Here’s How You Can Motivate Your Sports Team!

Keep your team motivated always, but it may be more difficult than you thought, especially when things go wrong. You get into a losing spree and the team needs a good dose of motivation. This may be difficult but not impossible. So, here are a few ways, to coach your team and lead them into victories as before.

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic is using external factors to encourage and motivate a player so that they perform the acts exactly the way you want them to. In the sporting arena, coaches use extrinsic motivation such as a match fee or promotion to team captain. More negatively, a coach may use negative motivation such as threatening to drop the player from their team or even to ax them from the club. It can be more of a carrot and stick type of motivation. Either offering the player a reward or making a threat to ax them. Intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, may improve and achieve as a result of an intrinsic need to excel. The best coaches will inspire players from within and may not need to apply extrinsic tactics.

The Right Environment Works Wonders

Motivation starts right on the training pitch. When the training sessions start, they may start feeling a surge of inspiration. The only way to do this is to create a positive environment around the training facilities. Try to find out whether the environment you create can give the right impetus to your players. You can make small improvements and invest in new equipment, or make your clubhouse better or spruce up the changing rooms. Should you be an authoritarian or should you be more lenient in your approach? If you are too strict you may alienate your players and not get the best out of the players. The working environment creates a happy and motivated atmosphere. Make an effort to create that perfect atmosphere.

Make it a Whole Lot of Fun

The way to create a positive team environment is to make it all the more fun. Fun is one of the most important aspects of taking part in sports, and yet you may find it difficult to achieve. Teams work that much harder when they enjoy the whole process. Your players may even turn up on Sundays because they are passionate about the game and they don’t miss an opportunity to join the game. Keep on challenging your players and improve the drive and endeavor to ensure they succeed and enjoy the whole process.

Use More Competitive Aspects

When you play a sport you go through a lot of emotions. Channeling them right is one of the most important ways to win a game. Competition is one of the key ways to motivate yourself to succeed, and it is similar to your players. It is not wrong to fire up the competitive spirit in sportsmen and women. It may fuel up the need to add the fun quotient to the game. This way you can continuously motivate your team and force them to be better than their peers.

Make Your Team Empowered

Great coaching is all about believing in yourself and the players. Belief is what can keep you and your players going, especially when your players are finding it hard to motivate themselves because of a slump. Always show confidence in your players and tell them again and again about their goals. Keep reminding them of how you believe that they can achieve their goals. Always empower your players that they are responsible enough to develop themselves. Let them grow and stop trying to micro-manage into every aspect of the player’s life.

Conclusion

Lastly, it is important to create a balance. You can always create a competitive influence in your coaching but know exactly when to stop. Sometimes trying too hard may have negative effects on morale. Also, while winning is important, it is not the most important aspect. You may fall into the trap of punishing the losers and rewarding the winners. This may turn out to be the classic case of divide and rule, which you do not want. Motivation is not for a few members of the team, but every one of them.