Within this assignment I have been asked to look at two participants who are involved in the sport of kickboxing. I must identify three key roles of motivational factors that exist between the two contrasting participants and summarise the relative success of three different motivational strategies upon participants. Firstly, there are many definitions to what exactly motivation is, below I have listed a few; “Motive – the desire to fulfil a need” (Cox 1998).
“The study of motivation is the study of all those pushes and prods – biological, social or psychological that defeat our laziness and move us, either eagerly or reluctantly to action” (Millers 1967). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, these are two types to which Derek and Gary use to stay within the sport of kickboxing. Derek is the first participant, he is a 50 year old man who seems to me enjoys kickboxing very much.
Derek has been training three times a week and has been doing so for the past 13 years. He knows he will never be a champion but still participates regularly even though he rarely wins. It seems to me that Derek has a high arousal level when it comes to physical activity and so is motivated by participating in the sport. He also seems affiliated with the club and as he is a veteran kick boxer has many friends; this also proves that socialising also motivates Derek to participate.
As Derek is a 50 year old he may also be participating to improve his health physically and mentally and this can also be a reason for him to stay motivated as he enjoys the benefits of leading an active and social life. Derek could motivate himself by setting self confidence goals such as saying “I will train harder to gain that level of belt” or “I will complete 600 punches in fewer than 6 minuets this week”.
This type of motivation will or could lead to intrinsic motivation for Derek by giving him the feeling of self – esteem and feelings of achievement in getting better at kickboxing or gaining better physical strength and endurance. Gary is another member of the club and also trains with Derek. Gary is 18 years old and has been training for a couple years only. Gary is talented and has both ability and youth on this side but never competes after he lost his first competition.
He does not spar in training and seems he is not willing to train hard and regularly as he misses sessions. Gary gives me the impression that he does not do kickboxing for the intrinsic rewards such as Derek but for the extrinsic rewards so therefore Gary is extrinsically motivated. This type of motivation is ok until the participant or athlete gets to the point where the motivation must be increased to improve performance as the reward is no longer appetising enough to continue, therefore in most cases the athletes are found to loose interest in giving their all.
Most times the reward that is used to motivate athletes extrinsically is money and trophies and therefore must have a limit to how much is given most of the time once an athlete has gained both extremes then the drive to continue and better the reward is lost. In Gary’s case as he lost his first competition he was not rewarded extrinsically and therefore this is the reason that he will not proceed to train and strive to improve his performance, he feels there is no point if he will not receive a benefit of some value.
This is a major factor in Gary’s training as rewards are not always available and eventually will be stopped all together and in turn will limit his future performances and ability to better his skill. I do believe that Derek will continue with his training, as he does not expect nor need extrinsic rewards in order to tell himself that he is good at a sport and is noticeably known that he is good, where as Gary strives for external notice of others and affiliation via rewards from either winning competitions or carrying something out to a high level standard.
I feel that if Gary continues to think in this way and continue to strive for external rewards then he will not last as long as Derek, in my opinion Gary needs to understand the principle that even if battles are lost and external expectations are not met that there are still inner achievements that can be made and feel just as good. However we could look at the flip side and see that Gary has a drive for high level achievement and will not accept anything below his personal set standard, this may be a strive to Gary to continue kickboxing, but only begin to put all his efforts in if some sort of goal or external need is met.