How Confident Athletes Set Themselves Apart: Part I

With confidence, you have won before you have started.

~Marcus Garvey

Confidence is often said to be the cornerstone of mental toughness.  It’s the ticket you need in route to your personal greatness. Dreams and goals take time and lots hard work, so even if you put in all the work, but your confidence is shaky, your moment to shine may pass you by. 

Confident athletes know they aren’t born with it. They don’t wait for someone to hand it to them or some great achievement to be confident.  They nurture it daily, and through difficult and trying times.  They persist in believing in their possibilities.   Let’s see what it takes to nurture your confidence.

1. Confident athletes visualize success.  They use the power of their mind to vividly create images of their desired goals.  They use all their senses to create the picture of success they want to achieve. Negative images don’t serve the confident athlete. They are obstacles that hinder forward progress.  Confident athletes believe in themselves; they believe they can perform well and they visualize their success.  “You must see it before you can achieve it”.
2. Confident athletes use positive self talk.  The inner dialogue of confident athletes is motivational, instructive, present focused and positive.  Thoughts affect feelings and feelings impact actions.  Keeping track of self talk is important so you can interrupt any negative, irrational or unproductive thinking and replace it with thoughts that will serve you well. Doubts are refuted and expectations are replaced with process cues. Confident athletes are master of their thoughts.
3. Confident athletes trust in their skills. Trust comes when you have mastered your skills and you allow your body to do what you trained it to do.  You spend countless hours practicing your skills and when mastered you have reached the point where they are automatic.  You don’t have to consciously think of every minute detail, in fact if you think too much you may get in your own way.  You are at the point where you can perform freely, intuitively because you can trust your training and just do it.  Confident athletes believe in their training and physical skills.

In Part II, we’ll look at three more ways confident athletes differentiate themselves.