Establishing motivational goals by the coach-educator

What we consider as a key figure in motivation, is the coach or educator. In a survey of 270 practicing basketball in high school US, 47% admit that the coach has a great influence on them, while 42% admit to having some influence. These influences are expressed primarily in the online help personal problems (25%) transmission pride teamwork (18%) and because the coach shows the importance of working hard (17%).

These data indicate that the coach is a factor that is not only able to influence the motivation for the sport, but makes important and very close to the vital needs of young people in training educational areas. Transfer emotional link with the student educator will be decisive so it is very important to take care communication and emotional management skills. The coach must be well trained in all kinds of skills for the purpose of knowing form accordingly, as we discussed in a previous article.

In any case, the data show that 80% leave the sport between the ages of 12 and 17 years. The causes of drop, according to Weiss and Chaumenton, are many: conflicts of interest with other activities, injuries, loss of fun, lack of increased skills, trouble with the coach, competitive pressure and too time consuming.

In sports, the coach is the main motivator and, therefore, his personality, his conviction, purpose and motivation techniques are essential to stop the development of attitudes and the success of the players.

The coach may be sacrificing other elements of the game also important to strengthen your area. For example, a very orderly coach will have ordered teams, one lover defense teams have great defenders, etc.

Motivational goals

One of the key roles of a coach-educator is the establishment of motivational goals. They should be marked not only during the season but during the preseason and the transitional holiday period. Keep motivated student-player aims to ensure the proper handling of the personality of individuals and important situations that subsequently affect the whole team.

How do motivational goals work?

Locke and Lathan have produced 10 hypotheses about how they work on performance goals in sport:

1. Specific goals regulate the action more precisely than general goals. For example, the player must first learn to pass the ball before requiring perfection in a combined action.
2. If the goals are specific, while higher are better for performance, provided that there are sufficient skills and commitment to the task, ie, while affordable or realistic. That is, a monotonous task of basic contro-pass end bored, you better think a task with the same objective, simple but more motivating (once acquired initial skills). [Mks_button size = “medium” title = “View Psychomotor Skills” style = “squared” url = “https://psicopico.com/destreza-psicomotriz-fases-aprendizaje/” target = “_ self” bg_color = “# 1e73be” txt_color = “# FFFFFF” icon = “fa-angle-double-right” icon_type = “fa”]
3. difficult and specific goals lead to better performance than not establish them or set them inaccurately. For example, a difficult and specific goal could be the end of the season without conceding goals strategy, or a certain number of goals.
4. The combination of short- and long-term lead to better performance than using only long-term goals. The long-term goals are completed “forgetting” to reinforce them must be put small subgoals. For example, not conceding goals strategy in a particular football match, eventually you can achieve the goal of the example of point 3.
5. Affect performance goals that direct the business, they mobilize the effort, increase persistence and motivate the search for appropriate strategies to accomplish tasks. The coach does not have to make machines, intrinsic motivation has to continue to exist, so the goal must sharpen the wits force players to get it, although coach set the guidelines.
6. Setting goals will be more effective when there is a feedback showing progress in relation to the degree of fulfillment of the goal. The importance of feedback, as we discussed in another article.
7. With elusive goals, the highest level of engagement leads to better performance. Equipment performance, for example, achieving achieve permanence in the category with a small team creates an effect of team commitment to the common goal. At the base, the objectives have to explain from the standpoint of training, clarifying the achievement of the objectives set at the beginning of the season.
8. The commitment can be affected by different means such as requesting acceptance of the goal, supportiveness, subject to participation in setting goals and through incentives and rewards. An incentive for a team training can be simply to play more game at the end of the main session for having achieved the goals. You could maintain a token economy program to achieve this.
9. Achieving goals can be favored by an appropriate plan of action, especially when the task is complex or long-term. If the coach himself does not have a sports planning or working methodology will be difficult to maintain the motivation, the player has to see the progress.
10. Competition increases performance to the extent that leads to stand tough goals and increases the commitment to the goals. Both internal and external competition encourages improvement, care must be taken in the formation of groups during training tasks to promote this competition.

The commitment of the coach needs to go beyond mere technical and tactical training and be involved in the training and education of their players, as people will defend themselves in real life not only on the pitch.

Always remember that the coach can rely on the figure of the sports psychologist for training in skills and abilities to learn to transmit under an efficient supervision.