Do you feel really confident after you play well, but after you play poorly, this confidence drops? You question your abilities. You second guess yourself. And you experience doubt going into your next game.
By the end of this article, you’re going to learn how to not have your confidence solely based on results so you can work on building more stable confidence as an athlete.
The Problem with Results-Based Confidence
Hey there, I’m Eli Straw, a mental performance coach who works with athletes from around the world on building a stronger mental game.
Results-based confidence makes sense. When you play well, this creates momentum that leads into the next game. Because you played well your last game, you have trust in yourself that you can play well again.
Unfortunately, when we base how confident we are solely on the results that we’ve been getting recently, this is where we find it difficult to:
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Bounce back from bad games.
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Get out of a slump.
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Stop the downward spiral of mistakes and poor performances.
Why? Because we are only getting this confidence from how well we’ve played recently. And this is what we call unstable confidence.
If you’re playing well, that’s great. You’re probably going to keep playing well because you still have confidence from that last performance. But if you played poorly, this is where it becomes very difficult to dig yourself out of this hole.
Something else that can also happen—and something I’ve heard from a lot of the athletes I work with within one-on-one coaching—is that when you know you get so much confidence from the result, you also know that your confidence drops when you play poorly.
The more good games you have in a row, there can come a point where this momentum actually stops. Because now it’s like you’re tiptoeing, wondering: When am I going to have another bad game and have all this confidence be destroyed?
Building Stable Confidence
This is why we have to work on building stable confidence.
True confidence is all about trusting yourself that you can go out there and put yourself in a position to play well. It doesn’t always mean that you’ll play the best game you’ve ever played. It doesn’t always mean that you’ll win.
But you have to have this trust in yourself to go out there and put up a good fight—put in good effort—and give yourself the chance of succeeding.
Why Results Aren’t the Answer
In order to build this stable type of confidence, we have to make confidence based on what we can control.
The outcome of a game is not fully within our control. Otherwise, we would make sure that every single game we play our best, every single game we win, and we always get the result that we want.
When confidence is based on the result, it’s based on something out of our control. As a result, our confidence will go up and down.
But if we want to have that true trust in ourselves—to where we know that each and every game we can put ourselves in a position to have a chance of playing well—we need to develop stable confidence as athletes.
What to Base Confidence On Instead
So, what should your confidence be based on instead?
Instead of having it focused on the outcome and only feeling confident if you’ve played well, you need your confidence to be based on things in your control.
There are many things in your control as an athlete that will help you feel confident. To make this easier, I want to take you through an exercise I use with my one-on-one coaching clients.
The Confidence Exercise
Step 1: Identify what currently gives you confidence.
Take out a piece of paper and make a list of three to five things.
If your confidence is based on the result, the number one thing is probably going to be the result. Then maybe you write, “the positive encouragement I get from my coach when I play well.”
Again, that’s still results-based confidence.
But you can also put down things like preparation, or anything else that currently boosts your confidence.
Step 2: Identify what’s in your control.
Now, think about which of the things you listed are 100% in your control.
A silly example is if I say I feel confident when I wear a blue shirt, and I get to choose my shirt color, then that’s in my control. But if my coach decides, then it’s not in my control.
Examples that might apply to you as an athlete include:
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Preparation (the work you do leading into the game).
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Your thinking (positive mindset).
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Being present while playing (not worrying about the future).
Aim to identify 2–3 items that are fully in your control.
Step 3: Create an action plan.
Now, take those controllables and create a plan around them.
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Preparation: Outline skills you’ll work on during the week, set goals for practices, plan your mental preparation (pregame routine, mindfulness, daily meditation, opponent research).
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Positive Thinking: Develop a self-talk routine. Read self-talk statements daily, review them before games to prime your brain to think positively.
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Past Successes: Visualize successes daily. Before a game, recall or visualize those moments to boost confidence.
Why This Exercise Works
The whole idea with this exercise is that we know how easy and natural it is to base our confidence on our most recent performance.
That’s great when we’ve played well. That’s horrible when we’ve played badly.
When we’ve played badly and we base confidence on that performance, we can’t find the trust we need to turn things around—because we’re trying to get confidence from a game where we played poorly.
That’s why we need a foundational level of confidence no matter how we’ve played recently. And we get that by identifying controllables that lead to confidence and then putting a clear plan in place each week, before games, and on game day.
Final Thoughts
Go through this exercise and create your own action plan for having confidence—true and stable confidence in yourself for games.
If you are interested in one-on-one coaching, click here to schedule a free introductory coaching call.
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Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.
