Motivation - SMWW e-Arena



Motivating Others

Motivation Comes From The Top

Motivation begins with the motivator motivating himself—you should always lead by example. If you come to work every day lacking enthusiasm, you cannot expect a team or staff to be excited about being there with you. After all, motivation is having the proper attitude. And, as you should all know, attitudes are contagious—good or bad.

The most important feature of the great motivator is caring about those who he is to motivate. In fact, the greatest motivating factor is love. But before you read further, the preceding sentence should be clarified. Love is more than putting your arm around a player or looking someone in the eye and speaking with respect. You must acquire and practice tough love. Discipline is an intricate part of any basketball program. You must discipline those same players you care about because you do love them and your coach should be in control of his team. And while you don’t have to be a drill sergeant, a disciplined squad is more likely to accept motivation than an undisciplined one.

Motivation is all encompassing. You must look for ways to motivate every phase of your program.

As the head of a front office, you must have regular meetings with your coaches and take an active role in helping the players. However, at the same time, you hired the coach to run the team, so let them do their job.

Many of the following things are suggestions for head coaches that would also apply to your staff in the front office:

Small things like uniformed appearance in practice can help motivate. Being prepared each day in practice as a coaching staff will assist you to being more readily and able to motivate—as well as you making your players more accessible to motivation. Create a motivating atmosphere. You don’t have to have a state of the art locker room or an upscale designed office—but make sure they are clean and organized. A bulletin board is one of those oldest items in an athletic locker room, but it still gets a lot of mileage in getting subtle messages to your team every day. Be creative with your bulletin board. Don’t load it up with items because they will never get read. One short poem or quote with a couple of news items that will draw their attention will do a great deal. Look for creative ways to get your message across to your team. Have some else come and speak to your team. Former players, successful coaches, or just someone you consider to be a good motivator. Don’t forget to use a VHS video player. You can find a number of videos to show your team to emphasize certain points. And above all, if you want to be considered a great motivator, you must be able to persevere through difficult times. No coach goes undefeated for his career. All coaches go through difficult time periods, some of which may last an entire season. They must be resilient and able to attack adversity with the same vigor as in victory. If handled poorly, a single lost game can ruin an entire season, and sometimes a career. It is critical that you don’t dwell on defeat. Step back and take a look—find the reasons why and then repair them. Harping on bad experiences will only bring more to come. When people think of motivation, they think of the rah-rah speeches before the big game—you should think of your ability to lift your team and your staff up after defeat. The right motivation is critical and must come from a true service to those you are leading. Otherwise, you’re not so much inspiring people to follow you as seducing them and this is never permanent or truly fulfilling.

MOTIVATIONAL HANDOUTS

Coaches spend a great deal of time searching for a variety of methods in motivating players, but coaches also need motivating. You should pass along motivational items to your coaching staff as well as fellow coaches you know. It could be a poem, an inspirational quote, or maybe a very enlightening story from a magazine. It is important that you stay motivated so you can in turn motivate your team. You are what you think, you attract what you think, your life is a product of your thoughts and belief, and nothing in the world can change these facts. The only way you can alter your life is to alter your thinking and the best way to accomplish that is through reading. Of course, you have many different ways to motivate your players. In fact, an entire book could be written on the different forms of motivating individuals as well as on teams. The remainder of this chapter includes some of the various handouts you can share with your players and coaches. They should receive these throughout the year, including the off-season and during the summer. If you can motivate your players to truly do their best, and only they will really know, then you are successful and the actual score of a contest is immaterial, whether you win or not. A motivated athlete must also recognize that men who are labeled as extraordinary athletes are deemed coachable. There have always been a few exceptions to this, but it is obvious that the coachability of a player is one of the most essential qualities for a truly great athletic effort, and it is important for coaches to convey and convince your team of this early on. All must recognize that the best potential of me is we. Motivation and hard work are not enough; concentration is imperative both for the coaching staff to master as well as to teach their teams. Concentration is the supreme art, because no art can be achieved without it, while with it anything can be achieved. The masters all have the ability to discipline themselves to eliminate everything except what they are trying to accomplish.

Lessons Learned from a Lifetime of Coaching

Questionable, unsportsmanlike tactics employed to influence the odds of winning are never worth the price paid in the loss of self-respect.

Degrading remarks or actions aimed at spurring players on to greater effort may bring temporary success but results in long-range failure. Anger is a poor substitute for reason.

Your players tend to become what they believe you think they are.

Teenagers, by nature, are idealistic. Attitudes such as jealousy and discontent among players are often nurtured by well meaning adults whose eyes are set only upon the glamorous aspects of winning.

Patience and love are the most powerful tools in coaching.

Today’s heartbreaks turn into tomorrow’s strengths.

Gracefully accept unfortunate events beyond your control.

Work hard to influence the outcome of important things within your control.

Never second-guess yourself on decisions made with integrity, intelligence, and from the heart. The most essential thing in coaching, and a coach’s greatest challenge, is to teach players to never give up.

Vince Lombardi Credo

“Leaders are made, they are not born; and they are made just like anything else ha ever been made in this country—by hard effort. And that’s the price that we all have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.

“And despite what we say about being born equal, none of us really are born equal, but rather unequal. And yet the talented are no more responsible for their birthright than the underprivileged. And the measure of each should be what each does in a specific situation.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to be tolerant of a society who has sympathy only for the misfits, only for the maladjusted, only for the criminal, only for the loser. Have sympathy for them, help them, but I think it’s also a time for all of us to stand up for and cheer for the doer, the achiever, one who recognizes a problem and does something about it, one who looks at something extra to do for his country.

Patience of a Mother

Now a basketball coach or an office manager has the patience of a mother, a firmness of a father and, believe me, if the case calls for it, he can get doggone stern; sometimes it stings.

He can also, with perhaps the pitch of his voice, make you do basketball things you never thought you could do.

And it’s your coach who, 9 times out of 10, will stick up for you in the face of some other’s criticism of you. And it’s also your coach, when the team is losing, who bears the brunt of pressure.

He’s the fellow, when the team’s losing, who gets nasty telephone calls.

He’s the fellow who is ignored when walking down the street, when he is a loser.

And, he’s the fellow whose wife wards off catty remarks at the supermarket, when he has a loss.

And you know, it’s a funny thing. Your coach sometimes knows you better than your Mom.

Your coach is a buddy, a pal, and just a human being who has oodles of faith in you. Believe me, you can’t buy that.

Boiled down, a coach is a pretty wonderful fellow with a mighty tough job.

There are many, including this writer, who don’t envy that fellow—your coach.

Think Like a Winner

What are the traits that make one man a winner and another man a loser? The big difference is in how a man thinks. His attitude will govern his actions. For instance:

A winner is always ready to tackle something new; a loser is prone to believe it can’t be done.

A winner isn’t afraid of competition; a loser excuses himself with the idea that the competition beat him out.

A winner knows he’s sometimes wrong and is willing to admit his mistakes; a loser can usually find someone to blame.

A winner is challenged by a new problem; a loser doesn’t want to face it.

A winner is decisive; a loser frustrates himself with indecision.

A winner realizes there is no time like the present to get a job done; a loser is prone to procrastinate with the hope that things will be better tomorrow.

A winner thinks positively...acts positively...and lives positively...a loser usually has a negative attitude and a negative approach to everything.

So, if you want to be a winner, think like a winner.. .act like a winner. . .and sooner than you think, you will be a winner.

How to Tell a Winner from a Loser

A winner says, “Let’s find out”; a loser says, “Nobody knows:’

When a winner makes a mistake, he says, “I was wrong”; when a loser makes a mistake, he says, “It wasn’t my fault:’

A winner credits his good luck for winning—even though it isn’t good luck; a loser blames his bad luck for losing—even though it isn’t bad luck.

A winner knows how and when to say “Yes” and “No”; a loser says “Yes, but” and “Perhaps not” at the wrong times, for the wrong reasons.

A winner isn’t nearly as afraid of losing as a loser is secretly afraid of winning.

A winner works harder than a loser, and has more time; a loser is always too busy to do what is necessary.

A winner goes through a problem; a loser goes around it, and never gets past it. A winner makes commitments; a loser makes promises.

A winner says he’s sorry by making up for it; a loser says, “I’m sorry,” but does the same thing the next time.

A winner says, I’m good, but not as good as I ought to be; a loser says, “I’m not as bad as a lot of other people”

A winner listens; a loser just waits until it’s his turn to talk.

A winner would rather be admired than liked, although he would prefer both; loser would rather be liked than admired, and is seen willing to pay the price of a mild contempt for it.

A winner respects those who are superior to him, and tries to learn from them; a loser resents those who are superior to him, and tries to find chinks in their armor,

A winner feels responsible for more than his job; a loser says, “I only work here

A winner says, “There ought to be a better way to do it”; a loser says, “That’s the way it’s always been done here.”

True Success

True success can be attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing that you did everything within the limits of your ability to become the very best that you are capable of becoming. Therefore, in the final analysis, only the individual himself can correctly determine his success. You may be able to fool others, but you can never truly deceive yourself, except, perhaps, for a short time.

It is impossible to attain perfection, but that should be the goal. Less than 100 percent of your effort in every respect toward attaining your objective is not success, regardless of individual honors received or the number of games won or lost.

You must have patience and realize that all worthwhile objectives take time. Things that come easily, as a general rule, are not very meaningful. It is also true that you must have faith if you are to have patience. In the search for success you will constantly find yourself beset with adversity and you must have faith if you expect to reach your goal.

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