Sports – at any level – is a game of confidence.
When you have it, your skills shine. When confidence sinks, you don’t perform up to your capabilities. But confidence for many athletes is too fragile or fleeting in my opinion. Too many athletes allow their confidence to go up or down rapidly based upon immediate results and circumstances during competition. These athletes ride the confidence roller coaster. When they perform well, they feel good about their skills. When they perform poorly (or not up to expectations), their confidence can dip quickly.
I receive emails from athletes and parents everyday about how their confidence is shattered after just one bad play, shot or routine. If you (or your athletes) ride the confidence roller coaster, is that true confidence? Probably not….
I would argue that fragile self-confidence or letting results or circumstances dictate how confident you feel in the present moment IS NOT true confidence. Real self-confidence is stable, long-term, and lasting, even under adversity or poor results. True self-confidence is based on years and months of practice and competition. Is it fair to yourself as an athlete to throw away years of confidence-building when you mess up one play, race, or shot? I don’t think so.
But I’ve learned over the past 25 years as a mental coach that even the best athletes in the world, at times, can ride the confidence roller coaster…
To read the Entire Article and Other Sports Tips on Confidence Go Here:
The Confidence Rollercoaster Newsletter
Related Sports Psychology Articles
- How to Perform Under Pressure with Confidence
- How to Build Confidence Like the Pros
- How to Grow Competition Confidence
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I think it’s harder for younger athletes to get off the confidence roller coaster. Even pros make mistakes, but they know how to shrug it off and carry on. For younger athletes, they often get caught up in the moment and cant’ get past it for the rest of the game.
This is very true, sometimes it seems that one little thing can have a huge influence over our overall confidence. I have realize how there is a lot of things about life that sports teach you, and confidence is not an exception. The self confidence rollercoaster applies to life so much as well. Personally, like when I am courting a chick, i can be doing extremly fine; the girl is responding well, there seems to be chemestry, but then, as soon as the girl says something that i feel not so safe to talk about, as soon as she mentions for example the way a man should be in general, or compares a winner to a loser, or something, my confidence completely drops… As if she KNEW that I am not man enough! Even though i know it is not true, even though i know I have done so much that can categorize me as a winner, or a competetive, confident, outgoing manly man… When she mentions the issue, it is like if my unconcious has a way of convencing myself, i am not that person. It really sucks, and i am really working on getting over those reactions, or at least find out why i trigger those reactions