Developing Self-Confidence In Sports
Self-confidence is one of the most important mental skills in sports.
Self-confidence is the belief in your ability to perform well.
Without confidence, you cannot fire on all cylinders and perform your best in competition.
Many athletes talk about losing confidence as if it’s something that is out of their control.
These athletes allow the level of confidence to change easily depending on many factors such as the level of competition and immediate success.
When these athletes are performing well, their confidence is high. When they are mired in a performance slump, their confidence suffers. But confidence is one thing that despite results, confidence is one thing you have control over.
If you allow chance to dictate your confidence, you will forever be on the confidence roller coaster as you go through the ups and downs of performance.
If you are proactive with your confidence it will help you perform better in competition with more consistent results.
Devin Smith is a rookie wide receiver for the New York Jets with a lot of upside.
Smith is a speedy receiver drafted in the second round and was known in college for his big, game-changing plays.
Smith’s self-confidence has been tested after dealing with preseason injuries, drops, difficulty getting open and botched kickoff returns.
Through it all, Smith has maintained an even-keeled perspective as he works through his performance drought.
SMITH: “My season had its ups and downs, but that’s just life. It happens to everyone, so I’m just going to take it in stride and keep working every single day to get better, and just know that my opportunity and my time are going to come.”
Veteran Jet receiver Brandon Marshall has been through his share of ups and downs during his career but stated that it is important to find a middle ground when evaluating your performance in order to maintain confidence.
MARSHALL: ”When you lose or make a bad play, you can’t put your head down, and when you make a good play you can’t hang from the rafters.”
Jets offensive coordinator Chan Gailey wants Smith to not dwell on mistakes and continue to look for opportunities to make plays.
GAILEY: ”We’ve got to keep letting him have the opportunity. If he’s open, he’ll eventually catch it… I’ve just got to make sure that he keeps confidence in himself.”
When it comes to confidence, you have the “fester versus foster” choice.
You can allow miscues to fester in the back of your mind or you can foster confidence by understanding that there will be slumps in your performances.
You want to keep looking for opportunities to succeed.
Mental Game Tips to Foster Confidence:
Tip #1: You, first, must understand that you are in control of your confidence.
Learn to be proactive with your self-confidence even after performance slumps.
Tip #2: Foster confidence by continuing to prepare at a high level, celebrate your successes, and look for opportunities to improve. Don’t allow mistakes to derail your confidence on the next play. Have trust in your skills and training, that they will pay off.
Learn Confidence-Boosting Techniques!
D you have a negative self-image of yourself as an athlete that stifles confidence?
No matter ow positive you try to be, are you unable to shake the doubt that rushes into your head when you size up your competition?
Have you labeled yourself as a loser, poor closer, or mediocre athlete and these labels keep you stuck in a rut of self-pity and indecision?
If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, check out The Confident Athlete!
The Confident Athlete CD and workbook program is a 14-day plan for ultimate self-confidence. This program is ideal for any athlete or coach that wants to discover proven confidence-boosting techniques guaranteed to drastically build self-confidence and improve sports performance.
Learn more about one of our most popular CD programs in The Confident Athlete Series…
The Confident Athlete: A 14-Day Plan For Ultimate Self-Confidence
Check out all of the products in The Confident Athlete Series!
What are customers saying?
“The books/CD’s in ‘The Confident Athlete’ are very good. My swimmer has responded very favorably to them, in fact, her father purchased all three programs. You have done a great job consolidating and simplifying the myriad of ideas in sports psychology.”
~Nick Baker, Peak Performance Swim Camp
“I enjoyed ‘The Confident Athlete’ very much. I particularly liked the format, the ease of the program, and the 2 CDs that accompanied the workbook – 10-20 minutes a day was simple to adhere to and put in my busy schedule. I love the part about confidence with grace, and what I want to portray and feel the minute I step foot into Los Angeles for nationals. I love the affirmations, the relaxation techniques, and just the entire perspective of the program.”
~Sarah, US National Aerobic Gymnastics Team
For Young Athletes and Parents – Learn More About How to Help Kids Improve Confidence Quickly!
We’ve got a great program for you called “The Confident Sports Kid: A 7-Day Plan for Building Ultimate Self-Confidence.”
The Confident Sports Kid is a 7-day program for sports parents and kids to boost young athlete’s performance, happiness and success… in sports and life!
The Confident Sports Kid is two programs in one. There’s a manual and CD for parents/coaches, and a workbook/CD for young athletes.
Packed with mental strategies that you and your kids can start using immediately, this program teaches your athletes how to identify confidence busters, proactively deal with them, manage expectations that undermine confidence, and mentally prepare to stay confident when faced with adversity.
What’s more, our program teaches you, as sports parents and coaches, how you may be hurting your kids’ confidence and gives you instructions for changing your behavior in ways that will improve your athletes’ performance, confidence and enjoyment.
Learn more about one of our most popular CD programs in The Confident Sports Kid Series…
The Confident Sports Kid: A 7-Day Plan for Building Ultimate Self-Confidence
Check out all of our products in The Confident Sports Kid Series!
What are parents and coaches saying about our program?
“I appreciate the advice to parents as to how to help your child become more mentally resilient to bullying in sports. The specific advice and scenarios are extremely helpful for any child on a team and very helpful in guiding parents, coaches and administrators in how to deal with bullying in sports. I cannot thank you enough for your input, and I am so reassured to know that there are people like you who are writing articles and doing interviews on such timely and important matters.”
~Julie Goot
“I just wanted to say thank you for your wonderful programs. My son Kai was one of the fastest 10 and under swimmers in Southern California and after he “aged up” to the 11-12 group he really lost confidence swimming against the much faster and bigger boys. He started with the Confident Sports Kids series and really enjoyed each and every lesson. He then started the Composed Kid series and built on the important building blocks that he was using from the first series. I so happy to report that Kai was able to swim to best times in each and every event he swam at the biggest and most important meet of the year in So Cal, the Club Championships. Each race he was more calm, composed, and relaxed. The final race was one that he was ranked last and one of his goals was to try for top 16…he was 49th! He cut over 4 seconds off his time ending up in 17th. He was ecstatic to say the least.”
~DD Bartley
For Mental Coaches – Add More Value To Your Mental Training Programs!
This workbook series was designed for coaches and mental coaches to use with their athletes.
The Athlete’s Mental Edge workbooks complement your existing mental training program. Each of the 15 workbooks in the Athlete’s Mental Edge System teaches your athletes a specific mental skill to improve their performance.
For mental coaches, this system is ideal for between session education.
For sports coaches, you’ll be able to conduct 15 team seminars using the workbook system.
In the Athlete’s Mental Edge workbook system, you receive 15 easy-to-read, practical Mental Edge Workbooks on PDF, as well as 16 coaches’ game plan MP3 audio files.
Athlete’s Mental Edge Workbook System
What are coaches saying?
“I’ll start by saying that the Mental Edge Workbook program is awesome. It put all the pieces together for my mental work with soccer players.”
~Eitan Azaria, Mental Coach for Soccer
“Congratulations on your Mental Edge workbooks. I have been through the package and it looks great! The MGCP program just got a lot better. Your workbook program makes it much more tangible and easier to use the mental strategies. This is the missing link in the MGCP program!”
~Bob Simpson, MGCP
Boost Your Self-Confidence And Focus With Expert Mental Game Coaching!
Master mental game coach, Dr. Patrick Cohn, can help you or your athlete(s), ages 12 and up, overcome mental game issues with personal coaching.
You can work with Dr. Patrick Cohn himself in Orlando, Florida or via Skype, FaceTime, or telephone. Call us toll free at 888-742-7225 or contact us for more information about the different coaching programs we offer!
What are our students saying?
“I am a ASP world qualifying professional surfer and after beginning the ‘The Confident Athlete’ I had an almost instant change in attitude about my own surfing ability and my mindset going into competition. One of my biggest issues I discovered in the program was that I would begin to doubt myself once I show up at a competition and see others surfing well. I would instantly think – ‘no way I am that good.’ By using the Confident Athlete strategies, my confidence has done a complete 180 degrees. I won a local pro/am a few weeks back, and just had my best result of the year in one the last big events on the world circuit this last week in Brazil! It is my secret weapon!”
~Shaun Burrell, Professional Surfer