Building Confidence: Part 3 of 3

As sports continue to become more mainstream in culture today, it is ever more apparent that having a strong mental framework plays an extraordinary role in confidence, and ultimately, in athletic success.  While there are many external resources that athletes, sport psychology professionals, and coaches tap into to increase confidence, developing a mental framework for confidence is an invaluable skill that can be used effectively in any situation.  To recap from article 2 in our 3-part series… Using external resources for confidence, simply put, is relying on anything outside of yourself to increase confidence.  This could be a teammate, coach, event, or experience that you look towards to boost your confidence.  While external sources can be a great way to increase confidence, they are only one half of what it takes for an athlete to be truly confident.  The other half comes from athletes’ appraisal, or thought process, of what is going on around them.  This appraisal or thought process is known as their mental framework.  Developing a mental framework geared towards confidence is no different than developing physical strength or skill; it takes time, effort, and dedication to build.  For athletes choosing to put in the time, effort, and dedication towards building a mental framework for success, the possibilities are limitless.  

Confidence consists of our own perceptions of our ability to succeed at a task.  Changing how we perceive success from uncontrollable external factors, like wins and losses, to internal factors, like effort and technique, will allow us to evaluate our chances of success on things that we control, thus giving us more control over your confidence.  Think about it… what do you base being "good” on? Is it how many goals you score, your 100-freestyle time?  What happens if you miss two 5-Meter penalty shots in a game?  If you base your confidence on exclusively on results, you'd more than likely be shaken when you line up to shoot the next penalty.  The issue is that since the majority of athletes’ confidence is directly correlated to results, we are allowing our past performances to predetermine our next ones.  

Almost every water polo athlete I've worked with starts out the same way…they evaluate themselves as players based on how many goals they score (or a similar statistic).  Score a lot and you're good, never score and you're bad.  This same individual confidence appraisal is contagious across teams as well; teams that win are good, and teams that loose are bad.  Again, the biggest issue with this method of evaluation is that you can't directly control the outcome.  Ever play a great game and lose? How about a really bad performance, but you still won?  By allowing results to determine your value, you are allowing others to assess how good you are based upon past results.  Truly successful and high-performing athletes don't think this way; they free themselves from this type of thinking and take back power over their confidence. 

Instead of evaluating ourselves based on results which can vary game to game, elite athletes evaluate themselves based on their ability.  Some common statements that reflect process-oriented thinking include, "how was my focus?", "was that my best effort?", "was my technique correct?" Think about each of those statements; no matter what the outcome is, you can always control the focus, effort, and technique that you use during a particular task.  If you can learn to take pride in the process of how you shoot, then missing a shot won't hurt your confidence, because you aren't concerned with misses; you're now concerned with how you shot the ball.  Even the best athletes miss sometimes, but rather than losing confidence, elite athletes stay confident because they know that their effort, focus, and technique were correct; therefore the next shot is going to go in.  

Results, such as winning a game are products of athletes that work the correct process.  To win you have to be confident…to be confident, you need positive appraisals of yourself… to get positive appraisals of yourself, you must be confident in something that will never let you down, something you can control.  If you pride yourself in process goals you can control, like effort and technique, you can then control your confidence for each game.  Learning to truly control your confidence takes time for any athlete, but with consistent practice and knowledge of the mental game, your potential is unlimited. 

Dan Matulis, MS, CMPC