Lifelong Sport

Recently I had the pleasure of coaching a good friend of mine at an international sailing event as he progressed towards qualifying for the Paris Olympics.

Waaaay back in 2010 I also coached with this friend for the European summer events, coaching him in England, Germany, Holland and back to England again.

Back then I was on the payroll. It was how I was earning my living and getting to travel extensively, coaching one of the world’s best was a great opportunity.

While I love what I do, it has been really interesting to observe the differences in my enjoyment, satisfaction, motivation and ultimately my confidence and competence in the role, now as a volunteer compared to back when I was a professional.

It’s been one of the most enjoyable coaching gigs I’ve had the honour to do. Both in 2010 and now in 2023 involved coaching the same close friend, so that is a constant and my desire to help him succeed and reach his goals is consistent too. So what was different this time around?

This time I am here, giving up my time by choice and in a much lower pressure environment (noting that the pressure was all contained between my ears). We’re both having much more fun with it, enjoying the sailing and each other’s company a lot more.

A lot of this has to do with our approach, no longer are we there to try and earn our pay check, to reach a certain level standard to ensure funding for the following year etc.

We are trying to reach a certain standard so we can qualify him for the Olympics, so there is a level of that pressure, but it is a goal we are trying to achieve through self-mastery and improvement. Goals that are self and task-mastery approach goals lead to higher levels of self-esteem, athlete vitality, intrinsic motivation, increase in perceived competence and it leads to lower rates of athlete burnout.

It’s the opposite when you are extrinsically motivated and goals that are about avoiding a consequence (like missing out on funding).

For me, this time around, I’m not battling the feelings of imposter and perceived ideas of what a professional coach ‘should’ be like. I’m not criticising myself when I don’t meet this perceived standard. All which came from my state of mind as an extrinsically motivated coach.

I’m free of all that, I’m able to make mistakes and I’m also free to deliver the good advice and observations that my athlete needs.

By being motivated solely by my desire to use my skills and knowledge to help my buddy I’m in an environment where I am:

• intrinsically motivated,
• free of perceived notions of how professional coaches operate,
• delivering a higher standard of coaching and am doing so with much more conviction and
• enjoying the coaching and I am having much higher levels of satisfaction.

It’s always interesting and fun when we get these little reminders of much our satisfaction, enjoyment and performance all grow when we are intrinsically motivated. Additionally, when we get the goal setting right, how much our competence and performance grows. This then further drives the growth of intrinsic motivation even higher.

And around and around it goes, the more you enjoy it the more satisfaction you get, the better you perform. The better you perform the more you enjoy it and so on!

While not all coaches or athletes should work for free to extort the benefits of intrinsic motivation, there are a lot of tricks of the trade we can utilise to help our athletes, and our selves, to remain tapped into our internal drive. Placing us and them in the best performing environment possible. Keeping them motivated to succeed and returning year in and year out!

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