Confidence is a mjor part of sports, in fact it is the number component that leads to high performance, and at its simplest form, if you don’t believe you can do something you wont.  If you believe you can do something then you will.  A large component to developing confidence is having a previous successful experience.

Let me share a story about the building/development of confidence and how it can change the game.  I have worked with an athlete his who is a pole vaulter, we will call him Chris.  Chris has a lot of natural ability, he is pretty fast on the open track and he is pretty strong in the weight room, but the one thing that he lacked was belief in himself, or a little confidence.  He would often times tell himself and tell other people that he had confidence and he believed that he could jump high, but where his lack of confidence became evidence was when he actually got on the runway to jump. He did not believe he was fast enough, to get on big poles and jump as high as he wanted, until something interesting happened.  Chris decided he wanted to run the 100 meter dash as part of his training for one particular meet.  Chris went and ran 11.02, which for a pole vaulter is pretty quick.  Once Chris discovered that he was actually pretty fast, he began to improve dramatically. In practice he began running faster down the runway, and as a result of that he began to get on bigger poles. In his first outdoor competition he tied his lifetime best. That week in practice we moved him to a longer pole. The second competition he Improved on his lifetime best by 4 inches, and nearly 3 more inches on top of that.  In the sport of pole vaulting inches make a big difference.  Now Chris has the second highest mark in the nation.

The interesting point here is that Chris had it in him to jump this high all along, he just had to believe it.  Once he had the successful previous experience that suggested that he was pretty fast, he began running faster, because he had confidence that he could run faster, and the result is that his performance when up dramatically.  Physical ability is a large part of being a good athlete, but the mental skill of confidence or the mental ability is what allows for the physical ability to be effective.  You never know what you maximum ability may be if you don’t learn the Mental Skills that allow you to reach your maximum ability.

Learn more about these skills in the book The Fearless Mind, begin learning these skills with a Performance Journal, this will set you up for success.