We meet to take a step further in understanding the dynamics that cross sport and growth.
We start from some considerations that we link with the evolutionary stages of children and young people.
Today we try to deepen a little more in the search for understanding, always remembering the exercise of critical thinking.
We are here to understand, not to say who is right and who is wrong.
That said, the first focus is on motivation!
We often hear: "you have to be more motivated," "you have to work on motivation," "you should motivate this person and not the other."
But what is motivation?
Technically, motivation is a force -internal or external- that pushes us to act to achieve a goal. This impulse leads us to act, direct and maintain our behavior towards what we can consider a goal (personal, social, well-being, sports).
Already from this first explanation it makes me think that it is quite superficial and easy to base everything on motivation.
It is evident that "motivation" is structured and, like all structured things, needs to be understood and known. What is the greatest risk of using it without understanding it? The first thing that comes to mind is: if you win you are motivated, if you lose you are not; if you train well you are motivated, if you train poorly you are not.
In a very simplistic way we connect everything with motivation without considering that results also have their own structure and therefore require a process of awareness and an architecture of behaviors.
Advancing with the understanding of motivation we can find other interesting ideas:
Main functions of motivation:
-Activation: it is the energetic component that provides the impulse for action.
-Orientation: determines the direction of behavior towards specific goals, both material (food) and immaterial (psychological well-being).
-Persistence: helps maintain commitment and effort to overcome obstacles and achieve the desired result.
Types of motivation:
-Intrinsic: comes from pleasure, self-interest or satisfaction of performing an activity, without the need for external rewards.
-Extrinsic: is driven by external factors, such as rewards, recognition, punishments or social pressures, that push us to act to achieve something.
What affects it?
-Needs: our fundamental needs, both biological and psychological, are the basis of motivation.
-Values: our principles and what we consider important influence the decisions and goals we pursue.
-Environment: education, culture and social interactions play a fundamental role in the development and expression of motivations.
-Cognition: our perceptions, expectations of success and goal planning can increase or decrease motivation.
At what age are children and young people capable of understanding all this? Or when training them should we also try to train them to understand the architecture of motivation?
However, before moving forward, we would like to propose another "tool" of understanding:
Francisco Seirul·lo Vargas, one of the references in sports training and education (especially at FC Barcelona), describes the sports career as an evolutionary process that goes through several stages of development. Each responds to distinct biological, psychological and social moments, and different ways of relating to practice. They cover approximately 10-12 years depending on the sport. These stages begin with the initiation to practice and the non-specific regular phase (between 5 and 7 years), where the discovery of movement through play predominates. Then we move towards generic polyvalent training (8 to 10 years) and oriented multilateral preparation (11 to 13 years), which lay the foundations for specific initiation in early adolescence (14 to 16 years).
From there, the process focuses on the search for high performance, which goes through specialization (17 to 19 years), perfection (20 to 23 years) and finally competitive stability (24 to 28 years). Afterwards, the athlete enters a stage of decreasing functionality, with phases of conservation, adaptation and readaptation to non-competitive performance, which extend to approximately 40 years.
It should be noted that each stage involves a different practice and that the sport being practiced must be taken into account. There is a big difference, for example, between team and individual sports, from the number of training hours, level of demand, pressure, economic variable, etc. However, from this author we can highlight that at the beginning of sports practice the most important thing is to discover movement through play, not "winning."
The Canadian researcher Jean Côté studied the importance of the early stages in elite sport and the influence of the family. This author emphasizes that between 6 and 12 years old children should go through a "sampling" stage, in which different sports should be tried without specializing too early; it is in adolescence where he proposes a more focused practice. On the other hand, Istvan Balyi proposes a long-term athlete development model (LTAD), where early childhood and childhood focus on active play, basic skills and movement fundamentals. High performance appears much later. The ultimate goal is for the person to be active and enjoy sport throughout their life, beyond competing.
These authors, among others, agree on the importance of sport as play during childhood, the discovery of movement through enjoyment and not competition or pressure to perform. In this way, seeing sport as a positive and fun experience, children will increase their chances of developing as athletes, or simply build a healthy relationship with physical activity that can accompany them throughout their lives.
Looking at these stages through the lens of motivation, we understand how it changes meaning according to the evolutionary moment. The point of view of the elite athlete is truly interesting, because it makes us understand that motivation should not be used in "cause-effect" mode, but rather should be inserted, evaluated and used within an architecture of choices where it is clear that commitment, perseverance and discipline are fundamental elements of personal and sports growth.
Basing everything on that internal impulse may not be functional for growth. Recognizing that it is a complex balance of variables —which also do not always depend on us— opens a valuable space for reflection.
Personal and sports growth must be expressed each day through conscious choices connected with the moment of evolution.
With this approach, adults share with young people a path of personal growth based on awareness, which represents a substantial evolution in their leadership role. Hence the importance of understanding evolutionary stages.
Understanding the architecture of each young person's choices, and especially of each young athlete, is fundamental to favor harmonious development. Forcing this process can be counterproductive: energy is depleted quickly, learning is limited and, ultimately, the risk of premature abandonment increases.
Putting the focus on coherence, commitment and discipline opens the door to real awareness, which translates into concrete and sustainable actions over time.
And, continuing with this idea of architecture, in the next article we will address attention and concentration, two pillars that are part of that necessary foundation to guide choices consciously.
Before saying goodbye, two things:
1.- If you have any questions or comments, our email addresses are here:
ROCIO: rociolambertiquiros@gmail.com
MICHELE: info@baggiomichele.it
2.- With the clear objective of training critical thinking, we leave a question for reflection:
Are we helping young people discover play and discipline, or simply seeking immediate gratification?
See you in November.
References
· Seirul·lo Vargas, F. (2002). El entrenamiento en los deportes de equipo. Apunts: Educación Física y Deportes, (67), 48–56.
· Côté, J. (1999). The influence of the family in the development of talent in sport. The Sport Psychologist, 13(4), 395–417.
· Balyi, I., & Hamilton, A. (2004). Long-Term Athlete Development: Trainability in childhood and adolescence. Windows of opportunity, optimal trainability. Victoria: National Coaching Institute British Columbia & Advanced Training and Performance Ltd.
