MotivationWhy are you doing it?

These reasons may include a drive, a need, a desire to achieve a goal, a state of being, or an ideal. In human

beings, motivation involves both conscious and subconscious drives.

INTRINSIC MOTIVATIONThis is motivation from within. A desire to perform

well and succeed. The following will be true:• Desire to overcome the problem or task• Development 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 MOTIVATIONExtrinsic motivation comes from a source outside of

the performer. These are things which can encourage the athlete to perform and fall into two groups:

• Tangible rewards: Physical rewards such as medals and money. These should be used sparingly with young athletes to avoid a situation where winning a prize is more important than competing well

• Intangible rewards: Praise, recognition and achievements. These should be used on a regular basis to encourage the athlete to repeat the behaviour which earned the praise.

WHERE CAN IT GO WRONG?Cognitive Dissonance • A cognition is any element of knowledge - an

attitude, emotion, belief, value, behaviour, etc. When two cognitions are in direct conflict with one another a state of anxiety is produced - dissonance is the term for the anxiety.

• Compatible cognitions are consonant - i.e. they are in harmony.

• A classic example of Cognitive Dissonance is holding the belief that "smoking is bad for you" while continuing the behavior of smoking. These two cognitions are in direct conflict with each other.

• When two cognitions are in conflict, anxiety (dissonance) is produced and grows until it becomes stronger than the cognition with the lesser amount of resistance to change.

• When this threshold is reached the subconscious mind is compelled to change, ignore, or modify the weaker of the two cognitions in order to dispel the anxiety.

• Now lets apply it to sport:• You want to be the best player in the league but don’t

like to train outside your regular practice hours because you want to hangout with friends. You have a conflict. Remember now the anxiety will continue to grow until it becomes stronger than the cognition(belief) with the lesser amount of resistance to change.

• Now, the weaker of the two cognitions (beliefs), to be the best or hang with friends will be changed, modified or dispelled in order to relieve the anxiety

• Which cognition wins will determine how good you become!

Achievement Motivation TheoryNeed to Achieve - Varies on a continuum from low to high. This need is related to the degree of difficulty of tasks that a person chooses. • Someone low in the need to achieve is more apt

to choose tasks that are too easy - to avoid failure...or too hard - to avoid embarrassment if they fail. In either case a fear of failure is present.

• Someone high in the need to achieve is more apt to choose tasks that are of moderate difficulty so as to be a challenge but not insurmountable.

Need for Power - Those who are motivated by a need for power derive a sense of satisfaction from having an impact on their environment in a way that moves it in the direction that person would like to see it move. • For example, A player on a team wants to make a significant

contribution on the field, court, diamond or track so that they feel satisfied that they had an impact in the outcome.

Need for Affiliation - This need describes those who are motivated primarily by connecting and interacting with others are happiest when they feel a sense of belonging and involvement with a social group.• While we all experience each of these needs to some degree,

we are usually motivated by one more than the others. This usually has to do with the rewards and reinforcements we received from the primary group in our childhood - i.e., Family.

• Now even if we clearly want to achieve, put in all the work and are at success’s front door we can still sabotage ourselves because of our subconscious mind.

• Controlling the subconscious mind is not something that can be done with force or coercion.

• Controlling the subconscious mind with force is a mistake because the act of consciously applying willpower sends signals of struggle to the subconscious mind. i.e. slump

• The subconscious mind reads not only our thoughts, but also our emotions. If these two are congruent, then the subconscious mind accepts the idea or thought as true...

• What matters most is that the thoughts, including mental images, and emotions are all in alignment -- this sets the subconscious mind into action to make our ideas happen.

• Applied to sport: if you are at the important moment in the game and think I can’t blow this and see the image of failure , this sends an expectation of doing poorly to the subconscious mind...which then complies with the idea

• Controlling the subconscious mind through the use of willpower makes matters worse because trying to fix it" sends a message to the subconscious mind that fixing it is a struggle...and makes it so! The harder you try to fix it, the more resistance you create. Then, when the pressure is off, the skill is easy to do again.

• Key Point: So controlling the subconscious mind has nothing to do with force or coercion...in fact, its just the opposite. It's a matter of calm, confident, and congruent thoughts, images, and feelings being consciously created and held onto with feelings of positive expectancy and focused on what you want, not what you don't want.

How to Program the SubConscious• To program your subconscious mind the goals

must be realistic• Program as if the change you want has

already occurred ex. Visualization• Program using as many sensory modalities as

comfortably possible ex. See, hear, feel• Ignore the problem, focus on the solution • Use Intensity and Repetition in order to

program your subconscious mind