Drive
and Determination:
Creating the Motivation of a Champion
by Marie Dalloway, Ph.D.
In an interview before one of his Wimbledon finals matches,
Boris Becker, the German court Wunderkind said something
remarkable, considering that this was the annual Olympus
of tennis. The outcome, he predicted, would have "nothing
much to do with tennis." With his extraordinary prediction,
Becker made a critically important statement about winning:
In the end, winning is more than the sum total of the
physics and physical skills that make up a sport.
That realization is intuited by anyone who has devoted
time to a game or spent a lot of time in the stands. Winning
-- and winners -- have to do with something mysterious
and ineffable, something having to do with "heart" and
"psych." Even more recent is an understanding that these
psychological traits, once thought to be exclusively inborn,
can be developed. The mental attributes and skills --
desire, concentration, poise under pressure -- that create
optimal performance can be learned.
Of all the mental traits that heighten athletic performance,
one quality stands out. With this characteristic added
to an athlete's make-up, an athlete strives relentlessly
toward his or her potential. Drive and determination,
also referred to as desire or as passionate commitment,
constitute a critical factor in how far an athlete will
develop.
The sports sciences have experienced explosive growth
over the last two decades. Leaps in understanding have
contributed to accelerated development in physical skills.
Coaches and fitness experts direct athletes in sophisticated
conditioning programs complete with aerobic fitness, flexibility
training, and strength work.
Learning sports-specific skills involves more than playing
the sport. Video taping of performances, exercise physiology
instruction, ergo-trophic aids, biomechanical analysis,
complex tactical strategies may all come into play to
develop sports skills.
The advances in understanding the psychological factors
that enhance performance parallel the growth in understanding
physical skills. Experts in mental training for athletes
have learned that the key mental traits that foster athletic
performance are learnable skills. Any athlete can develop
the traits associated with top performance. This characteristic,
as with all the mental skills, can be learned. Imagine
the boost to athletic performance when athletes learn
to connect their inner forces of drive and determination
to athletic goals!
Drive and determination are difficult to define in an
exact way. But any of us in the sports world recognizes
this trait when we see it. Boris Becker presents an outstanding
example of drive and determination.
His family introduced him to tennis at age six. They took
him to a new tennis clinic in Heidelberg. The regional
coach recognized Boris' athletic talent. The visiting
German head coach noted that the feature that distinguished
the eight-year-old Boris from his peers was "enormous
determination."
By age eleven, Boris started to train at the national
center. Neither his technique nor his match record was
the best for his age group. He surpassed his peers in
willpower.
Becker's determination revealed itself in training and
in competitions. He made a maximum effort consistently.
Once while running with older boys, he pushed himself
so hard that he fainted.
When he gained international attention at seventeen by
winning his first Wimbledon title, millions witnessed
his "never say die" drive. Never giving up on a single
point, lunging and diving for balls, playing with total
commitment and unwavering determination represented the
hallmarks of his style.
Consistency and intensity characterize the training done
by any athlete with drive. These athletes work out with
intense effort. Despite fatigue, poor weather conditions
or other circumstances that could become excuses, these
athletes strive toward their maximum level in each training
session. Competitions also show this stamp of steel-will
determination and unflagging persistence.
The importance of understanding this trait of drive and
determination centers on two reasons. Coaches have a vested
interest in identifying young athletes with the greatest
athletic potential for a sport. The Player Development
Program of the United States Tennis Association (USTA)
sets the identification of the most promising young players
as one of its main goals.
Future champions cannot be selected on the basis of performance
alone. Performance records and the skill proficiency of
youngsters at ten or twelve provide only moderately accurate
forecasts of which athletes will reach world-class caliber.
Intense investment in money and in personnel goes into
making a champion. Plus the caliber and international
ranking of a country's athletes are points of national
pride. Other signs beyond performance are needed to predict
future champions. Intense drive and determination may
be one of the most distinguishing characteristics of young
athletes who will rise to the top.
Understanding this trait promises to increase the accuracy
of predicting our country's best athletes.Understanding
this quality of drive also enhances the effectiveness
of training and development programs for all athletes.
This quality appears to be tied to character traits. However,
we have discovered that drive and determination can be
learned. This makes the characteristic of determination
accessible to every athlete through training strategies
that develop drive.
Athletes want to win, to achieve, to excel. Most of us
share this general desire. However, individuals with drive
go after their goals with an unwavering intention and
an intensity that separates them from others.
The underlying dynamic with drive involves connecting
a goal or objective with a core value. The goal becomes
invested with meaning and significance. When drive operates,
achieving the goal matters intensely.
Consider the two main characters from the film, Chariots
of Fire. Two world-class runners in the 1940's compete
for the Olympic glory and gold. One is a Jew and a university
student on scholarship in class-conscious England. The
other is an Irish minister.
The minister runs for God. He views his athletic talent
as a gift from God. By running he pays homage to God.
In his mind, his running is a tribute to God, a gesture
to glorify God.
The Jewish student runs to prove himself, to justify his
existence. His performance proves to himself that he has
worthiness. Society (at least the bigoted portion of the
society in which he lives) defines him as less than others.
His running provides a way of rising above the bigoted
perceptions of him. He runs to define himself anew. Literally,
he runs for his life. Everything of importance to him
rides in the balance of his performance.
These two characters are excellent examples of athletes
with unbending drive and determination. The source of
their drive comes from the meaning attached to their goals.
When a runner or any athlete develops burning desire,
the athletic performance is laden with meaning.
The runner imbues the race and his or her performance
with significance. Crossing a finish line first or last
contains little significance as an act in itself. The
athlete determines what the event means. Athletes who
express determination and drive build layers of meaning
and symbolism into an athletic feat. The meaningfulness
of the event creates a different perception and a different
intention in the mind of the athlete.
The race is no longer a simple race but a proving ground.
The game no longer is about the running of an 880 or a
mile, but becomes the game of life. The performance is
a gauge of one's ability to be a player in the game of
life.
Consider Rocky Balboa. What chance does this central character
from the film Rocky have to make it in life? He is poor.
He is inarticulate. He is not exactly a mental whiz. He
is awkward socially. He is from the "wrong side of the
tracks." He lacks all the right stuff for succeeding in
our society. His chance to succeed is maybe one in a million.
Which is right about his chance of winning the heavyweight
bout that provides the central event of the plot.
Except that the factor of desire tilts the probabilities.
He trains in a pitch of intensity. The scenes of his running
up the steps of the capitol and the one in the cold storage
area in which he punches a side of beef until his hands
bleed memorably capture his intense desire. He invests
himself heart and soul in his fight. He wants to win with
his blood.
In spite of formidable odds, he pours himself into his
performance. He knows that the fight represents his one
chance, maybe for his lifetime. The audience cheers him
on. We want him to win. His winning represents a human
triumph. His fight becomes one variation on the basic
human theme of triumph.
The theme of triumph contains several key elements: A
person is pitted against difficult odds, faces the challenges
courageously, mounts a passionate effort, and ultimately
wins. With triumph, life expands. Triumph means that an
individual transcends his former level and moves to higher
ground in life.
Most acts in life are patterned, habitual, safe. Acts
that contain the possibility of triumph are risky. They
place an individual on the edge of his own boundaries.
Desire and determination arise when a goal is tied to
something that is deeply valued, which, if attained, gives
the individual a sense of triumph. The goal becomes a
symbol of the possibility of triumph. When the athletic
event comes to represent a way of triumphing, the athlete
performs differently.
The athletic event symbolizes a way of triumphing over
the core challenge in the athlete's life. This is the
point at which the race may become a gesture for glorifying
God, or a proving ground to re-invent the self, or, as
for Rocky, the one chance in a lifetime to "be somebody."
Once the athlete perceives the playing field as the stage
for his or her struggle to triumph in life, the game is
changed radically. A wellspring of drive and determination
emerges.
The secret for any athlete of tapping into passionate
commitment in sports centers on self examination. Figuring
out how to muster your drive and determination involves
a path of self-discovery. You need to discover your core
values. From those core values, you can determine your
own definition of triumph. The key question to ask is:
What would give me a sense of triumph in life?
An athlete who is working toward a goal that creates a
feeling of triumph bends every effort to succeed and marshals
the powerful force of determination.
Anyone can tap into their drive and determination and
channel those forces to charge their athletic performance.
A two-step program accomplishes these objectives. The
program sequence is like a left, right punch.
First the athlete has to set goals that link athletic
performance to core values. The second step involves changing
beliefs that stand in the way of achieving desired goals.
These steps make up the two part structure of the material
on creating drive and determination.
Goal Setting
Goal setting represents the key to motivation. Without
goals an athlete can slide into a slump. In contrast,
profiles of goal-directed top athletes show the purpose
and motivation that goals can provide.
The goal setting procedure involves three steps: goal
identification, goal formulation, goal programming. These
steps for working with specific goals create significant
effects in the athlete's thinking and performance.
Belief Modification
The strategy of belief modification goes beyond directives
for positive thinking. Belief modification involves athletes'
ability to manage their beliefs about themselves and about
their performance. The drive and determination associated
with optimal performance occurs when athletes hold beliefs
that support their doing their best in sports. Belief
modification trains athletes in the skills needed to modify
beliefs to create a mental advantage.
Learning the steps of goal setting and belief modification
and following the prescribed exercises set the stage for
fueling your athletic performance with drive. The process
of recruiting this inner force is an exciting one.
The range of possible results includes sparking your athletic
life with the fire that flows from within. This is the
drive that lifts athletic feats to a higher level.
Copyright © 2000 By Marie Dalloway All Rights Reserved
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“Athletes at all levels need to know that performance enhancing
mental skills are natural, simple, and easy to learn. This area presented
so well by Marie Dalloway is the path of the future in self-improvement
athletic programs.”
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