The #1 reason athletes want to talk about their mental game is because they want more confidence, or they don’t feel confident.

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Therein lies the opportunity for parents…….to support and help foster their athlete’s confidence.

Peak performance and the pursuit of performance excellence is all about harnessing and balancing both physical and mental strengths. Confidence, for an athlete, is an endless reservoir of belief in their abilities, courage in the face of adversity, endurance to fight till the end, and resilience to bounce back from mistakes, failures, or setbacks.

• Confidence is earned, it’s not a feeling you get or something you are entitled to.
• Confidence is not a guarantee or a pre-requisite for high performance.
• Confidence is something you want to protect when you have it!

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What is the Significance of Confidence

Confidence plays a crucial role in the performance and success of athletes. It is a mental attribute that can significantly impact an athlete’s abilities, mindset, and overall performance. When athletes possess confidence, they are more likely to push their limits, overcome challenges, and achieve their goals.

Enhanced Performance: Confidence empowers athletes to perform at their best. When athletes believe in their skills and abilities, they are more likely to take risks, make decisive moves, and showcase their true potential. A confident athlete is not easily deterred by setbacks or failures but rather uses them as stepping stones towards improvement.

Mental Resilience: Confidence helps athletes develop mental resilience, enabling them to bounce back from setbacks and maintain a positive mindset. In the face of adversity, confident athletes remain focused, motivated, and determined to overcome obstacles. They view challenges as opportunities for growth and use their self-belief to stay committed to their goals.

Influence of a Positive Environment: Sports can be hard, and bring on negative conditions in life (remember, people lose and fail at sports every day). Often times athletes can come home from sports negative. Ensure your athlete’s environment away from sport is positive and one that motivates them to get back at it again the next day.

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Building Blocks of Confidence

1. Celebrate & Promote Effort Over Outcomes

Sometimes, it’s not about winning; it’s about playing the game, enjoying it and most importantly putting in the right amount of effort, physically, mentally, and cognitively (or thinking skills). Teach your athlete to value their effort, their dedication, and their improvement first and foremost. This encourages intrinsic motivation, its byproduct being self-confidence. Allow them to encounter setbacks and disappointments; it builds resilience, helps them learn from their mistakes, and be more confident when adversity strikes in their sport.

As a parent you can’t remove all the pebbles from their path!

2. Encourage Positive Self-Talk

Promote a positive narrative. Help your athlete cultivate a constructive inner voice instead of a critical one. When you hear them speaking negatively, encourage them to reframe the problem from a negative approach to a positive one. Then encourage self-talk that takes on the challenge they just reframed.

3. Provide Unwavering Support and Guidance

Your athlete should know they have your unwavering support, especially in failure. Emotional support can significantly uplift their spirits and build resilience. Always be their safe space, a place where they can express their fears and concerns without judgment. More often than not you just need to listen and let them get things off their chest!

4. Promote Goal-Setting

Encourage your athlete to set achievable, realistic goals not only for their season, or career, but daily….yes… daily. This gives them purpose, and builds confidence as they achieve goals each day. Re-evaluating goals along the journey, helping them understand progress is a step-by-step process.

5. Prioritize Mental Health

All athletes, irrespective of their age, need to understand the importance of mental well-being. Teach them self-care practices, breathing, relaxation, meditation, yoga, and impart on them the importance of rest days. It’s ok to take time and days away from sport to recharge. A strong, stable mental health foundation is vital to breeding confidence.

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What Does the Research Say to Help Us?

Hayes et al. (2009) determined the causal network of confidence. This included effective cognitions (or thoughts), positive affect (emotions), and effective behaviors all contributed to confidence. Image courtesy of YLM Sport Science

Infographic Key Takeaways

• Effective thoughts that create confidence include:
  • Present moment focus on the task
  • Having good habits to make actions automatic
  • Thinking highly of yourself, and that you can compete with your opponent
  • Thinking about others that have help you along the way
• Positive emotions that help to create confidence include:
  • Fun and enjoyment of the game, and the effort that needs to be put into training and developing your skills.
  • Happy go lucky approach
  • Remaining relaxed and calm
  • Excitement to compete and play
  • Butterflies or healthy nervousness
• Effective behaviors that help to create confidence include:
  • Having strong body language
  • Commitment to decisions
  • Increased effort when required

Work with your competitive or high performance athlete to bring these thoughts, emotions and behaviors out as much as possible. The more they do these, the more confidence will build.

Summary

Supporting the confidence in your competitive or high-performing or athlete is a continual process. The stresses in the competitive sports make it challenging to remain resilient and confident. But, with your consistent support, you as a can play an instrumental role in instilling the principles that develop confidence. Help them embrace the journey, reset after setbacks or errors and dust off from the falls, and rise each time stronger and more self-assured.

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Action Plan

This week’s action plan a tried tested and true confidence plan for parents to their athletes. These five strategies are ways parents can

1. Remind your athlete of their past successes (on and off the field of play).
2. Encourage your athlete to focus on their strengths (remember no athlete ever made it in their sport because of their weaknesses).
3. Support them to take action themselves through tough times, or adversity – don’t do it for them!
4. Turn their negative self-talk or body language around on them and reframe the adversity as an opportunity to do something spectacular.
5. Remind them that preparation is king when it comes to confidence.

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Resource of the Week

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