Among the many different emotions that impact motivation, anger and fear are the two that feature most prominently in the ways in which athletes fuel their competitive drive. We harness them both in different ways and different situations, and they can either carry us or cripple us depending upon how we handle them. As we seek to understand what motivates us as human beings even more so than as athletes, both anger and fear are worth a deeper consideration for each of us to understand what drives us on a personal level. Here, we begin with a discussion of anger.
What is anger in the purest sense, and what role does it play in competition? In a simple definition, anger looks backward into the past and finds within our experiences instances where things didn’t occur as expected. It is a very negative feeling, and yet can produce positive outcomes. A healthy expression of anger helps us move through it. We get that negative energy out of our systems. Competition could be one of the healthiest outlets for anger, if handled well. It can be channelled into future motivation – to propel us toward a positive outcome, and in a manner that allows us to release the resulting energy in a healthy manner.
Being angry is human. We feel that someone or something wasn’t fair or right, or that someone has done something bad to us. Anger also exists in different durations – some is immediate and reactive, and others more deep seeded and ongoing. In the long term, unresolved anger brings about resentment, which is a lot less healthy.
Most psychologists would maintain that expressing anger in appropriate ways is actually a healthy thing. We acknowledge our feelings, express them, and move beyond them. Though just stating it as such is far easier than actually carrying it out that way. People reacting to anger is most definitely at the root of many negative behaviors, and their accompanying consequences. Hopefully we learn from these situations and avoid repeating them.
So what, then, does anger have to do with competition? For some people, anger is at the root of why they compete to begin with. It becomes a fuel by which they are propelled to overcome that perceived past injustice. It is a reason to press on, to endure challenges, because the ultimate rewards brought about by that sacrifice is worth the immediate pain.
We may be fueled by some childhood memory of being taunted or bullied. We compete to ‘show people what they’re worth’ in their eyes. Others may direct anger in a more specific direction – toward a family member or childhood figure by whom they may feel they were not treated well or accepted. This resentment embodies a need that was not fulfilled in that situation, or by that person. Some of us play angry, as if we feel we have something to prove to everyone around us, and we channel our aggression into something positive.
In these situations and others too numerous to mention, competitors bring with them some source of anger from their past, and they find in competition an opportunity to express it in a positive and appropriate way. The benefits of this are an increased motivation and determination to push through adverse experiences. This advantage is clear in competition, though the possible consequences of unchecked anger and aggression outside of sports are at best potentially detrimental, and at worst disastrous.
Building a healthy bridge involves recognizing the source of our anger, and the impact it had upon our competitive lives. Anger can be healthy if expressed appropriately, but it is also destructive if it becomes the sole focus of our lives, and sole source of our motivation. Anger becomes a necessary part of our own personal motivational equation. We can actually start seeking out people or circumstances to become the target of our anger in moments of challenge, instead of identifying a compelling goal or positive outcome that is worthy of our efforts. Waiting for anger based thought patterns simply to disappear over time is a way to invite frustration or negativity into our daily lives. Anger becomes our best fuel, and yet ultimately denies us that true fulfillment that comes from achieving a value-based goal. If anger-based motivation is a self perpetuating cycle, and results in our never fully being satisfied, than we can never truly feel like we have accomplished something meaningful – which is the very definition of fulfillment. Anger may fuel us on, but it is rarely satisfied. Anger does not have an ending. It becomes important then, to find the balance point between anger as a healthy expression of our emotions and an unhealthy method of driving ourselves toward goals that are completely disconnected to our sense of fulfillment.
Anger is a very real emotional experience. We encounter it in many different ways in a normal, healthy life. It’s possible to feel angry, and then to discover an outlet for it. It is important for us to be able to express anger in healthy and appropriate ways. That said, to try to use it as a lifelong strategy to achieve fulfilling experiences is to set ourselves up for frustration.
To the discussion:
- What role does anger play in motivation, whether in competition and in life after?
- Are there patterns to when it produces positive versus negative results?
- What are the healthy elements of an outlet for anger?