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Motivation is the keyword

Motivation plays a big role making you move forward

STRIVING TO WIN Motivation is the key

"Your goals, minus your doubts, equal your reality."

Ralph Marston

It is a cliché that winning in sports is as much about the mind as it is about the body. Sports teams often travel with a psychologist on board, captains and coaches are judged as much on their motivational skills as they are on strategy. Self-confidence is one element of self mastery; others include self knowledge, motivation and emotional well being, and they are complementary mental skills.

Of them all, motivation is the foundational mental skill that sustains and promotes the rest. Without motivation, for example, you cannot make yourself do tasks that involve repetition - key to any practice session. Even doing meditation to improve concentration requires motivation.

There are two kinds of motivation - extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation comes from the world around us: trophies, medals, and money can act as great motivators. Kids grow up dreaming of winning Olympic golds for their country: that is extrinsic motivation. So is competing for the respect of your peers. Such outside rewards can be sureshot motivators, but they have a tendency to fail as the individual ages. Money and trophies lose their appeal when you've had your full of them.

Extrinsic motivation has other flaws. You can win without playing well and by taking shortcuts, and your success would merely teach you to perpetuate your errors. Past successes are flawed guides for future success. On the other hand, failure can occur even with a great performance, and you can change for the worse in the insecure quest for trophies.

Intrinsic motivation is more difficult to define, but you know it when an athlete has got it. It is the batsman who cringes after hitting a four because he mistimed it slightly; it is the golfer who turns up for practice right after winning a major championship. Intrinsic motivation makes you care about becoming better everyday, and it is independent of outside rewards and perceptions. It is the best form of motivation because it does not depend on external events. Such athletes take pleasure in their performances and they set standards for themselves that are different form what the world has set for them.

Athletes who are serious about long term success should learn to recognise what motivates them. They should learn to give up their attachment to extrinsic motivators and look inward for their benchmarks of success and failure.

RAJIV M.

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