivation is all about using rewards and punishments to provide the energy for action. However, rewards and punishments in the short-term reduces self-motivation in the long-term. The reason for this is that rewards and punishments promote short-term tactical thinking over long-term strategic thinking.
What’s more, success in athletics and in life requires long-term thinking as short-term thinking often sacrifices long-term success for short term reward. In addition, the short-term thinking that comes from the carrot-stick school of motivation teaches children to seek pleasure and avoid pain. This leads to lying, cheating, or worse. Moreover, when someone gets away with unethical behavior in the short-term, they reinforce the unethical behavior.
There are countless examples of this in professional sports. From athletes drafted at the top of their class to only flame out due to a lack of motivation. To those who sabotage their careers by using recreational drugs or illegal performance enhancers. Often the root cause of this bad behavior started with the carrot-stick school of motivation in their adolescent years.
In short, nothing good comes from the carrot-stick school of motivation. Unquestionably, success in the long-term requires the opposite mindset. Long-term success is a product of sacrificing pleasure and embracing pain in the short-term to avoid pain and earn the pleasure of success in the long-term. The sooner someone learns this lesson, the better off they will be.