Lacking confidence is not a problem that solves itself. Yes, sometimes life randomly works out in a way that builds confidence. However, depending on random luck is not something athletes should ever count on. Therefore, when it’s obvious an athlete lacks confidence, a coach must intervene.
Moreover, there are specific steps a coach can take to build an athlete’s confidence methodically over a season. Below are the three steps I recommend coaches follow:
Step 1: Assess the Source of the Athlete’s Lack of Confidence
In step one, coaches must start by assessing what is causing the athlete’s lack of confidence. I recommend using these 9 questions below as a starting point. These questions are based the research published in The Role of Confidence in World-Class Sport Performance.
- Preparation: Do you lack confidence in your preparation from training and practice?
- Performance accomplishments: Do you lack confidence due to past failures in achieving goals?
- Coaching: Do you lack confidence in your coach having the ability to help you achieve your goals?
- Innate factors: Do you lack confidence in the innate abilities and talents you were born with?
- Social support: Do you lack confidence in the support you get from family, friends, and teammates?
- Experience: Do you lack confidence in your experience and the learned lessons from prior successes or failures?
- Competitive advantage: Do you lack confidence in how you compare to your competition?
- Self-awareness: Do you lack confidence because you are unsure in what you want and how to go after it?
- Trust: Do you lack confidence because you don’t trust yourself, your preparation, teammates, or coaching?
Step 2: Help the Athlete Focus on Controlling the Controllables
Most things that are a source for lacking confidence, could also be a source for gaining confidence. However, the only way to flip this with intention is to help athletes focus on those sources of confidence under their control.
So, in this step coaches must separate out the controllable responses in the assessment from the uncontrollable responses. It’s not that athletes ignore those sources that are uncontrollable, they just will not be the focus for this basic process.
The controllable questions come from: preparation, coaching, experience, and self-awareness. If an athlete only lacks confidence due to those things not under their control, I recommend using the steps I describe in this article: Mental Skills for Lacking Confidence Due to Limiting Beliefs
Step 3: Help the Athlete Establish Healthy Habits and Routines Around the Controllables
Finally, coaches must help athletes establish healthy habits and routines based on proven patterns of success for the things under their control.
For example, looking at each of the four areas of controllables:
Preparation: If the athlete lacks confidence in their preparation, then help them find a role model who is successful in the way they want to be successful and show them how to copy that preparation routine. If possible, get the athlete to join or shadow that person in their process of preparing.
Coaching: If the athlete lacks confidence in their coaching, assist them in finding a private coach and/or getting one on one help to work on their specific needs. Private coaching where an athlete can work on their specific needs can be a game changer for confidence.
Experience: If the athlete lacks confidence in their experience, coaches must help them invest time in getting more experience and doing more video review sessions of their performances. Work with the athlete to break down the video of their performances by writing down the lessons learned and critiquing the good, bad, and ugly.
Self-awareness: If the athlete lacks confidence as a result of self-awareness, then I suggest that coaches get them to take the CliftonStrengths Assessment. Then help the athlete start of daily routine of journaling about the things they enjoy that allows them to use their strengths. Through this process the athlete will begin to understand what gives them confidence at a deeper level. As an alternative, a third-party coach such as myself could be brough in to work with the athlete through this process of self-discovery. If you are interested in finding out more about how I can help you with this, contact me here.