Originally published Oct 1996
A huge volume of work and number of theories exist relating to rewards and motivation. Trying to make sense of this plethora of information is difficult for the lay person. Even a basic understanding requires consideration of a range of factors including the nature of the activity and the individual, their stage of learning, maturation and their reasons for pursuing their objective. As with most circumstances there is not a one size fits all approach.
The objective of this article is to present a generalised overview of rewards and motivation that will assist individuals, fitness leaders, personal trainers and coaches to improve adherence to exercise.
Motivation takes many forms, and can be achieved through a variety of means, but it is not merely arousing oneself to the theme of Rocky! Motivation helps people maintain the application to continue training. It assists them to persevere and work harder when things are not working out. It helps an individual to perform well in important tasks. Motivation may come from a variety of sources, a common dichotomy being to categorise it as either internally or externally based.
Internal motivation (often labelled self motivation) is being able to motivate yourself towards the task or being capable of being able to draw on something yourself that makes you want to achieve. These include innate (and therefore intangible) qualities such as pride, satisfaction, desire for self improvement or love of the activity involved.
External motivation involves having someone or something outside yourself which encourages you to participate or whom urges you on. This may be a coach, personal trainer, family member, friend or the desire for something tangible such as financial rewards, medals or trophies.
Reinforcement is a neutral term referring to one of the operations that will increase the strength of a response. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus which, when it follows a response, will increase the strength or maintain the occurrence of that response (eg praise offered after a performance). A negative reinforcer is a stimulus, the removal of which increases the strength of a response (eg Not berating an individual who takes a calculated risk). When valued by the individual, reinforcements can be viewed as a form of reward for our purposes.
Rewards help reinforce progress and therefore help motivate. To be effective, a reward needs to be perceived by the individual concerned, as relevant and not too easy to achieve. Rewards fall into one of four broadly based categories, social, material, performance and internal. Social rewards include recognition of achievement and can be achieved through means that ‘socially recognize’ the individual, such as public praise, inclusion on performance boards, providing them with attention and/or approval. Material rewards include tangible objects such as trophies, medals, certificates, prizes, equipment, clothing and the like. Performance rewards are based on achieving goals such as hitting a target, improvement in time, goal achievement, correct feeling, breaking a score, beating an opponent or lifting a greater weight. Internal rewards evolve around achieving a personal goal, meeting personal performance standard and as such are more ‘internalised’.
Most people require a mixture of both internally and externally based processes. This mixture depends on both the individual and the situation. The same applies to what type of rewards (social, material, performance or internal based) are most appropriate in a given circumstance. People will invest in themselves in situations where they see opportunities to attain goals that they value. A common error that many personal trainers, training partners and coaches make is imposing objectives and rewards that they value. It’s essential that as a ‘coach’, you involve the individual both in setting their goals and objectives and in determining the reward expected upon achieving it. This process helps identify what is to be achieved and what rewards will motivate the individual to adhere to the process of achieving it. The coach’s/trainer’s role is then to provide feedback relative to the attainment of the stated goals, ie facilitate feedback by measuring progress against the goal, and reward such progress in a manner acknowledged as appropriate. When providing feedback, it’s important to ensure it is honest and accurate. Particularly with beginners, try to focus on positive reinforcers, rather than the negative aspects of their performance. As a general rule of thumb positive to negative reinforcement should be in the ratios of 10 :1 for young people and beginners, 4:1 for more serious athletes and around 1:1 but not lower for elite level athletes.
External rewards as a motivational technique rely on a coach,trainer or other influence rather than the athlete to provide the motivation. External rewards appear to work well in the short term, but when the outside influence is unavailable or as athlete needs to be enticed by progressively bigger or more impressive rewards, motivation wanes. The problem with a sole reliance on extrinsic rewards is that in the end nothing is attempted unless it results in a tangible reward. Unfortunately a common occurrence in junior sport is to put too much emphasis on the outcome (result) of an event, which stresses the participant and ultimately creates external control over the individual. Minimising a heavy dependence on external rewards and outcomes are essential to developing self motivated youths.
Self motivated task or goal orientated athletes are participating in the task for its own sake, enjoying the skill or activity and the satisfaction of doing it well. Self motivation is in part achieved through minimising external evaluation. This is extremely important to understand and apply when working with youths.
To be capable of self motivation is essential to ultimate success as there are many situations where you can’t rely on others for assistance.
Critical to developing exercise adherence are the processes of setting goals and celebrating successes. As a reward upon achieving a goal, allow yourself something you don’t normally allow yourself to do. This may be to the indulgence of something you have had to abstain from in order to achieve the objective. For some, ‘Death by chocolate’, a night out, a day off, or a couple of drinks are often ideal rewards. However these options may be perceived as a punishment to others who are committed and enjoy the workout adherence and the lifestyle that they follow. For these individuals, a new pair of exercise covers, a new gym outfit, a piece of training equipment or a new sports bag or an extension of their gym membership would be more appropriate.
A common adage states “What gets rewarded gets done”. Adherence to a regular training system usually produces changes, which come in a variety of forms. These may be visual (you see a difference in the way you look), kinaesthic (you feel better, more energised), or noticed by others who compliment or comment which reinforce behaviour and promote continuance. As you may by now be aware, these reinforcements or rewards may be extremely valuable to some individuals and essentially worthless to others. Identify what methods of rewards are relevant to the individual concerned and use them to assist the individual to achieve their goal.
