#9 Letting Go Of The Past - [How To Increase Motivation In Sport]

#9 Letting Go Of The Past - [How To Increase Motivation In Sport] - Motivation is thought to be a combination of many things… the drive within us to achieve our aims… the outside factors which affect it…and the aspiration to prove ‘something’ to ourselves.

With this in mind, motivation is considered and divided into two forms, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.

What is Intrinsic motivation?

This is motivation considered to come within [‘in’trinsic]… the desire to perform and succeed and…

• The desire to overcome the problem or task
• Develop of skills and habits to overcome that problem
• Rehearsal of successful habits until they are perfect
• A feeling of pride and enjoyment in performing the skill
• Repeated goal setting in order to progress and maintain motivation

Extrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation comes from a source outside of the performer [‘ex’trinsic]. These are things, which can encourage the athlete to perform and fall into two groups:

Tangible rewards: Physical rewards such as medals and money.

Intangible rewards: Praise, recognition and achievements.

Motivation, Arousal and Performance

Motivation is related to the intensity and direction of behaviour. That is, the level of arousal and the way in which we behave affect our motivation and hence performance. There are currently two theories which try to explain this link:

Hull's Drive Theory:

This demonstrates a linear relationship between performance and arousal. This means at low levels of arousal, performance is low and performance increases in line with an increase in arousal.

Drive theory

This theory also explains that novices to the sport often do not perform well under pressure and their skill level decreases due to poor habits and techniques. Habits are described as the performance, which is dominant within each person. Experienced athletes tend to perform better under pressure due to their superior skills and the use of stress management techniques.

Performance = habit x drive (arousal)

Inverted U Law:

This law states that arousal improves performance up to an optimal point. Past this point, performance begins to decrease.

Inverted U theory:

There are three rules, which surround this theory

Activity: Some sports are better performed at low arousal, mainly those which require small, precision movements and control, e.g. shooting

Skill level: Beginners to a sport require all of their attention to be focused on the task in hand and so do not cope as well with over-arousal. Highly skilled individuals have the skill well practiced and so do not require such high levels of concentration meaning they can deal better with the arousal level.

Personality: Extroverts perform better in high-pressure, high arousal situations. Introverts tend to do better in a state of low arousal. This is thought to be connected to part of the brain called the RAS or reticular activating system. Introverts have a highly stimulated RAS and so avoid stressful situations, whereas extroverts need high arousal situations to stimulate the RAS.

The RAS is something that you’ll hear me talking a lot about…

Anyways, I hope that this has helped and please remember to follow the full series on YouTube.

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#9 Letting Go Of The Past - [How To Increase Motivation In Sport]