There are several components that make up a fearless mind, in fact as outlined in the book The Fearless Mind, written by Dr. Manning, there are 5 essential steps to high performance, ie. a Fearless Mind.  I am going to out line the first concept which is confidence.

Confidence is a feeling or a thought process in one’s powers or ability to succeed.  For example, I would exhibit confidence by saying “I am good at what I do.” or feeling a certain way, “I am confident in my ability to succeed.” It is easy to define confidence, but it becomes tricky when we try to define how confidence is developed.

Research shows that the number factor in the development of confidence is previous successful experiences, and the reason for this, is because we have a knowledge that a certain achievement is possible.  Confidence starts with a belief in one’s ability to succeed, then is usually driven by certain motivation to achieve and then a commitment to finish out the objective.  The key to successfully develop confidence is having the right objective, I talked about this in another post, the Performance Journal. (click here to recap) Having the right objective can accelerate the growth of confidence or completely destroy confidence.  For example setting an objective just slightly beyond a persons capability but not out of reach is the right kind of objective. Sometimes we set goals or objectives that are way out of our reach and so when we fall short we begin to doubt our ability and lose our confidence in our selves.  Just to recap, confidence is developed by previous successes, belief leads to motivation which leads to commitment which leads to action to accomplish a certain objective, once we have accomplished that objective it becomes a previous success, therefore building confidence.

Research shows that confidence is the number one aspect in the success of high performing individuals.  And it all starts with believing that I can achieve anything.  Once we have learned how to develop confidence we can repeat the cycle over and over until we have reached our final objective, no matter what it is.

Every athlete needs confidence to be successful, some athletes are really good at faking confidence and other have it, but the most successful know how to develop confidence and keep on developing it while at the same time removing doubt.  I mentioned at the top of this post that this skill is outlined in detail how to develop confidence in the book The Fearless Mind.