How To Build Confidence as an Athlete: Quick Tips from a Sport Psychologist

Tips and Tricks for Building Confidence

Having a lot of confidence isn’t about the absence of doubt, it’s about managing your process, expectations, and recognizing positive outcomes when they happen. Working with athletes of all levels and abilities, one thing I hear often is “I’m great in practice, but then I don’t perform as well in the game (race, meet, etc).” So if you’re experiencing this - know you are not alone! Here is some simple framework for how to manage your mindset and increase your confidence.

Shift from Outcome to Process

A lot of athletes I work with are struggling with confidence in-part because their confidence and definition of success is very results dependent. If they score X number of points, or have good hits, place in the top 3 at the meet, they feel great and their confidence is high. On the other hand, if they miss a shot they think they could have made, or don’t place in the top 3, their confidence tanks to zero. 

This is where shifting our focus to process goals, things that they can control and execute. For example, goals related to engagement with teammates, footwork, body positioning, and effort. We can control all these things, even if the scoreboard or final results aren’t leaning in our favor. I spend a lot of time talking with athletes about how scoring goals (or not getting scored on) is dependent on so many other things besides our own performance and preparation. By returning the focus to processed based goals that we can control, our confidence can increase.

Improving Self-Talk

Self-Talk can be a big hurdle to optimal performance. Oftentimes if we pause to think about the way we’re talking to ourselves, we realize we are being much more harsh to ourselves than we ever would a teammate… Would we look at a teammate after a mistake and say “you are a terrible hockey player, why would you do such a thing?”.... The answer is usually “No, absolutely not.” So why do we think it’s OK to say these things to ourselves? By reflecting and drawing awareness to how we talk to ourselves we can shift this talk to a more positive tone “bummer of a pass, next time I will keep an eye on my target!”

Using Visualization 

We are often able to feel more confident and comfortable in situations when they feel familiar. One of the most effective ways to make situations feel familiar is to visualize them. Spend a few minutes seeing yourself be successful in various specific game scenarios. This may be hard at first, as it’s a skill we often need to learn and practice. But if you keep it up, it’ll become easier and more familiar to see yourself finding success on the playing surface. This also enables game situations to feel more familiar, and therefore unlock confidence.

Check in with a sport psychologist!

While some tips and tricks may be helpful, a personalized approach can be nice too. You can take a deeper dive into self-talk, learn visualization techniques, and better understand where the pressure or confidence challenges are coming from. Reach out to us at Achieve to learn more!

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Thanks for reading!!!

Katie Peterson, PsyD, LP
Sport and Performance Psychologist