This is part of a five part series on Psychological Skills Training, covering the education, acquisition and practice of psychological skills.
Other posts in this series include:
- Arousal Regulation – Psychological Skills Training
- Imagery – Psychological Skills Training
- Goal Setting – Psychological Skills Training
- Concentration – Psychological Skills Training
Education:
Self-confidence is the belief that you can successfully perform a desired behaviour.
Low self-confidence is a self-fulfilling prophecy, where each point leads to the next.
- Expectation of failure.
- Actual failure.
- Lowers self image.
- Increases expectation of future failure.
Benefits of self-confidence:
- Arouses positive emotions that increase success.
- Increases concentration.
- Increases magnitude of goals and their completion.
- Increases effort levels.
- Affects game strategies (‘playing to win’ rather than ‘playing not to lose’).
- Increased ability to rebound from adversity.
Low or high levels of self confidence negatively impact performance.
Coaches’ expectations influence performance:
Coaches/teacher who believed their athletes/students had higher potential treated them differently, and therefore their performance was higher, a self-fulfilling prophecy. This process occurs in the following steps:
- Coaches’ form expectations.
- Coaches’ expectations influence their behaviors.
- Coaches’ behaviours affect athletes’ performance.
- Athletes’ performance reinforce coaches’ expectations.
Acquisition:
You can acquire self-confidence through the following sources:
- Performance accomplishments: Prior success increases confidence in future success.
- Vicarious experiences: Watching our peers successfully perform a task increases self-confidence.
- Verbal persuasion: Encouraging verbal feedback.
- Imagery: Using imagery to picture success.
- Physiological states: Perceived associations between arousal level and performance.
- Emotional states: Perceived associations between emotional state and performance.
Practice:
How to build self-confidence:
- Successful performance accomplishments: Manipulate or create situations that allow you to experience success.
- Act confidently: Verbal (what you say) and non-verbal (body language).
- Think confidently: Positive self talk.
- Imagery: Imagine positive performance.
- Physical conditioning:
- Preparation: Have a plan/strategy going in.
