Trouble With Motivation

Strategies From Psychologists

Strategies Given by the Psychologists of Olympic Medalists

Motivation can fluctuate, and psychologists acknowledge that even top athletes experience periods of low motivation. Firstly, it is important to understand that motivation is not a constant state but something that needs to be nurtured. Motivation goes together with focus and dedication; if an athlete is fully motivated and focused 100% of the time, they will eventually run out of steam. Instead, an athlete should take periodic breaks every so often, and sometimes take their focus from 100% down to 30%.

When struggling with motivation to give an activity your all, one effective strategy that the psychologists mentioned was setting short-term, achievable goals that keep the athlete engaged and focused. This mentality ensures that regardless of the level of competition, or other circumstances surrounding the event, there are certain objectives that need to be met regardless of outside factors. The psychologists recommended that these goals target both technical and tactical focuses, but at the same time, there shouldn’t be more than a total of 2-3 goals, because otherwise there will be too much for the mind to think about. For instance, an athlete could have one technical focus that they have been working on in training, and one tactical focus, which is probably more situation-dependent. These goals should be challenging enough to maintain interest but attainable to avoid frustration. Excluding all other metrics from the equation, an athlete should judge their performance solely based on their ability to execute their individual goals.

Another key point that the experts noted was the role of intrinsic motivation—doing the sport for the love of it rather than just for external rewards. The psychologists suggested that athletes regularly reconnect with the reasons they started playing their sport and find ways to make training enjoyable. One way to do this would be to vary training routines to keep things fresh and interesting, which can help prevent burnout and maintain high levels of motivation over time. Regardless, each athlete should have a reason that they love playing their sport, and every time they start to lose sight of their passion, they should return to that reason to remind themselves what all the work is about.

Advice From Current Athletes

Examples of Strategies Used by Select Athletes

Johnny Price (Lacrosse) – For Johnny, the key to staying motivated and loving the sport of lacrosse to the fullest is to surround himself with a group of extremely talented and motivated kids. As Johnny points out, all athletes are incredibly competitive, so playing with a high level of players makes his competitiveness kick in, and spurs him to consistently play at his highest level. In general, putting yourself in an environment where you are constantly playing with better players or players who have the same (if not loftier) goals as you is the best way to develop, regardless of which sport you play.

Unfortunately, Johnny also noted that motivation is very much a community ideal, meaning that if several members on his lacrosse team lack dedication and desire, that negativity will impact the entire team. For him, this is where the captain needs to step in to set the level for the rest of the team to follow. Obviously, this is difficult to do considering the wide range in ability, especially at the high school level, but work rate and excellence must be a standard that is followed by everyone on the team. Regardless of someone’s particular role on a given team, players are meant to push each other to extract the best out of themselves at all times.

And finally, after a tough loss, when the overall morale of the team is down, Johnny says that it is imperative to keep the mood in the locker room positive, because once relationships are strained, it is very difficult to move forward with a season. This is why Johnny says that a team should always come together in the locker room after a win or a loss, because if things need to be resolved, that is the place to do so, not out on the field. Once those issues are cleared, a team can finally forget about it, and move on to the next objective, resetting, and continuing to look forward to the season’s objective, rather than dwelling on past failures.

Marc Albrechtskirchinger (Rowing) – For a sport as physically taxing as rowing, Marc finds it very difficult to be consistently willing to endure pain on a daily basis. He often finds himself asking the question of “why and how do I want to put myself through this” every time he is about to do a difficult workout. For him, he has found several things to be helpful. Firstly, entirely separating his personality and things going on in his personal life from his workouts has been tremendously helpful. Oftentimes, the times that he is feeling the least motivated is when he lets his thoughts and emotions from school translate to his mind while he is in the boat. To prevent this, Marc isolates himself entirely from his thoughts before working out, meaning that once he steps foot in that boat, he becomes an entirely different person. He acknowledges all of his racing thoughts and emotions, and puts them aside. In their place, he returns to the same aggressive, motivated, and dedicated mindset that he relies on when he is rowing. He has several goals that he reminds himself of that inspire him, and he uses those to help him get ‘into the zone’ that fuels the mindset that he uses while rowing. He has found this decision to view himself as an entirely different person while rowing has helped him separate himself from the outside world and focus in to the maximum.

Advice From Coaches

Insights From Former Athletes Who Are Current Coaches

Coach Arturo Solis (Soccer) – Throughout long seasons in college, Coach Solis has dealt with burnout and lacks of motivation regularly. For him, there was always a tool to combat this issue; he had 3 questions that he would ask himself before every match, which were the following: a) Why am I here? b) How am I going to go about answering the previous question, meaning what is the method needed for me to achieve my goal? c) What will I actually do in the game to address this? As a coach, Coach Solis notes that what many athletes consider physical burnout is actually oftentimes a psychological burnout. If athletes do reach physical burnout, it’s because they haven’t done enough on the front end to prepare before the season. Before the season, the athlete needs to be 80 percent fit so that high school or college preseason can take them the last 20. However, psychological burnout is very different. When battling psychological burnout, Coach Solis would recommend that each athlete figures out their “why.” Why do you love this sport, and why do you spend so much working at it and perfecting it. If those questions are answered and you refresh your memory with it every so often, that will help heal the lack of motivation that we often associate with burnout.