Self-Confidence

By: Chad Adams

“You’re Doing Great! Keep It Up!”

Growing up in an atmosphere of sports with parent-referees, parent-coaches, and the number one fan, a.k.a. “MOM”; I was always told that I was doing everything correctly and that I was a top-of-the-line athlete… In case you were wondering, this can be a dangerous start to a young man’s life because I was not using proper form or technique at that age; although, it gave me the confidence to play the best I knew how.

If you are reading this article and you are a parent, you are probably sitting there saying, “Wow, I do that with my kids and I know nothing about the sport they are participating in.” Parents, it’s ok! If your kids are a tad bit older now and are currently participating in athletics then it is not too late for them! In this article, you will read about the benefits of self-confidence, sources of self-efficacy, how to assess self-confidence, and last but not least: “How to Build Self-Confidence!”

“What is Self-Confidence exactly?”

Sport psychologists define self-confidence as the belief that you can successfully perform a desired behavior. In other words, if you strongly feel and believe in your heart that you are going to accomplish the task at hand then you will do just fine. On the other hand, if you envision yourself performing poorly or coming up short of your goal then you will. When athletes do this then they are creating what is called a self-fulfilling prophecy, which means that expecting something to happen actually helps cause it to happen. Believe it or not, athletes are not the only people who do this; people who exercise as well as the average person going about their daily activities create this phenomenon.

Benefits of Self-Confidence:

• Confidence arouses positive emotions.The more confidence you have the calmer and relaxed you will feel in any situation whether it is stressful or not. The team captain should definitely have this to use in their advantage to lead the team to a victory.
• Confidence facilitates concentration. When an athlete is confident, they free up some space in their mind to focus on the task at hand; instead of worrying about how well you are doing or how well your teammates think you’re doing.
• Confidence affects goals. A confident athlete will set high-challenging, yet achievable, goals and pursue them actively. Confidence allows you to go above and beyond your potential; push yourself to go past your perceived limitations.
• Confidence increases effort. It doesn’t matter if the ability of the two teams or of the two teams competing against one another is equal, but rather on who believes in themselves more. The ones who know they can outplay the other will put forth more effort due to confidence in their abilities.
• Confidence affects game strategies. Someone who is more confident in their abilities will TAKE CHANCES! They will try their best to make things happen rather than focusing on not making mistakes and being content with “playing it safe”. Confident players will “play to WIN” and they won’t care about sticking their neck out on the line for their team.
• Confidence affects psychological momentum. Confident individuals will take a negative momentum, such as losing, and use it to their advantage by making it a challenge to them; using it as motivation to do their very best. The individual will have the “NEVER GIVE UP” attitude and will in turn create positive momentum.
• Confidence affects performance. This is pretty self-explanatory, meaning the more confident an individual is in their abilities the more fun they will endure. The more fun someone endures, the better their performance will be.

 Self-Efficacy: the perception of one’s ability to perform a task successfully.

Sources of Self-Efficacy Theory:

Performance Accomplishments –

Performance accomplishments provide the most dependable foundation for self-efficacy judgments because they are based on one’s mastery experiences. One must focus on their accomplishments and stay positive in order to raise their self-efficacy. If someone focuses on nothing but failures, their self-efficacy will be extremely low and they will not be able to complete their goals successfully.

Vicarious Experiences –

Also known as demonstration or modeling, these experiences are used to help people learn new skills. Modeling can be best understood as a four-stage process: attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation. For someone to take to modeling, they must have respect for the one teaching it to them, they must take the skill to memory and take a strong interest in the activity. Without being motivated to perform the new skill, all of the other stages are useless.

 Verbal Persuasion –

This stage is the one I stated initially would help an individual perform better due to an increase in confidence. Coaches, teachers, and peers often use persuasive techniques to influence behavior. A simple way of remembering this stage is when using verbal persuasion one must use the “sandwich technique”. The “sandwich technique” is when you say something positive, followed by constructive criticism, that is then followed by a second positive compliment.

Imaginal Experiences –

Individuals can generate beliefs about personal efficacy or lack of efficacy by imagining themselves or others behaving effectively or ineffectively in future situations. What this means is to imagine yourself mastering a skill or imagine yourself performing above and beyond the best of your ability and you will come out on top. Athletes who use imagery have an advantage on the other athletes who don’t use it. You can only gain from using imagery unless you image something negatively.

Physiological States –

People are different when it comes to physiological states because some people experiencing fast heart beat and increase breathing will clam up and feel as if they are unable to perform the task at hand; although, others may use this to their advantage in knowing they are ready for the competition. You will have to use your own judgment when discovering how you react and are affected by these different physiological states.

Emotional States –

Basically, someone who is in a good emotional state such as happiness, exhilaration, and tranquility will be more likely to enhance self-efficacy rather than someone who is in the opposite state of mind. Someone that is in a bad emotional state such as depression, sadness, and anxiety are all factors that will surely decrease one’s self-efficacy tremendously.

 

ASSESSING SELF-CONFIDENCE:

• When am I overconfident?
• How do I recover from mistakes?
• When do I have self-doubts?
• Is my confidence consistent throughout an event?
• Am I tentative and indecisive in certain situations?
• Do I look forward to and enjoy tough, highly competitive games?
• How do I react to adversity?

These are just a few questions that you can ask yourself to assess your self-confidence level.

SOURCES OF SPORT SELF-CONFIDENCE

• Mastery: developing and improving skills
• Demonstration of ability: showing ability by winning and outperforming opponents
• Physical and mental preparation: staying focused on goals and being prepared to give maximum effort
• Physical self-presentation: feeling good about one’s body and weight
• Social Support: getting encouragement from teammates, coaches, and family
• Coaches’ leadership: trusting coaches’ decisions and believing in their abilities
• Vicarious experience: seeing other athletes perform successfully
• Environmental comfort: feeling comfortable in the environment where one will perform
• Situational favorableness: seeing breaks going one’s way and feeling that everything is going right

“How in the world do I build self-confidence?”

• Performance accomplishments are the most powerful way to build confidence. Manipulate or create situations that allow participants to experience success and a sense of accomplishment.
• Acting confidently – It doesn’t matter if you made a mistake during a competition, you must hold your head high, shoulders back, facial muscles loose, and demonstrate confidence in your abilities.
• Thinking confidently – You must discard all negative thoughts that may hinder you or lead you to failure. One must always think positively in order to display confidence and to ensure elite performance.
• Using imagery – Athletes must imagine themselves successfully completing a task or performing at the top-level. Any negative images will interrupt and keep one from reaching their goals.
• Use goal mapping – A goal map is a personalized plan for an athlete that contains various types of goals and goal strategies as well as a systematic evaluation procedure to assess progress toward goals
• Optimizing Physical Conditioning and Training – You must be in the best possible physical shape so you are not to make any excuses to not being physically capable of reaching your goal. You must feel confident that you can out hustle, out last (endurance) any of your opponents.
• Preparing – Every athlete should prepare for a battle just like a general in war. One must expect to win and having a plan will make one even more confident that they will know what to do to win. Most successful athletes have detailed plans and strategies as to how they are going to accomplish their goals. 

 “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are,
it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
You, me, or nobody, is gonna hit as hard as life.

But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward.
How much you can take and keep moving forward.
That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth.
But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers,
saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that, and that ain’t you!”

‘Rocky’ Balboa

 

Works Cited

• Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology: Fifth Edition; Chapter 14 (Self-Confidence; Weinberg; Gould