Making Motivation pt 3- Your Motivation and Coaching Through Burnout

Introduction

Even the best seasons can be a grind. While your athletes train and compete you may carry a significant load behind the scenes to ensure players have everything they need to be successful. Recognized or not, intense effort takes its toll. Knowing how strenuous it is to be a strength and conditioning coach, this article is focused on you and your well-being in one of the most demanding roles in sport. Coaches who like to live the example or are tired of being tired will benefit by turning the looking glass inward.

A Little Background and a Few Terms

Riding waves of success only to be hit by breakers of minutia will exhaust the best of us. While it's normal for feelings of fatigue and passion to ebb and flow, it's important to recognize when a storm is coming (Hedstrom, 2014). We'll conceptualize that storm as burnout – typically characterized by a combination of emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment (Bentzen, Lemyre, & Kentta?, 2016; Sullivan, Lonsdale, & Taylor, 2014). It's possible to deter burn-out if you prioritize self-care, recognize when you're becoming unmotivated, and act preventively. Should you become burned out, you may experience one or more of these feelings on a consistent basis:

• Physical and mental fatigue

• Lack of connection to job responsibilities

• Diminished sense of importance (work no longer feels valuable or interesting)

• Feelings of low success in work-related tasks

• Lack of passion for the job

• Negative attitude or sense of alienation toward work

• Feeling inadequate in your role or having poor self-esteem toward work tasks (Bentzen, Lemyre, & Kentta?, 2016; Sullivan, Lonsdale, & Taylor, 2014)

  While many of us enter the profession with passion, lofty goals, drive, purpose, and the desire to perform, Dr. Hedstrom phrases it best, saying, “over time the ups and downs of the season can make us question that passion. While this is normal, fluctuations in these feelings can manifest into the larger problem of coaching burnout” (Hedstrom, 2014). Some literature looks at coach burnout with consideration for the impact of autonomy, competence, and relatendness on motivation. As you read this, chew on a few questions: when do you feel motivated or unmotivated? What circumstances, thoughts, and behaviors surround periods of heightened or diminished drive? Strategies we've discussed in previous articles can be tweaked to suit a strength and conditioning role, but we'll also provide coach-specific suggestions. Maintaining a sense of control during busy periods and keeping true to your goals goes a long way.

  Autonomy in Your Role

  There are stressors you can control and those you can't – your performance and the performance of your athletes, respectively. Perceiving your actions and decisions as self-initiated and self-directed contributes to a sense of autonomy (Ryan & Deci, 2000). If you appraise what you can reasonably control within your role it may shed light on what you need to feel responsible for, what's expected of you that's realistically doable, and how much of your motivation comes from within. Obviously, you will occasionally do things above and beyond what's expected – whether you were ‘voluntold' or the choice

was voluntary. The way you perceive expectations, your control in decision-making, and the ‘little extra' things you do may influence your sense of autonomy.1

It is important to keep personal goals a priority because it's impossible to prevent your aspirations from becoming ‘backburnered' every time there is a spike in workload. Are you keeping track of when, to what extent, and for how long one set of goals deprioritizes another, and how necessary that shift is for you to do your job effectively? Do you have strategies to ‘course correct' after that shift in priorities is no longer necessary? How do you ensure a desirable direction for career and personal life while meeting the expectations of your organization? You likely have autonomy in your role and freedom to make decisions, but how you think about organizational road blocks can impact your feelings of control. Perceptions of your freedom to act can tie into feelings of competence.

Feeling Competent

Since you chose to be a strength and conditioning coach and are at Hockey Strength and Conditioning's website, there's a good chance you're a practitioner interested in doing well and developing further. Feelings of competence are buffered by a sense of masterfulness at what you do as well as by acquiring new information and skills (Ryan & Deci, 2000). By understanding what makes you feel competent (knowledge, skills, intangibles or personal qualities, etc.), what competence is within the field, as well as inventorying what you bring to the table or are in the process of learning to apply, you can get a grip on what competence is to you and the profession. If you know that, you have the beginnings of how to build and support feelings of efficacy. Don't forget to give yourself credit for doing a good job day-to-day or across a season (man games lost, test results, overall performance). Do you take pride in delegating tasks and managing self-care without defaulting on your duties? Are you skilled at relaxing, ‘tuning out' during your personal time, and appreciate the skills you used to create time for yourself or a personal life in this profession? When you take time for yourself and your relationships, it may contribute to feelings of relatedness toward important people.

Maintaining Relationships

A sense of relatedness to others is partially derived from feeling valued, supported by, and connected to the important people in your life (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Depending on your position and sector, maintaining relationships outside of the organization can be challenging.2 It's tempting to embrace the grind and solitude, but many people benefit from having established, trusting, supportive relationships with others. Identify who those people are and how you can keep connected. You can also ask yourself who you feel close to in your network or organization and can spend time with – without violating boundaries or raising eyebrows. Conferences present an opportunity to see people you've physically moved away from or a chance to work and play in a city you have friends and family in. Keep your eyes open for advantageous conference locations that also offer CEUs for attendance and kill two birds with one stone. Figuring out who you can trust delegating work to or how to optimize your time can help you leave work and worry less – ideally, allowing you to be present and focus on important relations.

1 The things you do outside of what's minimally expected can feel burdensome after the novelty wears off. You may feel like you've trapped yourself into being expected to do more. Recognizing who made the choice, whether it's still voluntary, the benefit to your team, and whether it can or can be delegated is sometimes helpful.
2I've noticed young skill and strength coaches getting creative in staying connected - learning to use video chat services (e.g. Skype, Google Hangouts) or adopting online video game habits with friends they can't see regularly.

Wrapping Up

It's easy to put your organization or athletes first and embrace the grind, especially if that's the culture you were taught to embody. While your intense dedication serves its purpose, you may benefit from monitoring your motivation – notice red flags in your behavior or mood and act preventively, just as you would to keep the drive of your athletes high. If you have a sport psychology consultant in your organization, they'd be happy to partner with you and hone strategies to keep your motivation high so that you may enjoy your job to its fullest. Hopefully these articles alongside your continued efforts will help foster a motivational culture that is both healthy and sustainable for you and your athletes.

References:

Bentzen, M., Lemyre N. & Kentta?, G. (2016) Changes in motivation and burnout indices in high- performance coaches over the course of a competitive season, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 28, 28-48.

Sullivan, G. S., Lonsdale, C., & Taylor, I. (2014). Burnout in high school athletic directors: A self- determination perspective. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 26, 256–270.

Ryan, R.M. & Deci, E.L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.

Hedstrom, R. (2014). Effective strategies for dealing with coaching burnout. Retrieved from: http://www.appliedsportpsych.org/blog/2014/08/effective-strategies-for-dealing-with-coaching- burnout/