How to create self-motivated players

Mastery-driven players are motivated to learn new skills and put them into practice, use feedback from players and coaches, keep going in the face of challenge, and take risks and innovate. In other words, they are coachable, and show both resilience and confidence.

By contrast, performance motivation is when players are motivated to improve because they want feedback on their performance.

A player driven by performance motivation craves approval of others - this form of motivation is also called ’egocentric motivation’.

In the long run, these players show lower competence, lower resilience, high drop-out rates, poor sportsmanship, and undermine positive team chemistry. 

It is reward systems, as discussed last week, that lead to performance motivation. Good coaching involves doing the little things that train mastery motivation. 

This means avoiding comparing players directly. Don’t say “Were you better than Sally today?”, “Sally’s passing technique is better than yours", or even “You’re the best on the team".

Instead, address skills and techniques that are performed well when you wish to compare players - e.g., “Watch closely how Tommy receives the ball. What do you see him doing?”.

The key to creating mastery motivation is to train players to identify their own goals. Goal-setting is crucial to promoting mastery motivation, so coaches should encourage players to use the S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting guidelines.

Specific goals: Easy to understand (“Check your shoulder during the game”).

Measurable goals: Provide players a strong sense of accomplishment (“Touch the ball 12 hours a week”).

Achievable goals: Easy to maintain (“Make three successful passes during your game”).

Realistic goals: Can be player specific (“Perform the roll over you’ve been practising”).

Timely goals: Allows for development within a game or throughout a season (“Keep improving your roll over during the season”).

Some researchers started from the well-known fact that rewards destroy a love for the game. They found that players who could develop a sense of freedom could be resilient to the destructive effects of rewards. 

Rewards do not impact people if they can be helped to develop their own autonomy. The formula is simple - if you want players that love the game, support player autonomy and mastery motivation.

Moving forward

The bottom line is that coaches can create a culture where players achieve higher levels of excellence in all aspects of their sport, be they technical skills, tactical IQ, physical training, or psychological self-mastery.

Coaches have a huge role in creating players that have higher levels of wellbeing and the ability to bounce back in the face of challenge. Most importantly, coaches can play a huge role in creating players who stick around because they love to play.

"Coaches play a role in creating players who stick around because they love to play..."

Players who have been given an honest reading of their opportunities and expectations in the game will have a healthy and vigorous motivation to continue at whatever level suits them.

Let’s take some of what we know about research, and put it into practice for coaches when they work towards their licences. This means teaching coaches how to create a culture that isn’t contaminated by the toxic habit of rewards and evaluating them on their ability to foster such a culture.

There are some other basic changes we can make to support the love of the game. Soccer is becoming a big business in my homeland of Canada, with 200,000 more kids registered than play ice hockey.

The approaching men’s World Cup in 2026 [hosted by Canada and the US] and the start of the CPL all point to the fact that soccer is becoming a lucrative investment. This could be a great danger or a great opportunity, depending on how we approach investment. 

A study published this year, based on a small sample of professional athletes, revealed an important angle on investment. It becomes easy to focus on the business of investment, but the researchers noted that it is important to see players as the most important resource a club possesses. 

Investment should be directed to players first, and clubs or regulating bodies second. Investing in players’ development is what matters to the real success of an organization.

What can we do to make sure we think about investment in a way that prioritizes players’ development? We can promote the athletes and help them grow further through improved equipment, superior teams, more money for tournaments, money for recovery and highly qualified coaches.