How Self-Doubt Destroys Confidence
Many distractions during competition affect your ability to focus…
Some common distractions are:
- Opposing fans
- Rival teams
- Worrying about meeting others’ expectations
- Poor playing conditions
If you want to perform to your peak, you find a way to be able to cope well with distractions by being ready for them.
The toughest distractions to cope with are the ones you create for yourself.
Internal distractions are when you have negative thinking, doubts, focus on mistakes, etc. They start within your own mind, not from your surroundings.
They sometimes are about doubt, such as, “I won’t do well because…” and then you might even make up false evidence in an attempt to give credence to your claims.
However, self-doubt is way more damaging than a distraction because you drain your own confidence…
Negative beliefs or doubts about future performances are self-fulfilling prophecies and the only way to overcome these is by creating a different story about your ability to perform successfully.
Australian rules football midfielder, Hamish Hartlett, hit the nail on the head when he summed up the relationship between negative thoughts and performances.
HARTLETT: “I’m trying to breathe more positivity around the [team]. I’m my own harshest critic — and have been for a long, long time. It comes the stage where you continue going down the same path, doing the same things and continue to get the same results which is inconsistent performances, not playing to the level you expect of yourself or others expect. Or you change, slightly and hope things change for the better. It seems to be working, so far.”
The best way to “change things for the better” is to attack your doubts on two fronts.
First, change the story you tell yourself. When you have a doubt, recognize it as such.
Awareness of your own faulty thinking is always the first step.
Second, challenge your doubts when they pop into your head and fact check those thoughts to determine if they are valid.
When you change your story, you save your confidence from taking a big hit.
How to Challenge Your Self-Doubt
- Write down the top five doubts you’ve had before and during competition. Keep a log of these if you need to.
- Challenge the validity of each doubt and fact check yourself: rationalize with your own doubt. How do you know these doubts are true?
- Change each self-doubt into a statement of confidence. So change, “I just don’t have it today,” to, “You know how to grind it out and get the job done.”
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(Listen to his success story)
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