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Which one is Better Approach: Goal Orientation or Task Orientation

Almost all sports persons start playing the sport with a performance way below the benchmarks. Some of them achieve the desired level in a short time whereas others struggle to reach to it. Life is also like sport and looking at the problems faced by these sports persons or athletes you can understand some of the vital things.

A sportsman gets his training through some coach and comes in contact with so many other people like friends, people, family, sponsors, etc. What if,  Sachin Tendulkar feels that he his nervous at the pitch, or the top sprinter of Olympics feels before the race like excessive sweating. You will day you must be joking, these master sportsmen hardly have fear problem or anxiety issues, but in reality they also have it.

What is the root cause of such anxieties. What can be a better way to better performance.

When a coach is given responsibility to elevate level of a team or a player- mostly he chooses one of the two ways: Goal oriented approach or Task oriented approach.

Opinion of Sports psychologists over the issue is mixed. Some on one side and some other are on other side. What do you think? Before you venture your opinion, let me explain a bit about the terms, Goal oriented and task oriented.

Suppose, you want to become a great football player and your father tells- “Son, we have a rich heritage of great players of football. You have to beat the winning ratio of your grand father and be the top shot in the country.?

What kind of approach is it? Yes, it is goal oriented approach. Your focus is drawn on the outcome, the result.

A cricketer, after a hefty day at the ground comes back home and his brother asks, did you win? Did you score a fifty or hundred? What kind of pressure his brother is putting on the sportsman. Goal oriented pressure. Here is performance is directly compared with the benchmark and directly or indirectly he is told that you have to perform, else disappear.

The way itself is such that the athlete or sportsman starts to feel that his performance is his identity and what if he does not perform? He is at 100 % stake. He loses his smile, he puts his effort but the direction may not be correct, as he is under anxiety or fear. Fear handling has a great role in the success of sportsmen.

What about other way- task oriented. Every big job can be broken into small chunks, independent tasks. Coach reviews the sports person or he reviews it himself and basic tasks are identified: For example, in football running is an important part through which you move with the ball ahead of your opponents. What if a footballer is great in his skills but bad in running. So, finding Strengths and weaknesses and then dividing whole performance orientation in small chunks of activities which can make the performance of athlete or sportsman better.

One approach is to let sportsman enjoy the activities and let him better his scores at his own pace. He is given tasks like take four rounds of the ground and then go and spend one hour in Gym. He works on his inner potential and builds up core strength in this way. When core strength for the sports develops the anxiety or fear are eliminated or are substantially reduced.

Even our life also, if taken task wise wherein we focus on one or a given fixed number of tasks at a time, we perform better. We even derive greater satisfaction as there is less anxiety in the approach.

However, the question is that sportsmen has to attain tough targets to remain in top slot. They have to reach to the target level of tasks assigned to them, else they will not remain in race. Ultimately barring a few who have all resources at their disposal and can afford the time and money, all other have to see the goal. In a goal oriented world, it is highly impossible that you will be able to edit all channels- media, newspapers, neighbors, all will one day or the other shall talk of the performance.

In my view, these two approaches should be integrated. The motivation should be such that it primarily promotes the task approach with less comparison but when the athlete or sportsman is seen to have developed the requisite superior skillsets, he should be encouraged to be goal driven. The coach or people interacting should focus on development in the tasks also rather than on the achieved success. Parents may ask: “ Are you regular in your practice. I see you love the game.”

Motivations with care for the efforts made by the sportsman creates the bonding and the altogether different approach of task orientation can make players high performance without much of anxiety.