Chapter 2
Motivation and goal-setting in sport
Motivation is a strange subject, it’s not an exact science. Footballers are all different
human beings. Some are self-motivators, they need to be left alone... For some, you need
causes, your country, them and us, your religion. And those causes can be created by the
manager...at Manchester United, we have to be better than everyone else...(Sir Alex
Ferguson, Manager of Manchester United, cited in White, 1999, p. 26)
The manager gave us a great speech. He told us that if we lost, “you’ll have to go up
and get our losers’ medals and you will be just six feet away from the European Cup but
you won’t be able to touch it. And for many of you that will be the closest you will ever
get. Don’t you dare come back in here without giving your all.” (Teddy Sheringham,
former member of Manchester United team which won the European Cup in 1999, cited
in Thorp, 1999, p. 34)
IntroductionMotivation plays a crucial if somewhat misunderstood role in sport and exercise. The role
is crucial in the sense that athletic success depends significantly on the willingness of
sports performers to exert mental as well as physical effort in pursuit of excellence (see
also Chapter 6). For example, Stephen Hendry, the seven-times world snooker champion
observed that “if you are not committed mentally, then you might as well give up” (cited
in McDermott, 2000, p. 20). The same principle holds true for exercise behaviour. In
particular, a high degree of motivation is required to maintain involvement in physical
activity programmes—a fact which explains why so many people drop out of exercise
classes (see also Chapter 8). Despite these insights, the contribution of motivation to
optimal performance in sport is widely misunderstood. For example, as Roberts (2001)
pointed out, motivation is often confused with being “psyched up” (see also Chapter 3).
Contrary to the experience of the former England soccer star Teddy Sheringham (see
quote above), however, there is little research evidence that “psyching up” athletes by
emphasising the disastrous consequences of failure is an effective ploy. Indeed, if
anything, such a strategy may prove counter-productive because high levels of arousal
are known to impair athletes’ concentration skills (see Chapter 4). To illustrate, Webster
(1984) reported that due to the effects of excessive anxiety, not one member of an
Australian Rules football team could recall any of the coach’s instructions in a vital game
just five minutes after his rousing pre-match address! More recently, the issue of fear as a
motivating factor in sport was raised by reports that Iraqi footballers were regularly
beaten and tortured for losing matches under the regime of the late Uday Hussein, son of
Saddam Hussein (Goldenberg, 2003)—a brutal practice which did nothing to enhance
team morale or performance. Given this background of confusion about the role of