Sometimes I have those days where I’m just like, “why am I doing this, I should literally just quit right now.” I often think about my eminent retirement when I’m playing like shit or when I’m doing things that, quite frankly, I just don’t want to do. I remember one training, in college, was going horribly. As a team, we genuinely looked like we lacked any kind of athletic prowess. My coach pulled the captains aside and told us to try to get the girls together because he was fed up at that point. Me, the yapper of the group, was grasping at straws trying to talk to the team. I think I pulled out some bullshit about “finding your why.” I was going on about how when you’re having a terrible day you have to remind yourself about why you worked so hard to get to this point in the first place.

I bring up this story because this year was one of the hardest that I’ve had in my career so far. There have been many many moments where I’ve considered just quitting, where I’ve really had to consider my own “why.” Why show up to training? Why do extra lifts, extra rehab, recovery etc.? Nineteen year old Kim was just pulling something out of her ass to appease her coach, but she might’ve been on to something. As athletes we find ourselves expending tremendous physical and mental energy and we all have a different reason why. It’s also true that some athletes have better “whys” than others, some are more motivated than others. We know that all else being equal, the more motivated athlete is going to do better. So, if we can understand motivation and the factors underlying it, theoretically, we could build better “whys” and improve performance.

Motivation is the direction and intensity of our effort. Motivation is a psychological factor that is hugely important to athletic performance. It influences our skill acquisition and learning. I mean its kind of intuitive, right? Like if you don’t put focus and effort into improving something or learning something, you’re literally just never going to do it. However, as with anything sport psych related, its not black and white. Motivation can be highly situational, it’s dynamic and can change based on the environment.

Ryan and Deci introduced Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a means to try to understand motivation. SDT also postulates that 3 psychological needs autonomy, competency, and relatedness are influential in determining motivation. According to SDT motivation exists on a continuum from amotivation, the absence of motivation, to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. You know those athletes who say they play “for the love of the game?” However cringey, those athletes would be defined as intrinsically motivated and represent the highest level of motivation as described by SDT. Intrinsically motivated athletes are internally driven by the enjoyment of the activity itself. Intrinsic motivation is associated with longer term continuance and improved athletic performance. Extrinsically motivated athletes are those who are driven by external factors. An athlete who is motivated by things like awards, achievements, and praise may be more extrinsically motivated. When I was first learning about extrinsic motivation I tended to have a negative view of it. However, it is not always a bad thing. Extrinsic motivation can be important in the short term to achieve more immediate goals. Appeasing extrinsic motivation can also be beneficial to athletes that are low in confidence or going through a period of frustration and lower performance. For example, for an athlete going through a slump a coach might offer more praise just to keep that athlete locked in and motivated in the short term. However, an over reliance on external factors can lower intrinsic motivation and can negatively effect the athlete in the long term as extrinsic motivators tend to be less in the athlete’s locus of control.

Another important aspect of SDT is the three psychological needs: competency, relatedness and autonomy. These influence an athletes level of intrinsic motivation. The more fully these needs are met the higher the intrinsic motivation.

Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) is another popular theory that can describe how behaviors are influenced by motivation; AGT can complement SDT’s understanding of motivation as well. Achievement motivation is defined as someone’s effort to master a task, achieve excellence, overcome obstacles or to be compared to others. AGT basically says that how we perceive our own ability and interpret success affects our behaviors and is reflective of our motivational processes.

According to AGT, there are two types of achievement goals: mastery and performance. Mastery goals tend to be those that focus on learning and improving a skill. Whereas, performance goals are focused more on surpassing others. Both mastery and performance goals can be further divided into Approach or Avoidance. To make it simple, approach tends be associated with meeting a challenge while avoidance is associated with fear of failure. Further, avoidance has a stronger correlation with negative affect and anxiety. An athlete with a mastery approach is most likely driven by the desire to learn a new skill, or improve their own performance.These types of athletes tend to be more intrinsically motivated and are generally associated with higher performance outcomes. An athlete with mastery avoidance is someone driven by a fear of losing their skills or fear of declining performance. An athlete with a performance approach tends to be driven to outdo others, and to be the best. This can be associated with really high effort however, it can also be associated with increased competitive stress depending on the environment. An athlete with performance avoidance is driven by the fear of looking stupid basically. These athletes just don’t want to be the worst player on the field or to look like they don’t know what they are doing. Those who tend to lean more towards performance goals are most likely more extrinsically motivated athletes. As their ideas of success come from more external sources.

AGT and SDT are two theories that attempt to provide a framework to understand motivation and its possible influence on behaviors and goal setting. While different, these two theories can be understood together. Athletes who are more intrinsically motivated are more likely to trend towards the mastery goals. While those who are more extrinsically motivated are more likely to trend towards performance goals. The psychological needs also work in both theories. AGT tends to rely heavily on competence. How an individual views their own competence in different environments/situations tends to be reflective of how the goals they set for themselves and their motivations to achieve these goals.

Motivation is one of the most important psychological factors that influences overall performance. It is related to an athletes’ perceptions of themselves, their specific behaviors, and the goals they set for the future. Understanding motivation and its underlying factors is important, not only for individual athletes, but also for coaches. Coaches can create environments that are conducive to more beneficial types of motivation as well as garner a deeper understanding of the mentality of their athletes and how to push them to their best performances.