The Achievement Goal Theory: One of Many Pillars to Talent and Psychological Development

I would like to start off with a definition of Achievement;

Achievement is subjectively defined, and success or failure in obtaining the goal is a subjective state based on the participant’s assessment of the outcome of the achievement behavior (Maehr & Nicholls, 1980).

The Achievement goal theory assumes that the individual is an intentional, goal-directed organism who operates in a rational manner, and that achievement goals govern achievement beliefs and guide subsequent decision making and behavior in achievement contexts (Tenebaum & Eklund, 2007).

In other words, the environment in which an individual is placed in, can develop specific beliefs that guide an individual on how they view their own development, which can lead to decrease or increase in their personal motivation.  Therefore, the environment in which a child develops can play a huge role in how they will approach a task or activity and what they will take away from the task based on their own personal perception.

One of the biggest issues I see with youth sports today (however this can be applied to many different areas of life) is that coaches tend to create the wrong environment needed to help nourish an athlete’s development.  These environments lead to anxiety, decreased motivation and intrinsic effort, lower levels of moral functioning and cheating, and burnout, to list a few.

So what I want to do in this article, is break down the achievement goal theory in a simple way, and explain how to get the most out of your athletes (or employees, etc.).

There are two different goal orientations; task orientation and ego orientation.  In other words, an individual is either task- or ego-involved with a specific situation.  A task-oriented individual tends to construe competence based on self-reference criteria and are primarily concerned with mastery of the task, to they are more likely than ego-oriented individuals to develop perceived competence over time (Elliot & Dweck, 1998).  An ego-oriented individual feels competent when they compare favorably to in the relation to others, so high perceived relative ability or competence is less likely to be maintained in ego orientation (Dweck, 1986).

Research shows that task-oriented individuals tend to be more resilient when it comes to challenges and perceived competence.  When they look at a task as a challenge and a way to get better, while focusing on the process of getting better, they don’t get discouraged when they make mistakes.  However, with an ego-oriented individual they lose self-confidence easily when they make mistakes, because they focus on comparison and being better than their peers.  Therefore, when they are of less stature than their peers at a specific task they feel defeated and tend to stop doing the task, demonstrating a decrease level of resiliency.  Ultimately, quitting or giving up.

Some of you now might be asking now, what does this have to do with youth coaches?  Well the environment you create throughout your clubs, trainings, matches, even just how you talk to the players develops one of the two orientations or a mixture of the two within an individual.

There are two difference motivational climates: mastery and performance.  Mastery (task-orientation) climate is a structured environment that supports and focuses on effort, cooperation, and put emphasis on the process of development through learning and task mastery.  Performance (ego-orientation) climate refers to a structured environment that supports normative comparisons, intrateam competition, and a punitive approach by teaches and coaches to mistakes committed by participants.

A mastery climate allows for an optimizing environment for the individual to fully develop to their full potential, while giving them the tools and mindset/beliefs they need to approach challenges in the future.  It increases an individual’s well-being, sportsmanship, persistence, task perseverance, adaptive achievement strategies, and attenuates overtraining, self-handicapping, as well as, other negative responses.  While the performance climate does the exact opposite.

In a sense the mastery climate develops a growth mindset individual, while the performance based climate develops a fixed mindset individual (see fixed vs. growth mindset article).  Now I am not saying to take all of the performance based ideas away from your training, but put the focus on the development of the players and make sure they focus on this.  It will allow them to excel greater than if they are focused on being better than their teammate Tommy.  If they focus on their own process of development and are guided correctly, they will not only develop to become a better player but also it will supply them with the right beliefs and mindset that they can use later in life.

If you take anything from this article, take away the idea to have individuals you are working with focus on the process of development and mastery.  Like I mentioned before comparison is the thief of all joy!

This was a brief intro into the achievement goal theory, more to come later!

 Expertly written by Brittany Persaud

References:

Dweck, C. S.  (1986). Motivational Processes affecting learning.  American Psychologist, 41, 1040-1048.

Elliot, E. S., & Dweck, C. S.  (1988). Goals: An approach to motivation and achievement.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 5-12.

Maehr, M. L., & Nicholls, J. G.  (1980). Culture and achievement motivation:  A second look.  In N. Warren (Ed.), Studies in cross-cultural psychology, (Vol. 2, pp. 221-267).  New York: Academic Press.

Tennenbaum, G., & Eklund, R. C.  (2007). Handbook of Sport Psychology: Third Edition.

The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance

What is your definition of happiness?  What is your definition of success?  How do you believe you can reach happiness?

There is no perfect definition of happiness.  Happiness is relative to the person experiencing it, therefore scientist refer to it as subjective well-being because it is based upon how each ofus feels about our own lives (Thompson & Prottas, 2005).

A meta-analysis of happiness research was conducted bringing together over 200 scientific studies including nearly 275,000 people which found that happiness leads to success is nearly every domain of our lives – marriage, health, friendship, community involvement, creativity, our jobs, careers and businesses (Goleman, 1998).

                                                        

In today’s society the formula for success is if you work harder you will be more successful and if you are more successful you will be happier.  But in reality this line of thinking is backwards, and science shows us this.

For example, most people set a goal, and believe once they reach this goal they will be happy, but instead they then set an even higher goal, and never actually take the time to enjoy what they had just accomplished.  Therefore, they never truly reach a state of happiness.

Some examples include; Grades through school (got good grades, now I need to get better grades), Sports (scored 7 goals last season, score 10 goals next season), Business (reached my sales target, now I need to raise my sales target).

What we need to do is learn to live in the present, and be grateful for where we are.  Shawn Archor, conducted research on Harvard Students and found that most students two weeks after the acceptance into the program, instead of seeing it as a privilege to be able to study at Harvard, started focusing on the competition, work load, and complaints of their new experience.

“This essentially pushes happiness over the cognitive horizon.” – Shawn Archor

Our mind shapes how we see the world!  We need to create a better Positive to negative ratio for ourselves within our minds and thoughts. 90% of happiness is determined by how your brain processes the world!

We need to learn to enjoy the moment more, and develop a positive brain, which will in turn allow for better results.  When we create positivity in the present, it allows an individual to think more intelligently, have increased creativity, higher energy levels, and the list goes on and on.  Research shows, our brains are 31% more productive at positive compared to negative, neutral, or stressed (Shawn Archor).

When we are happy, Dopamine is released, turning on all learning centers in the brain.

The Happiness advantage creates:

- Better secure jobs

- Better keeping jobs

- Increased productivity

- More resiliency

- Less burnout

- Less turnover

- Greater sales

(Lyubominsky, 2005)

So how can you create and develop this positivity within your brain.  To do this we need to rewire our own brain and research has shown that these different techniques work!

- Write three gratitude down for 21 days, which then rewires our brain to search the world for positivity (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

- Journaling about something you did well during the day, which allows the brain to relive a positive experience (Slatcher and Pennebaker, 2006).

- Exercise (Babyak et al., 2000).

- Meditation allows us to get away from the constant business of society these days, cultural ADHD (Dweck, 2007).

- Random Acts of Kindness- write one positive email praising someone you know in your social network (Lyubuminsky, 2005).

These different techniques have proven and been shown to help rewire the brain.  Therefore, if you can work on these different activities, you will help create a more positive thinking brain.  Which will allow you to be happier, and Happiness is what really fuels success!

                                  

From a personal experience, I started applying these different techniques and the idea of the Happiness Advantage into my own daily life, and I saw amazing results.  When you take a step back and enjoy where you are in life, you become happier, and then become even more productive at what you are working on, becoming more successful.  I have seen great improvements with soccer and within my study when I applied these different ideas and mindset, to my own daily life, so I suggest you give it a shot!

If you would like to read up more on the topic, I would suggest reading The Happiness Advantage:  The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, by Shawn Archor.

References:

Babyak, M., Blumenthal, J.A., Herman, S., et al., 2000. Exercise treatment for major depression: maintenance of therapeutic benefit at 10 months. Psychosom. Med. 62, 633–638

Dweck, C. (2007).  Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House.

Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Countingblessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation ofgratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 84, 377–389.

Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: does happiness lead to success?. Psychological bulletin, 131(6), 803.

Goleman, D. (1998).  Working with Emotional Intelligence.  New York: Bantam, at 77.

Slatcher, R. B., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2006). How do I love thee? Let me count the words: The social effects of expressive writing. Psychological Science, 17, 660–664.

Thompson, C.A., & Prottas, D.J.  (2005). Relationships among organizational family support, job autonomy, perceived control, and employee well-being.  Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 10(4), 100-118.

The important of sports psychology and how it affects performance

I would first like to start off with how truly important the mental side of the game is for athletes.  It is one of the most important determinants between the good and the great athletes.  It can give you that slight edge over your opponent that you need to compete better and ultimately enjoy playing.  I also would like to mention that some of these philosophies and ideas can be taken into other areas of life, so if you aren’t a high level athlete anymore, continue to read you still might learn something that you can apply to your life as well!

I am going to share some mental training skill tips and philosophies of my own, that have personally helped me take my game and life to another level.  One of the key aspects for me in this area is my own mindset and outlook on life and sport.

I would first like to challenge you and ask, what is your focus when you are training or competing in a game?

• -        Coaches thoughts – trying to prove yourself
• -        Pressured feeling due to the crowds and sponsors
• -        Are you focused on the result and just winning?
• -        Are you fully engaged in what you are doing or focused on something outside of your control?
• -        Worried about being better than someone else
• -        Wondering who the coach is going to start

A big lesson I learned that made a huge difference in my game and life, is that you need to focus on the controllable, as well as, the process, not the RESULTS!  I will go into this with more detail down the road but briefly, I want to open your eyes to how this can help make a huge impact on your life.

So many players are focused on the things they can’t control (coaches thoughts, teammates reactions or judgments, crowd judgments, etc.) that they lose themselves in this process.  They create extra pressure on themselves by thinking along these lines.  So my first advice to you is to let go of the things you can’t control and focus on what you can control:

• -        Attitude
• -        Effort
• -        Concentration
• -        Perspective
• -        Enthusiasm
• -        Communication
• -        Your own development

When we take away the power from others to judge us, and allow this not to affect us, it creates a freedom throughout yourself as a whole, and this applies to all areas of life.  So first I want to make it clear that you need to let go of this judgment.  Secondly, you need to let go of the comparisons of yourself to others.  My mentor once told me, Comparison is the thief of all joy.  Everyone has their own “talents” that they have developed, but you shouldn’t focus on others and being better than them.  Instead focus on developing to become the best you can be, on and off the field.  You can control your effort, attitude, and your focus to become the best you can be.  You can’t control who makes the decisions of who starts, or who gets that promotion at work.  What you can control is being your very best self each and every day, while continuing to grow as an individual, and treating people really well regardless of the situation.

                                                              

The second focus I would like to point out, is that a lot of individual’s today focus on the result.  They have a sales quota they are trying to meet, or the coach just wants to win and will do anything to get there, the athlete is so focused on the result of doing well to impress others that is develops a sense of pressure.  This creates a negative feeling for individuals especially when they don’t reach those benchmarks, which then can create an even lower level or performance.  But if we can reverse this way of thinking, and focus on the process of getting better each and every day the results will come.  Don’t focus on winning and results but instead, BE PRESENT, and focus on training that day in that exact moment.  Focus on what little things can you do now, to help you develop as a player, which will ultimately allow you to obtain the results you always wanted.  When we focus on the process of development and growth each and every day, the results will come.

Some Tips and Exercises for Mental Training:

-        Visualization:  Research based evidence shows that we can develop muscle memory (myelin) throughout the nervous system by doing vivid visualization training exercises.

So find a quiet place to sit down, determine a specific situation in a game that you are looking to work on.  For example, a free kick or stopping a penalty kick.  Now try to visualize your surrounding environment; smells, sounds, sights.  You need to be fully emerged into the process of what is going on to get the most out of the exercise.  Then, visualize the process in very specific detail of your movements up until you perform the task and visualize the end result, while experiencing the feelings you might feel once you have successfully completed the task.  Do this for 5-10 minutes a day, with multiple repetitions of the specific situation.

Another visualization exercise I love, is watching (YouTube) some of my favorite players who play the same position as me, that I would like to imitate their style of play and learn from.  But you need to do this with a lot of attention, focus on all of their movements, how they approach certain situations, and try to determine exactly what they are doing; where they are looking, their explosiveness, timing and so on.  This one is great especially on game day, it gets your brain going and mind thinking, without much effort and at the same time you are enjoying what you are watching!

                                                         

-        Writing down notes after training:

1)     List 10 – 15 things you did well and be very specific.  Visualize yourself as you did these things early and successfully completing them.

2)     List 2-3 things of Areas to improve.  And think about any small mistakes you might have made, and visualize how you would actually want to complete them if you were to do them again so that they would become successful plays.  Mistakes are there for us to learn from, as well as, help us develop to become smarter and better players!

3)     List the controllable of the session; ex: attitude, effort, work rate, mind set and self-talk during training, etc.

4)     List the uncontrollable of the session; ex: coaches’ comments, teammate’s comments, bad bounces, outcome/results not completely in your control when working as a team, teammates playing styles, etc.

-        Breathing exercises before training or matches: 5 seconds in 5 seconds out for a minute

-        I also like to right down 3 things I am grateful for each night and 3 things I did well during the day at the end of the night (Doesn’t need to be sports related).  This helps develop a grateful outlook and perspective on life, as well as, a more positive mindset.

 

That is all I have for you guys this time around.  In the future, I will talk about other areas of mental training philosophies and mindset, but for now I wanted to give you guys a bit of an introduction to the process and a few tips that I use myself personally.  Theses techniques might be able to help you take things to the next level, and overall allow you to feel a bit more freedom.

This post was written by Brittany Persaud.

Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset - Sports Psychology

I would first like to start off this article to encourage you, the reader, to go out and get a copy of Mindset by Carol Dweck.  She is a world-renowned Stanford University Psychologist who has down years of research on achievement and success and how an individual’s mindset can make a huge difference.

There are two key mindsets, a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. 

An individual with a fixed mindset believes that their basic qualities including but not limited to their intelligence, character, or talent, are fixed traits and cannot change.  An individual with a fixed mindset measure themselves by successes that are documented and doing better than others.  These individuals’ tend to avoid failure at all costs, so if something is too difficult or too hard they tend to shy away, because if they do fail, in their eyes they are not smart enough or skilled enough.  Put simply, if they can’t do it easily the first time through, then they just assume they aren’t smart or good enough.  These individuals also feel the need to prove themselves constantly which creates extra stress and anxiety.

A growth mindset individual takes on the idea that failure is not evidence of unintelligence but instead an opportunity for growth and to learn.  Growth mindset individuals like to take on new challenges.  This mindset allows an individual to expand on their existing basic qualities and grow as an individual.  In other words, with the growth mindset dedication and hard work can get you further in life.  This mindset allows an individual to develop a love of learning and resilience in tough times to get through something that might be particularly challenging at a certain time.  These individuals don’t focus on proving anything to anyone else but are more focused on their own development and growth.

We develop these mindsets from a young age, and the thing is that our surroundings are what shape us.  If you are a coach or teacher, I highly recommend you do some more research into this topic.  Something as simple as how you speak to the kids or the words you use to communicate to them, can develop a specific mindset with in a child without you even knowing.  The way society is these days, the fixed mindset tends to overtake the growth mindset within individuals.  What I believe is that we need to get more education out to individuals shaping these children’s lives so that they can help these kids develop more of a growth mindset while growing up.  If we can make this switch we can help set these kids up for a brighter future.  If they acquire the love for learning, and challenges and develop the mindset that if they put the work in, they can get there, it will help them be far more successful in life down the road, be that in sport or life.

I would like you to take a step back and determine what type of mindset you might have:

Fixed:

• -        Believe capabilities are inborn talents
• -        Avoid challenges
• -        Believe that if you need to put in effort then you must lack the skill needed.
• -        If you fail at something, believe that you have the lack of talent and give up early.
• -        Success of others is a threat to you because maybe they are better than you are.

Growth:

• -        Believe capabilities are developable through effort and learning.
• -        Try to learn and improve any chance you get.
• -        Challenges are embraced because they allow you to grow as an individual.
• -        Effort is a normal and needed to grow as an individual.
• -        Failure is seen as an opportunity to learn and grow, and try again with a better strategy.

Now that you have read through, what did you come up with?

Maybe try and take this as an eye opener, and if you see yourself leaning more towards the fixed mindset, try and start to be aware of how you are thinking and respond to situations.  You can develop a growth mindset, it takes time and effort, and won’t be easy but if you put in the effort you can rewire the way you think.  And this will help you live more productive life, and allow you to take on challenges, as well as, do things you never imagined you could do yourself.

And the great thing is mindset applies to all areas in life.  Not just sport or health but in your study, or work situation.  Everyone has potential, they just need to see it and be willing to put the work in to get where they want in life.  And maybe you developed a fixed mindset because of who you grew up around and people telling you, you weren’t talented enough.  But this isn’t true, if you are willing to put in the effort and develop and grow as an individual, it will make a world of difference for you.

I myself used to have a partially fixed mindset, and it was hurting my professional soccer career.  I was frustrated, in a foreign country, lonely at times, thought along the lines of a fixed mindset individual.  It’s a lot to take in, and sometimes you believe what people say.  Then, I started working with a mentor of mine on developing a new outlook on life and mindset, and my world turned upside down.  I was playing some of the best soccer of my life, as well as, starting my Master’s degree which was going to be a challenge in itself.  But the simple switch in thinking and developing the growth mindset allowed me to thrive on the field and in the classroom.  Yes, I had to deal with a lot of new things moving to a foreign country and playing soccer but I started to see it as a challenge and started focusing on the process of getting better and learning.  Yes, I had plenty of challenges with my school work, trying to manage my time, as well as, learn some challenging material but again I saw it as a challenge and put the effort in to get the job done.

What I am getting at, is you can make the change too.  You can free yourself from the judgment of yourself and others, and allow yourself to make mistakes.  Go out and fail a few times.  Failure and mistakes are just there to help you learn and grow as an individual so that you can do it better next time or maybe even a completely different way.  Yes you want to do well, we all do!  However, at the same time every experience you encounter makes you a better individual regardless of what happens you can take that experience and learn from it.  With the growth mindset it allows you to be the best you can be and improve every single day.

So my advice to you, is try and become more aware of how you are thinking and the type of mindset you have, and try and implement different thoughts along the lines of the growth mindset.  You will not regret it, I promise!

This article was expertly written by Professional Women's Footballer, Brittany Persaud.