“One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.”
Arthur Ashe
Many athletes I work with cite lack of confidence as a common mental challenge. As a coach, I believe confidence is a cornerstone for mental toughness. While wishing for a magic potion to deliver mega-doses of confidence is tempting, I respect the lessons earned through struggle and adversity too much to circumvent their gifts. Confidence is something to be nurtured and developed over time.
The question is, “How can we help our athletes develop confidence?”
As coaches/teachers, we are continuously given opportunities to plant seeds for confidence to grow. I want to be proactive with confidence and take steps to develop it as opposed to waiting for it to come.
To start, let’s define confidence. Confidence is how strongly you believe in your ability to execute a particular skill or perform a task.
The Confidence Resume
One of the first steps you can take is to help your athlete identify all their sources of confidence. In a sports journal, have them list all the strengths they have that go into building their confidence. Consider their strengths in the following areas:
- Sport-specific skills
- Choreography, musicality, expression, if applicable in your sport
- Past and current accomplishments in sports
- Work Ethic
- Practice and training plans
- Coaching staff and support team
- Mental game strengths
Some strengths you might find on the list are:
- being hardworking
- having a positive attitude
- being technically and physically prepared
- knowing how to work through adversity
- being physically fit
- having a healthy diet
- having a supportive team
- knowing how to bounce back after mistakes.
Encourage your athlete to be as comprehensive and as detailed as possible in listing their strengths.
After they are finished, their list of strengths will become their confidence resume or deposits in their confidence bank, as I like to call it.
Make It Tangible
When your athlete accomplishes something through their hard work, they can make a deposit or add it to their list. Adding to the list or bank regularly is important.
A tangible and interactive idea for young athletes is to award paper coins, or stickers that look like coins, when a confidence-building action occurs. You can identify the accomplishment by writing it on the coin, or even better, give the athlete the coin and have them write their accomplishment, thus fostering ownership and awareness of their success.
Reviewing their confidence resume or all the coins they have earned is an important part of being proactive with their confidence.
“Ca-ching” Moments
As coaches, we can help our athletes identify those “ca-ching” moments and help them build their confidence. We have all heard, “Oh I’m too tired to work out.” But if they find a way to have a productive workout, then that’s a coin for their bank.
- Getting up after a fall early in a program and then skating cleanly is an awesome recovery but also a confidence-building moment. “Ca-ching!”
- Passing a test after having failed in a previous attempt, shows your athlete that the present will not be derailed by the past. “Ca-ching!”
Look and you shall find. Help make the connections for your athletes and you will be teaching them how to view their sport experiences, both positive and negative, as building blocks for future success. As coaches, we have to find what works best for our students, and making learning fun and creative is part of our skill set.
A final note about the sources of confidence:
Coaches: it’s important to focus and list those factors the athletes’ have within their control.
For example, basing their confidence on approval from others, or a certain panel of judges is outside of their control. To help elucidate sources of control you can have them draw a circle:
- Write everything within their control inside the circle, and
- Write things outside their control outside the circle.
Find fun and meaningful ways to make the confidence connection.
In closing I will leave you with something to ponder:
What do you do to develop your own confidence as a coach?
Coach Gianine
Inner Edge Performance Coach
Gianine was paramount is teaching my daughter how to recover and come back from injury. She helped her mentally by teaching her how to think. Working with Gianine my daughters confidence returned and was stronger that pre injury. I truly can’t say enough great things about Gianine. She is amazing !!