You Know How to Motivate Your Players. But What Motivates You?

A quick google search for the word motivation defines it this way: “the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.” Simply put, our motivation is the reason we want to do a particular action. And you may be asking, “Ok, but does it really matter?” Let’s play out a potential scenario with an imaginary coach we’ll call Jon.

Jon has been coaching high school basketball for over 20 years. As a former collegiate star, he has a reputation as one of the brightest minds in the game and his team plays the right way—that is, they play as one cohesive unit. The characteristics of Jon’s teams are high effort and a willingness to sacrifice individual merits for the betterment of the team. His players consistently get good grades, display great moral behavior, and engage with the community. Is Jon glorifying God and coaching with excellence? Absolutely. He leads well, there seems to be some fruit in the character of the athletes he coaches, and the environment he creates is one where players really seem to thrive on and off the court. Whether he knows it or not, he is aligning with God’s mandate on all of us to work and create order around us (Often referred to as the Cultural Mandate).

But let’s dig a little deeper. Let’s get to his “reason for acting or behaving in a particular way.”

What you don’t know about Jon is his identity is completely wrapped up in being a coach. He can’t turn it off…ever. His value is directly connected to the state titles he has accumulated and he walks with an internal pride within his community as someone who everyone “should look up to.” He loves being called and known as “coach.” When his team loses, he cares more that the team made him look bad and incompetent—though he would never say it out loud. So, let’s ask the questions again: Is Jon glorifying God? Is he coaching with excellence? It’s complicated, right? He is doing everything right on the outside. And his players are thriving under his coaching style. But his motivation for doing it is not out of a love for God and a love for others. 

It’s out of a love for himself. 

And you may be asking a very important question: Why does a coach’s motivation matter if the athletes under their care are growing physically, mentally, and spiritually?

Motivation matters because time and time again in God’s word, he shows us that the motives of the heart are just as important, if not more so, than what gets produced by our hands (Proverbs 16:2, 1 Corinthians 13:3, Colossians 3:23,24). God cares deeply about “the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.” We see this perhaps most clearly in 1 Samuel 16. As Samuel looks for the next king of Israel, he looks over Jesse’s sons. Jesse brings out his most impressive boys first. Handsome. Tall. Strong. But God tells Samuel that none of these will do. Then God gives Samuel a glimpse at how He sees us:

“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart’” (1 Samuel 16:7).

We can look great on the outside. But it’s the inside game that God seems to take most seriously.

One of the issues for today’s coach—even today’s Christian coach—is that most existing resources focus on how a coach motivates athletes. It’s about getting the best out of the people in front of us. And honestly, it’s probably easier to watch film on our team and pinpoint areas of improvement. It gets a little uncomfortable when we do the same intentional work on our own hearts. But before a coach can examine what’s driving the kids on the team, they have to be willing to examine what’s driving them. 

Analyzing our motivation as coaches is a not just “the Jesus way to do it.” It’s a wise approach if we value longevity in the sport. Turnover in college athletic departments runs as high as 58 percent over two years. That’s more than double the rate in corporate America. What’s the root cause? A 2023 NCAA survey of 6,000 coaches found a third reporting near-constant mental exhaustion and sleep disruption. Further research on job insecurity in elite coaching consistently finds that coaches whose sense of security is most tightly bound to their win-loss record report the highest levels of exhaustion and cynicism.

We can look back on our imaginary coaching friend, Jon, and see that this kind of motivation doesn’t just carry theological risk. It’s a documented path to burnout for the coaches who are doing everything else right on the outside. Our motivation has a bigger impact on our level of flourishing than many of us think. 

This is not to say that a growing self awareness of our motivation automatically fixes burnout, job insecurity, and exhaustion. But it’s at least starts some forward momentum toward personal flourishing for coaches in sport.

So what does it look like for a coach to grow in the area of personal motivation? How can someone start, shift, or stay motivated in a way that honors God externally and internally?

So what does this look like during a routine practice at the beginning of the week, not just in theory? How can a Christian coach pursue excellence through their motivation?

Invite Help Vertically

For starters, we can’t do this without the help of God’s Spirit. We can’t leave God in the office, the parking lot or the locker room. Now, obviously we should know that His Spirit follows us everywhere, but we still need to do the work of staying relationally connected to Him. This means finding ways to stay in conversation with God through the game or practice—not performatively or publicly, just the quiet “God, give me wisdom” or “God, calm my spirit” or maybe even “God, I can’t believe I just said that…forgive me.” 

That method of quiet prayer is what Nehemiah employed in his heart while standing in front of a king (Nehemiah 1:4-11). Staying connected to God through His Spirit makes it easier to diagnose when our hearts are…off.  

A word of warning: even the most spiritual coach who checks his own motives regularly needs to be careful here—because the heart is “deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9). It’s easy to practice the presence of God (I can be guilty of this) as a backdoor way of trying to manipulate Him into delivering a winning effort. 

Invite Help Horizontally

Build in people who know the real motive, not just the public results. And these trusted people should be ones who aren’t impressed with your title. Ideally, it’s probably someone who addresses you by your first name, not your title (coach). Jon’s problem persisted for years, undetected, because nobody close enough to him was asking the harder question underneath the record. 

Find a pastor, a chaplain, or a trusted peer coach who’s allowed to ask you what’s actually driving your ambition this season. 

And answer honestly, even when the honest answer might be uncomfortable to say out loud. 

Do an honest inventory

When your team loses, sit with the discomfort for a moment before reacting, and ask what’s actually producing it. Try practicing the discipline of journaling your thoughts on the bus or plane ride home. What is it that’s making you the most unsettled in your spirit? Is it grief over your players not getting to experience the reward of their work? Or is it the sting of looking bad in front of parents, boosters, and the community? Both feelings can be present at once, but freedom and flourishing come when we live out of the former motive, not the later. 

Again, utilize God’s Spirit and His people here. If you’re confronted with the reality that your motivation is jacked up, welcome to the club. But don’t stay in this club. Ask God for forgiveness and ask for His and others’ help to train your heart toward a greater “why.” 

Remember that “coach” is something you do, not who you are

Every greeting that starts with “Hey coach!” is a small, repeated invitation to root your identity in the title. Your primary identity (settled before you ever coached a single practice) is God’s child, secured by grace, not performance (Ephesians 2:8-9). And I know that probably sounds less impressive than “coach” but those of us involved in sport need a constant identity reorientation. We have lots of different identities in this life. But our primary identity is always anchored in what God says is true.

To be clear, that truth doesn’t make you care less about winning. At least it shouldn’t. It just means winning stops being the receipt you need to feel like you exist.

There are plenty of “Jon’s” out there who are coaching, winning, and building programs other coaches envy. Whether they are building it from love or from self-preservation is a question only they—and God—can fully answer. 

What about you? 

It’s worth asking yourself the same question in season and out of season. Not “how am I motivating my team,” but “what’s actually motivating me?” That answer will shape everything else about the kind of program you’re building.

And the kind of coach you’re becoming while you pursue it.