The Sports Mastermind
The Sports Mastermind is the premier sports psychology podcast. We break down and lay out step-by-step instructions teaching you how to implement the fundamentals of sports psychology. Each segment focuses on breaking down a specific element in 10 minutes or less.The content is relevant for young athletes all the way to the pros. The mental development of athletes applies to all sports, genders, levels and abilities. We break down complicated topics into easy to digest and implement segments. Internationally recognized expert Laura Ratto combines her experiences as a former professional athlete with her experience in the domestic and international sports industry to help athletes reach their full potential and optimize performance. She utilizes her Master’s Degree and CSCS (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist) to develop programs for Olympic training centers, college curriculum and published works to help individuals in their quest to excel at every level. Laura Ratto teaches at several colleges including Cyamaca, Southwestern, and USK where she developed curriculum for an emphasis in Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology for Kinesiology majors.
The Sports Mastermind
E44: How Do You Motivate a Teammate?
How do you motivate a teammate
44 - How do you motivate a teammate?
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I can’t seem to keep the ball in my glove. Coach and I have been working on tracking the ball and I can do it just fine in practice and in the outfield drills. As soon as I get into the game, I just lose it in the sky! I don’t feel like I’ve gotten any better at it since practice started. Why would I do any extra work when none of it seems to be helping? Maybe I should just quit.
Have you heard this or something like it from a teammate or friend? Last week we talked about staying motivated in difficult situations and how words matter. We discussed approach goals and avoiding goals, task goals and ego goals. This week I am going to give you some tools to help you to motivate another person. We will be focusing on teammates, but these tools can be used for anyone that you work or play with.
There are a couple things to think about when you have a friend, teammate, family member or really anyone in your life that is struggling with motivation or in continuing with a task. One thing to do is to consider the situation the person finds themselves in. Let’s go back to our example and the situation. John is a high school baseball player that is struggling with motivation. John has good hand-eye coordination and fast reflexes. Over the course of this season he has moved from pitcher to shortstop to center field. The COACH told him that they moved him to center field because he was the only person on the team with an arm that could throw the ball to the plate. JOHN thinks that it is because both the pitcher and the shortstop do travel ball and private lessons with the coach and he does not. John does not like center field and feels more comfortable fielding ground balls and one hops than tracking a ball over his shoulder that is hit over his head.
Understanding John’s situation will make it easier to help him through his decrease in motivation. Amotivation or lack of motivation can come from feelings of incompetence or can arise when an athlete feels lack of choice or feedback in the decision-making process. In looking at John's circumstances, we can see that both of these factors play a role in his current situation.
How can you, as a teammate, help with this situation? One thing you can do is be supportive. It is important to realize that different situations are handled and processed differently by different people. Why? I’m glad you asked. That leads us to the second thing to think about - the individual traits of the athlete. What is the athlete’s personality? How competitive are they? How do we find out this information? Thru a concept called active listening. The first part of active listening is to ask open-ended questions. “John, why don’t you like playing in the outfield?” - John’s response - Because our pitcher is so good that the ball never goes out here and when it does, I’m not ready. Then repeat what he said, but using your own words. “What I think I hear you saying is that you lose focus when you are not involved in the play” Is that correct? The last part of that is a clarifying question so that you can make sure that John knows that you understood what he was saying.
Once you have gotten down to the reason behind John not being motivated to play in the outfield, you can then help him with the next step.
As a fellow teammate, I might recommend that you suggest he go and talk to the coach to explain the situation and why it is hard to stay motivated.
As a sport psychology consultant, I recommended that John go and talk to the coach. We also worked on different types of focus techniques and started introducing small and achievable goals to increase his skill set.
One thing to keep in mind, whether you are a coach, leader, or fellow teammate is that an individual’s motivation, or reason for doing what they do, changes over time and it is important to check in when you see someone is struggling with motivation. It is also important to know that it is not just the situation, or the individuals’ traits that determine their actions, but also the interaction between the situation and their traits. People respond in different ways to different situations based on many factors.
Today we talked about how to motivate a teammate. To review, the Focus Four for this episode:
- Consider the situation the person finds themselves in when helping to increase motivation
- Think about the individual traits of the athlete and use active listening to gain new information
- Reason for Motivation change over time
- People respond in different ways to different situations based on many factors, such as the interaction between individual traits and the situation.
Now that you have the how to motivate a teammate snippet, what can you do help your teammates when they are struggling with motivation? If you are interested in improving your overall motivation or for additional tools to help move your motivation along the continuum toward a more successful style, contact me at RattoConsulting.com or email Laura@RattoConsulting.com.
“What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.”
~ Madeline Albright
