By Dr. Marco Mancini1 - personal trainer
Motivation: a psychological factor that influences sports activity and daily life choices
How important is motivation in sports?
To find the answer that is right for us, we can start from the sports context and build a natural parallelism, so ask ourselves in general how important motivation is in everyday life. In this sense, we would realize that Sport represents life in a circumscribed and "artificial" way.
Psychology begins to deal with motivation understood as "motivated behavior" (drive), since the beginning of its history as an independent science, through the works of scholars such as W. James, CL Hull and S. Freud. The goal was to begin to investigate why the individual goes so far as to pursue certain goals. At this point, sharing a definition of the concept of motivation becomes essential.
We can state, in a clear and exhaustive way, that motivation is the expression of dynamics that induce an individual to a specific action . An aspect becomes immediately evident: motivation is an abstraction, therefore a process that can only be detected indirectly, and to allow observation is the evaluation of the behavior linked to it.
The relationship that each of us has with any physical and / or sports activity is strongly influenced by the motivational component. Every time we decide to undertake an activity, as well as when we decide to interrupt it, we always have a reason, which can be more or less conscious and that fuels our behavior. It therefore appears evident that motivation is a purely psychological factor, which has a strong relationship both with being able to carry out an activity continuously, and with the probability that carrying it out brings tangible benefits and does not become, instead, a useless daily occupation of those that increase a corrosive sense of dissatisfaction.
Of course, when we talk about those who practice a physical and / or sporting activity we refer to all practitioners regardless of their level of performance; it being understood that it is more probable that the professional sportsman is informed about certain psychological issues that affect his activity and that the rest of the "sporting population" is fasting. Even more so in a logic of promoting physical and sporting activity, which brings a series of benefits both to our body (prevention of cardio-vascular insults, postural pains, osteo-articular traumas, etc.) and to our mind (perception of self-efficacy, anti-stress action, etc.), it seems important to deepen the relationship between motivation and sport. In a famous psychological model (Murray, McClelland and Atkinson), 2 fundamental aspects are identified regarding motivation, each specified in 3 points:
1. The motivation to succeed:
- the strength of individual orientation to success;
- the perceived probability of being successful;
- the incentive value of success.
2. The motivation to avoid failure:
- the strength of individual orientation to avoid or delay entry into successful assignments;
- the perceived probability of failure;
- the meaning attributed to failure.
Personal success in a physical or sporting activity as well as continuity in practice are influenced by these 2 aspects.
So we are motivated to practice a sport:
1. if we think that with the exercise the benefits will become useful and important for us;
2. if we strongly believe that the success in achieving the set goals depends on us and not on external factors that we cannot control;
3. if the benefits that we have set out to obtain are in our eyes particularly important and worthy of our commitment and our time, so if the benefits are greater than the costs (" How much effort is required?" And "How much I am interested in achieve that result? ").
We are demotivated when:
1. we are afraid of engaging in a task that can develop positive effects as well as failure;
2. we think that the probability of failing in the prefixed task is high;
3. we experience the failure unpleasantly, hardly enduring its emotional consequences.
At this point one might ask: "How many times have I felt able to achieve any goal with the necessary commitment, and how many times has the fear of failure and being judged prevailed?" In the case we have often felt in the second condition it is useful to keep in mind that in Sport as in life "not trying" and "not getting involved" for fear of failure, it feeds a vicious circle for which nothing is done just to avoid making mistakes and in so doing increases the perception we have of being incapable and of being considered by others as people of little value.
Interrupting this circle is possible and may seem extremely simple or otherwise impossible. The solution is to start doing, realizing that failure is a possibility but not the only one.
In an interview, asking "if sport helps life or if it is just a parenthesis", Valentina Vezzali answers this: " It is the greatest metaphor of life: it always leads you to face new obstacles, it teaches you to learn and to react, waiting for next time ". This is the testimony of those who, by accepting various challenges that have brought successes and failures, have managed over time to feel themselves to be a better person, more capable and better able to cope with life's unexpected events. In cases like this, sport can truly be considered a lifestyle gym. And do we have the same desire to face life?
