Sport Psychology and Motivation

Sport Psychology and Motivation

If you are an athlete or high performer struggling with anxiety and fear of failure, you are not alone. Many high performers develop high expectations for themselves over the course of their careers. Athletes are encouraged to be mentally tough which is often confused for being hard on themselves and allowing their inner critic to berate them if they do not achieve the expectations they have developed for themself.

Many athletes would be able to tell you that they know their inner critic and high expectations are both large contributing factors to the anxiety they experience, but they also believe that being hard of themself and having high expectations is an essential ingredient of their motivation and success. As such, many high performers are hesitant to release high expectations and their inner critic even after they realize that this pattern is causing anxiety that is impacting performance. 

Self Determination Theory:

Education around different motivation styles, and their implications can be helpful for generating the willingness to change. Self Determination Theory is one of the leading theories on motivation that we currently have. Self Determination Theory posits that motivation is composed of 3 parts. Autonomy, connectedness (relatedness), and sense of competency. 

Autonomy: The research tells us that individuals who feel a greater sense of choice and control in their pursuits are more motivated than counter parts who do not have the same choice and control. This results in the more autonomous individual being more effective with their time  and effort, reporting greater satisfaction with the work that they are doing, and continuing to practice towards mastery for much longer than the non-autonomous counterparts.  

Connectedness (relatedness): Individuals who feel a sense of connection to others report feeling higher levels of belonging, intimacy, care, and are more likely to be intrinsically motivated leading to more positive outcomes. Humans are social creatures that thrive when they feel understood and like they belong.

Competence: Competence is the individuals perceived ability to execute a task. However, it is not as straight forward as it may sound. A beginner soccer player might step onto a field and play in the same practice is an Olympic soccer player, and the beginner might step off with a great sense of competency than the Olympic athlete. This is because competency is not a direct result of ability, it is the sum of an equation.

Competency = Perceived Ability - Expectations

This means that your sense of competency is completely inside your own mind. You get to set your expectations, and you get to perceive your ability. 

Individuals with a higher sense of competence experience greater levels of intrinsic motivation. This is because our minds love to feel good at things, and we don’t like feeling bad at things. There is even a term for how much we don’t like feeling bad at things: experiential avoidance. “Experiential Avoidance: the human tendency to avoid or suppress unwanted internal experiences like thoughts, feelings, and sensations, even when doing so is harmful in the long run.” 

Extrinsic Versus Intrinsic Motivation:

Another important concept in motivation theory is extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is understood to stem from the drive for external rewards. These external rewards include money, praise, recognition, gifts, validation, the jealousy of others and avoiding punishment or negative consequences. Examples of this are practicing in order to get playing time, study in order to get a good grade, dressing well so other people will compliment you, really doing anything in pursuit of an outcome instead of simply for the inherent joy of the journey itself. Extrinsic motivation often leads to low confidence, burnout, and high levels of anxiety. That is because while using extrinsic motivation might be helpful for initiating an activity, it results in attaching ourselves to a specific outcome. When we become attached to an outcome our minds jump into the future leading to higher levels of anxiety and an inability to fully enjoy or focus on the journey itself. 

Intrinsic motivation stems from internal drivers like enjoyment, curiosity, satisfaction, and personal interest in the activity itself. The internal rewards are inherent within themselves. Examples of intrinsic motivation include practicing because you love your sport, studying a subject that you are interested in or because you love learning, dressing well for the joy of self expression. The benefits of intrinsic motivation include, enhanced engagement, creativity, long term satisfaction, deeper understanding and retention, love of learning, persistence and resilience, enhanced creativity and problem solving, sense of autonomy and self efficacy, increased satisfaction, reduced burnout, increased productivity, improved performance, long term commitment, and a higher quality of work. 

Putting it in Practice: 

If you are an athlete or a high performer that is struggling with anxiety and fear of failure, and you currently use your inner critic and high expectations to motivate you, consider utilizing the principles of self determination theory and intrinsic motivation instead. Improve autonomy, by recognizing that your worth and value is not earned through an outcome, you get to compete for the joy of it. Improve connectedness by dropping the idea that you need to compete and compare with your teammates, or co-workers, and instead replace the competition with gratitude for the fact that being around these people challenges you and makes you better. Replace comparison with celebration, instead of believing that their win is your loss, celebrate their win as your own and recognized that in doing so you are having the most beneficial psychological response you can. Improve competency by redefining success as exactly where you are. Drop the expectations and recognize that having high expectations is not the most effective or efficient way to drive you towards success. The most effective way is to allow yourself the opportunity to enjoy the process. 

If you're ready to move away from pressure-driven performance and start building motivation rooted in confidence, purpose, and joy, now is the time to take the next step. Schedule a free consultation call with a sport psychology expert to explore how personalized strategies rooted in Self-Determination Theory can help you reduce anxiety, overcome fear of failure, and unlock your full potential, both on and off the field. Your mental game matters. Let’s work together to strengthen it.