| Developing Confidence
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So: Next shoot. Will you do well?
"Confidence" is about your answer to that question, or
one like it. "Confident" people say "Yes" and
believe it. Everybody else says "Oo, er, not sure about that..."
(except for the smartasses who say "I'm absolutely confident
of messing it up totally." - which is not quite what we're
getting at here...).
So does it matter? If it does, where does confidence come from?
And what can you do if it's not there when you want it?
Topics covered on this page:
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| Why confidence matters |
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Expectations of success mean better
motivation |
Who tries hard -
or even at all - if they expect to fail? And how much harder
does someone work when they believe there's a real chance of
success? |
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Self-confidence improves resilience |
Setbacks matter
less if you are confident that you can overcome them. 'Nerves'
matter less if you believe you will win out. |
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... and the result of
those is: |
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Self-confidence improves performance |
Better motivation,
better response to setbacks, and lower response to nerves add
up to a winning combination. Maybe that's why confident people
always seem to achieve more? |
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| Where confidence comes from |
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Past success |
"Nothing succeeds
like success", as they say. The most obvious source of
real confidence is a lot of past success, and not a lot of failures.
This is the other reason confident people seem to achieve more
- they already have, or maybe they wouldn't be confident! But
there seems to be a positive feedback there: "Achieve,
and you will be confident; be confident, and you will achieve"
(OK, I just made that up. But it seems a reasonable summary)
Success needn't be chance; see here
for how to establish a track record of success. |
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Positive thinking |
Well, there's a vague concept if ever I saw
one :). But there seems to be something in it. Someone who
focusses on the possibility of failure may not try - and if
you don't try, you can't really expect much chance of success.
But the same situation holds the possibility of success.
There's an important lesson in there; maybe the way you look
at a situation can change your feelings about it. And feelings
can change behaviour, which can change performance. See here
for more info.
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Other people's opinion |
A trusted friend
who believes you can succeed, adds to your confidence. A lot
of trusted friends who believe you can succeed add a lot to
your confidence. |
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| Managing for confidence |
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Things we CAN manage
Of the factors above, both athlete and coach can influence success
through goal setting, and also do something to manage our own thinking.
These two are dealt with on the following links (repeated from the
top of the page).
Things we can't manage
The most difficult thing to manage is probably other peoples'
opinions. For my take on this, see  here.
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| Resources |
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Check out the Mental Game Plan for
a whole chapter on confidence building.
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