The Reiss Profile in Professional Sport

The Reiss Profile in professional sport

One of the most important things for a professional athlete is to be fully motivated at precisely the right moment. To be able to do this consistently he or she must know what his or her key inner drivers are.

Mental Fitness as a Basis for Sporting Success

There hardly is any other area that puts such extreme demands on the individual as professional sport. Talent by itself is not enough to guarantee sporting success. The mental, emotional and physical strengths of an athlete are what allows them to perform at their peak under massive pressure. One of the most important tasks a trainer or a coach has is to help the athlete understand his or her own personality.

The athlete has to know how they can best motivate themselves on an ongoing basis. Only those athletes who are aware of their strongest inner impulses can perform at their peak. Such knowledge can even compensate for a lack of motivation. The athlete must learn how to control their inner selves.

The trainer, too, needs to have self-knowledge and self-reflection. He must understand that his motivational structure might not be the same as that of the athlete; it might even be totally different. The aim in such cases should be to analyse where there are ‘blind spots’ in their collaboration. For example, a trainer with a strong basic desire of ‘Power’ will try to use this to motivate the athlete. An athlete with a weak basic desire of ‘Power’, however, will experience this as high pressure. This wastes the opportunity of motivating the athlete by means of their own basic desires.

In the sporting world, in particular, the Reiss Profile is able to translate its scientific findings into practice. An athlete’s personality and motivational structure can be simply mapped, and they are easily comprehensible. The trainer can then restructure the training programme to enable the athlete to develop in their own individual way.

In team sports, moreover, the Reiss Profile can help develop team unity, conflict reduction and group dynamics.