The Four Ingredients of a Confident Athlete
No matter how much an athlete increases their skill level, it will never be enough without confidence. Moreover, lacking confidence is not a problem that solves itself. There are specific ingredients athletes need to build confidence.
Yes, sometimes life randomly works out in a way that allows these ingredients to naturally develop. However, depending on random luck is not something athletes should ever count on. Instead, athletes must become self-aware of their situation and environment to be intentional about the development of their confidence.
This starts with these four ingredients:
1. Preparation
First and foremost, confidence is a product of preparation, and preparations is a matter of process. Knowing what to do, knowing how to do it, and knowing when to do it are all questions that must have good answers for an athlete to have confidence that they are doing the right thing, and doing that thing right.
2. Success
Although preparation is #1 on the list, not all preparation leads to confidence. Only preparation that leads to success will lead to confidence. If an athlete works their hardest to prepare then fails, they won’t build confidence. As a result, preparation requires working both relentlessly and persistently to find your unique path to success.
In other words, success is a key metric for deciding if the process needs to change or stay the same.
3. Knowledgeable Coach
While success is a key metric, it’s not the only metric. Success often follows failure. So, if an athlete changes a successful preparation process too soon because of a false belief that it’s not working, their confidence will suffer. Therefore, knowing when and why one needs to change the process of preparation requires a knowledgeable coach.
A knowledgeable coach understands that each of their athletes has different strengths and personalities. This is what allows them to assess an athlete after each success and failure, then develop a plan to make changes to the process or make the decision to trust the process.
4. Motivation
Finally, once an athlete has a knowledgeable coach to help them with their preparation, the athlete needs a sustainable source of energy to follow-through with their coach’s plan. This sustainable source of energy comes from motivation. Furthermore, the most natural form of motivation for athletes comes from setting goals.
However, athletes shouldn’t just set goals on their own. To get the most motivation out of a goal setting process it’s best to do it with a coach who is hands-on from start to finish. This includes athletes spending one-on-one time with their coach:
- Picking the right goals.
- Breaking the goals down into a progression.
- Developing a daily/weekly plan to pursue the goals.
- Measuring progress.
- Adjusting course.