Staying Motivated As An Aspiring Athlete

Motivation, simply defined, is the ability to initiate and persist at a task. To perform your best, you must want to begin the process of developing as an athlete and you must be willing to maintain your efforts until you have achieved your goals. Motivation in sports is so important because you must be willing to work hard in the face of fatigue, boredom, pain, and the desire to do other things. 

Motivation will impact everything that influences your sports performance: physical conditioning, technical and tactical training, mental preparation, and general lifestyle including sleep, diet, school or work, and relationships.

The reason motivation is so important is that it is the only contributor to sports performance over which we actually have control. There are three things that affect how well you perform.

First, your ability, which includes your physical, technical, tactical, and mental capabilities. Second, the difficulty of the competition influences performance. Contributors to difficulty include the ability of the opponent and external factors such as an “away game” crowd and weather conditions such as temperature, wind, sun or other important elements. Whether your coach or team mates are coaching you or not, if for some reason they couldn’t make it, can also impact the outcome… Unfortunately, we have no control over these factors.

Finally, motivation will significantly impact our performance. It is also the only factor over which we have control. Motivation will directly impact the level of success that you ultimately achieve. If you are highly motivated to improve your performances, then you will put in the time and effort necessary.