Sports Psychology: Passion — The Blessing & The Curse!
An athlete’s passion for their sport can lead to obsession and imbalance in life, or harmony and a more meaningful quality of life! If you are a coach, parent, or athlete yourself, this article may help you discover if passion is fueling you or draining you.
While little has been written in sports psychology about passion and its role in motivation, it is generally accepted that passion has a link to intrinsic motivation, a drive coming from deep within a person. Passions are often defined as having high priority goals, an extensive commitment of time and energy is made towards those goals, and they are emotionally important to achieve. Coaching a passionate athlete can be fun and challenging. Two types of passion need to be considered when coaching the student-athlete.
Obsessive Passions vs. Harmonious Passion
The dualistic model of passion describes obsessive passion, and harmonious passion. Obsessive passion evolves when the athlete expresses a controlled internalization of their sport into their identity. They see themselves as defined by the sport, and they experience an uncontrollable urge to participate over anything else. This obsessive persistent passion can lead them towards an imbalanced life, and a sense of self-esteem contingent on their involvement and success in the sport.
When a sense of self-esteem, and social recognition becomes dependent on their sport involvement, the athlete may show defensiveness, emotional vulnerability, and difficulty coping in the face of failure. This not only negatively affects their ability to sustain high levels of performance, it may also increase personal rigidity, and decreased creativity. It’s as if too much of a good thing, passion, can cause problems.
On the other hand, harmonious passion is seen when the athlete willingly and freely engages in their sport, without the experience of an uncontrollable urge to participate. The athlete integrates their love of the activity into an already secure sense of themselves, where the sport is an extension of self, not the definition of self. Harmonious passion is seen to improve concentration, positive attitudes, and overall flow in learning, and performing.
The balance in school, sports, family, friends, and health is intact and yet fluid. For example, choosing to study for a final exam coming up in two days, rather than going to a sports skills workshop. Or getting to bed early the night before a big game, rather than trying to get more homework done. These choices can be tough, yet taken one at a time these choices are made that support high performance in all areas. Making healthy short-term choices, will enhance long-term gains! Harmonious passion brings satisfaction of the fullness of life.
Coaches and parents can encourage passion by first being passionate yourself. If you, as the coach or parent truly love the sport, or your work, it will be obvious in your words, actions, and energy. Take note of whether you are obsessively passionate, or harmoniously passionate. Once you have a better sense of where you are, then you can make course corrections to model the type of passion you want from your athlete. You can also let them know how you see them, and how they might enhance harmonious passionate decisions.
A parent can say, “I know tonight’s pick up game seems like it is important, and would be fun, however tomorrow your exam is very important too. What do you think will serve you best in the long run?” Or a coach might say, “I’ve noticed lately you seem extra tired, how is your sleep and work load?” This can open up a conversation to help the athlete to assess where they are and what the best next steps are.
When an athlete seems to be wavering on what appears to either be a level of burn out, or moving towards obsessive passion, I’ve found that by asking them to tell me when they knew they really loved their sport, when they felt that passion, it reveals they aren’t quite feeling that way now. When they do this, no matter what the issue they are coming to see me about, they start to remember why they want to continue, and we often find they have lost their harmonious passion, and joy for the very thing they love. Then together we can discover what is occurring that could be ‘course corrected.’ Helping the athlete to do a self-assessment, and having them involved in making decisions for themselves is empowering to them. Coaches and parents are mentors and collaborators in the process, rather than dictators.
My Personal Downfall of Obsessive Passion
When I was 50 years old, I completed a half-ironman race (1.2 mile ocean swim, 54 mile bike ride, 13 mile run). My original goal, 6 months previous to the race, was to ‘finish happily, healthfully, before the cut off, and smiling!’ I said this to myself, over and over during the months of intensive training. When I made the decision to participate, 6 months prior, I was cycling weekly, yet I was not doing any running, or any swimming. In fact, I had not run or swam in years. To get trained up, in that amount of time, for an endurance event such as this, was going to take an extreme amount of discipline, commitment, and passion.
It is generally suggested to take 1–2 years of training, participating in shorter distance triathlons, then graduating to the longer races. I had my reasons, and rationale, why I believed I could reasonably accomplish this goal that meant so much to me. I was motivated to give this personal goal to myself for my 50th birthday, which was the same weekend as the race. My original passion grew, as I loved getting back to swimming and running (a slow jog to be exact).
However, at some point, I shifted to obsessive passion, where I would get my training done each week, no matter what. I worked full time, and found myself chronically exhausted, declining any social contact, losing sleep to train, and going to my doctor repeatedly for sinus infections, coughs, and minor injuries. My online coach, who was sending me my weekly training schedules, was informed of all of this throughout the months. He said, “just keep training, you will be fine, you won’t make it through the race if you skip training days, don’t skip any training days.” The coach continued to get paid, while I continued to get sick.
My doctor, who is a crazy athlete himself, joked that he never saw me until I became a triathlete. He was supportive and encouraging and related to my passion, yet did not recognize the imbalance it was causing. PASSIONS good news and bad news…The good news that my obsessive passion brought me, was that I did finish the race, smiling & before the cut off and elated at this awesome accomplishment, however, I was not healthy. The bad news that obsessive passion brought me, was that I suffered a significant over-training immune impact. For the next 18 -24 months, I caught every cold, flu, pneumonia, etc. For a previously healthy and happy person, I was suffering, missing work, and spending money on medical interventions. I finally recovered by throwing out all the medications, and naturally getting through the last bout, which for some reason seemed to be where my immune system kicked back in to fully supporting me. I then began to learn about the dangers of ‘over-training.’
I’ve always possessed a strong passion for life. I learned that passion is passion, it can propel you forward to live life fully, enjoying accomplishments, and reaching new heights. However, what we do with our passion can have significant effects positively or negatively. Balancing passion almost sounds counter-intuitive, yet this is the challenge for athletes, coaches, and parents. My life goal now is to enjoy my inner harmonious passion!
To maintain harmonious passion in life means paying attention to sleep patterns, and making sure I am consistently allowing my mind, body & Spirit to recharge and restore itself naturally. Allowing myself spontaneous changes in my schedule that might bring me more balance. For example, taking some extra time to stretch when I feel stiff or sore, or taking a break and getting together with friends when the list of ‘to-do’s’ is long, and setting reasonable time frames for projects rather than trying to power through them just to get it done. Staying attuned to my inner balance is a daily goal!
LIVING PASSIONATELY WITH JOY & GRATITUDE!
Source: Roberts, G. C., & Treasure, D. C. (Eds.). (2012). Advances in motivation in sport and exercise (3rd ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, Inc.
Sara Gilman
CEO, Founder, President
Coherence Associates Inc.
(760) 942–8663
Originally published at coherenceassociates.com on May 5, 2016.