Dr. Adam Naylor Misfocused Motivation

Motivation affects everyone, whether you are an athlete, a student, an employee, or merely attempting to complete a task. Motivation is simply the focus and intensity of our effort. Ideally, our motivation would always be 100% focused and 100% intense, but as humans we often have misfocused motivation, or motivation from the wrong sources. There are several theories to help explain this phenomenon, including self-determination factor, which suggests that the best source of motivation is internal and focused on learning and happiness. Goal- oriented motivation theory categorizes people into being either dominantly outcome-oriented, focused on outcomes and social comparison, or task-oriented and motivated by goals of self-reference such as learning a new skill.
Adam Naylor’s “Priming Performance”, motivational strategies are slipped in during talk of mental toughness, skills for excellence, and turning skills into strategy. For example, on page 23, Naylor discusses how create a “pull” for the athlete by focusing on learning. This is an example of how to use self-determination theory in real life. Naylor is suggesting that outcomes should not be the focus of our motivation, and that we are more successful when we concentrate on what we learned from our experience. “No day in sport is a waste or a failure if a player asks herself (and answers) the question, “What did I learn today?”” (p23). By changing our motivation from extrinsic factors such as rewards, guilt, and desire for status to intrinsic, where we are internally motivated by joy and/ or learning. By using intrinsic motivation, we have a voice and a choice in our own success. If we are solely motivated by extrinsic factors, we are giving someone the control to take away our