Chris Mance II - Mental Skills Coach

There is always a root cause for why an athlete is unmotivated. Finding this root cause is how you motivate and unmotivated athlete. Therefore, your primary job as the parent or coach of an unmotivated athlete is to be a detective. As a detective, parents and coaches must do many of the things of a traditional professional detective. Investigate, interview, examine, observe, record, and follow-up among other things.

These things should not be done to catch an athlete doing what you don’t want them to do. Instead, parents and coaches must do these things to discover what makes an athlete tick and find ways to help them do more of that. This means prioritizing an athletes’ gifts, passions, motivations, and interest above those things that are causing them to be unmotivated.

The Detective Work of Motivating and Unmotivated Athlete

To start this detective work, I suggest investigating the 10 common underlying root causes that are most likely to drive an athlete’s lack of motivation.

1. Fear
2. No Goals or poor goals
3. Has a perception that something is too easy
4. Getting better is not important to them
5. Feels that success is unlikely
6. Thinks that something will take too long to achieve and lacks patience
7. Lacking sleep
8. Lacking in knowledge/skill in combination with a fixed mindset
9. Bad diet causing a lack of energy
10. Addiction

Secondly, once you narrow down the root cause of an unmotivated athlete, investigate the “why”. To do this I suggest using the “Five Whys” method. The “Five Whys” method helps athletes take what is causing them to be unmotivated and turn it into motivation. To do this you must ask why about the answer to why at least five times deep before concluding with an ultimate why answer.

For example, if fear is causing an athlete to be unmotivated, the application of the Five Why method may lead down this path.

• If the root “why” of the athlete’s fear is a fear of losing or a fear of failure, then that athlete has an ego oriented mindset. Teach the athlete to find their motivation by practicing process thinking. Help them work on setting short-term task and performance goals. In addition, help them use progressions to get a steady stream of small wins to help them avoid thinking about fears they have in the future.
• If the root “why” of the athlete’s fear is criticism or making mistakes, then that athlete is in a threat mindset. Teach the athlete to find their motivation by practicing mental toughness. Work on reframing the threat into a challenge. Help them use breathing techniques to control their heart rate, and apply the neutral thinking process.
• If the root “why” of the athlete’s fear is a fear of injury, then that athlete is in an external locus of control mindset. Teach the athlete to find their motivation by practicing focus. Help them work on separating out the things they control from the things they don’t control. Then show them how to put all their energy into getting the best out of those things they control.

In short, labeling an athlete as unmotivated is lazy. In effect, being unmotivated is nothing more than a symptom for a larger problem. Furthermore, if an athlete is consistently unmotivated, then that athlete is experiencing a serious issue that needs adult intervention to help them confront.