The #1 Source of Unhappiness for Athletes and How Coaches Must Manage It
There is a famous quote from former President Lyndon Johnson that almost perfectly explains the #1 source of unhappiness for nearly all athletes. While in college Johnson wrote the following:
Ambition is an uncomfortable companion. He creates a discontent with present surroundings and achievements: he is never satisfied but always pressing forward to better things in the future.
Indeed, the more ambitious an athlete is, the more unhappy they are with their current circumstances. While ambition is good for motivation as Johnson alludes to, it can also backfire. When an athlete and coach doesn’t manage this battle between unhappiness with the present and motivation for the future, the athlete suffers.
Managing this battle is no small task either. With this in mind, there are two things required to maintain happiness with the present while working toward ambitions.
- A plan that sets the process as the goal and the goal as the compass.
- Focusing ambitions by making intrinsic goals the priority and extrinsic goals the by-product.
In short, this means coaches must help athletes prioritize process and performance goals over outcome goals. Process goals are goals for the athlete to improve how they practice and train to prepare to compete. Performance goals are goals for the athlete to make “improvements relative to one’s own past performance” when they compete (Michigan State sports psychology professor Daniel Gould).
When an athlete focuses their ambition on process and performance goals, the future becomes the present within days and weeks instead of the months and years it takes to reach outcome goals. Making this simple change in the goal setting process is how you manage an athlete’s happiness.