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Justin Su’a is a sport psychology trainer, key-note speaker and CEO of Su’a Sport Psychology, LLC. He was a Freshman All-American Pitcher for BYU, a member of the Samoan National Olympic baseball team, and currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Pitching Academy, LLC. Justin also writes a column called “Su’a Speaks” for Samoa Sports Central, is a member of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) |
I recently received an email from a coach and would like to share my answer with everyone.
The question is as follows:
Here is a question I have been pondering. Competitiveness: is it an innate character trait that simply waits to be revealed and either you have it or you don’t or is it a product of one’s environment; or can it be both? If it’s the former, how can you help someone find out if it’s part of their DNA, if it’s the latter how can you help them to develop it as part of their athletic character?
What a great question! Rather than bore you with jargon found in studies done on Achievement Goal Theory and Goal Perspective Theory, I’ll do my best to put it as simple as possible. First of all, there are two types of orientations (ways people view competition, success, competency, etc.) and they are TASK and EGO. A task oriented person cares more about the following: mastery of a particular task, giving their best effort, doing better than they did last time, and learning something new. These people could be highly competitive, however, they are competitive against themselves. These people couldn’t care less if they lose, however, they are always striving to do their absolute best. Ego oriented people are more about the results. They enjoy being the best, winning, beating the other person even if it means they didn’t perform as well as they did last time.
The question was asked if competitiveness (or we can say orientation), is an innate characteristic or something that could it be taught. The answer is “yes”. Environment has a tremendous effect on the type of orientation a person is and it also has a great influence on your performance level as an athlete. I was working with a dancer who is very task oriented, she’s always striving to be better than she was before and she prides herself on the mastery of difficult tasks. However, in the world of dance competition against others is huge! Her task orientation was clashing with her ego oriented world, and because of this, performance was struggling, confidence was diminishing, and anxiety was increased. One of the most important things I do as a mental toughness trainer is to help athletes/performers discover which orientation they feel best describes them.
To help them discover this, here is an example of a questionnaire I give them:
Answer the following 8 questions with a number 1-5
(1=strongly disagree; 3=neutral; 5=strongly agree)
I feel most successful as an athlete/performer…
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To read the rest of Justin’s article Click Here