#19 - Confidence
Based on our recent conversation, confidence is an important part of performing at your best. Confidence is the feeling of knowing what to expect and that you are ready for it. It is also something others can see through your body language. Finally, confidence is also biological. In your body, several hormones contribute to feelings of confidence. Higher testosterone, lower cortisol, and higher serotonin are the key chemical ingredients when your brain feels confident.
Confidence itself has an enormous impact on success. Studies show that successful people are also confident, but does the confidence come from the success or the success come from the confidence? Well, it likely works both ways but a lot of characteristics of confident people are important to being successful. One of the key characteristics of confident people is self-efficacy (not to be confused with self-esteem). Self-efficacy is the extent to which a person believes their efforts will have a designated effect. In other words, when a person believes they can make things work, that they have the ability to succeed, that’s self-efficacy. People with high self-efficacy view challenges as skills to be mastered rather than threats to be avoided. As you can imagine, self-efficacy would help build confidence.
So, are people born confident or is it something you can learn? Good news—you can learn to be more confident! Self-efficacy is like an exercise, the more challenges you beat, the more self-efficacy you’ll have that you can also beat the next one. It’s like leveling up in a video game—once you beat a level, you are confident that you could do it again and you feel ready for the next level. Confidence built through experience also transfers across activities; if you master ping pong, chances are you’ll be more confident about foosball and also learning to drive or build a computer. Over time you start a powerful cycle—the more you succeed, the more you expect to succeed, the more you will succeed, which makes you expect to succeed even more!
Not only will confidence help you be a better athlete personally, it is also a valuable people skill; it makes it easier to be a leader that people are drawn to. Feeling confident will help you be comfortable approaching people you want to meet. Not only will you be able to meet new people, other people will want to meet you. Confidence is attractive—people who aren’t sure what to do will look to someone who looks confident as a leader. Think about the benefits of being a confident athlete. Besides being a better athlete yourself, you will have more influence on the other athletes around you.
One common way to boost confidence is to visualize a place where you feel confident. Maybe it’s the gym, court, course, a specific move, etc. Whatever it is, picturing the confidence you feel in that situation will help you be more confident wherever you are. Close your eyes, visualize that situation, breathe deeply, and feel your confidence grow.
I want to make one qualification. Confidence is great, but a little pressure/stress along with your confidence is a good thing. You don’t want to be so confident that you don’t pay careful attention, make stupid mistakes, or fail to give your best effort. We’ve all seen the too-cocky athlete who fell on their face because they were too confident. You also don’t want to let confidence become annoying trash talk or showing off—if it’s alienating people around you, you’re not confident, you’re a jackass.
Based on this information, hopefully you want to know more about how to feel and be confident. Tomorrow, we are going to discuss one of the most fascinating confidence topics: power posing.