To Go From a Good to a Great Athlete You Must Move From Belief to Faith
In sports there is a clear difference between having belief and having faith. For athletes, seeing is believing. Whether it’s something you see in yourself, something you see in others, or something you have seen happen historically.
For example, an athlete will believe in a coach because they have seen that coach be successful. Or an athlete will believe in their preparation because they have seen success through preparing in the way they did. In other words, in sports belief and confidence go hand in hand. Just like success is a prerequisite for confidence, it’s also a prerequisite for belief.
On the other hand, faith does not require success. The only requirement for faith is commitment. Commitment to a process, a coach, or a team. Disappointment, adversity, lacking confidence, ambiguity are all things that happen to those who have faith. Yet, these things don’t deter athletes who have faith. Faith provides the fuel to keep going when the athlete doesn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Athletes who have faith in themselves do not fold under pressure because they have no fear of the outcome. Win or lose they remain committed. Belief on the other hand waivers under pressure, as belief does nothing to remove the fear of failure. What’s more, it’s failure that causes an athlete to change what they believe.
How Great Athletes Move From Belief to Faith
With this in mind, as athletes work to go from good to great, they must follow a process in order to move from belief to faith. This process begins by first having faith in oneself. While this may sound trivial, it’s far easier said than done.
Faith in yourself starts with a promise and ends with fulfilling that promise with the appropriate action. When you don’t fulfill that promise with the appropriate action then this means you don’t have faith in yourself.
Therefore, faith in yourself requires taking responsibility for everything that happens to you. This means that you own your choices, you accept the outcome of those choices, and you have faith that those choices will ultimately result in you reaching your maximum potential. That is what it means to have faith in yourself.
Obviously, no one is perfect. There will be times when you fail at meeting your responsibilities. However, when you truly have faith in yourself you won’t ever make this a habit.
Moreover, no athlete goes from good to great without facing adversity. If an athlete only has belief and keeps changing what they believe after every other adverse experience that athlete won’t ever make it from good to great. Therefore, athletes who want to go to the next level must not only believe in their process, coach, and team they must also have the faith to commit.