SPORTS: How to Build Confidence & Bring Trust

In any sport, confidence is something you build before playing in a competitive event. You build your confidence through the types of practice you perform. To be able to construct pure confidence, you must practice with real purpose. If you practice getting through it because you don't have the time or you feel you have to because your coach said so, then you are not building confidence. In fact, you may even be destroying it.

Your practice sessions must be deliberate, intentional, and with vision. Using your sense of sight and feel during practice, this alone will provide long-lasting confidence. By practicing a visual of what it is you want to achieve, such as a pure golf shot, a "nothing but net" basket, a perfect spiral in football, then you need to envision it before you perform it. Once you see it, act it out in slow motion without really doing it (e.g., practice swing or pump the arm forward or the step up with the ball and arms in full position) feel a good tempo and then perform it with ease. Do this over and over. By seeing it, feeling it and performing it, it will provide a highly concentrated formula to instill confidence at a much faster rate. If you practice this way at every session, you will begin to perform at a higher level.

If you become lazy or think you can cut corners, complacency will set in, and without notice, more bad shots or plays will occur. Doing this increases your self-doubt, and self-doubt outweighs confidence. Self-doubt eats away at your confidence, and it takes twice the effort to practice with a purpose to overcome the damage of self-doubt. There is no time for sloppy practice. You are better off not practicing if you're not willing to put in 100%. Instead, play a scrimmage or match against someone. Make it competitive either with the opposition or with yourself. Give yourself a target that will help you remain sharp. Stay focused on every shot or every play. See it, feel it, perform it. If you can't play a scrimmage or match, then use your time to play your sport in your mind. Visualization is more effective than a sloppy practice. Self-imagery is very powerful, and pros use it in every sport to sharpen their skills. Here's is an example of how to perform imagery.

Since I am a golfer, I will use golf imagery as a quick example: Relaxed in a quiet place, I close my eyes. I'm out in the early morning, and the smell of fresh-cut grass is in the air. I see the green grass and the sun shining low through the trees. I begin my round on the first hole of my favorite course. I perform my pre-shot routine that looks like this: As I am walking up to the tee box, I look down the fairway and pick my target. I choose a spot in the fairway, a tree in the distance, perhaps a shadow on the fairway. I set the ball on a tee in line with my target, stand behind my ball with ball and target in view. I envision my ball flight to that target with a red trail line flying behind it. I envision the entire shot hitting the fairway or green. I then draw a line with my eyes back to my ball and pick a spot a few feet in front of my ball—a piece of grass or a leaf, an old tee, anything. I step up behind the ball and take a few practice swings in line with that target to get the right tempo and a feel for the shot. I square up to that small spot in front of the ball, look back out towards my target one last time to imprint the image in my mind, take a deep breath and let it out completely. At that point, my only thought I have is the image of my target. Then I swing freely.

I do this for every shot except when putting. Putting has an entirely different routine, and that routine remains consistent as well. Do this for as long as you can and play a course you can recall easily. Only imagine good shots with excellent results—no bad ones. Be a scratch golfer in your mind, and one day you may be.

On a personal note, after my back surgery, I could not play for three months. During that time, while in the hospital and while recovering, I lay in bed playing as much golf as I possibly could. Once I was able to play, my first round out, I could only make half swings, and I shot an 86. I learned to play visual golf, and it truly helps to keep your game going while dormant. Visualization of your performance will come in handy when the winter months hit for those in the northeast.

 So now, let's talk about TRUST. Trust is different from CONFIDENCE, and most people confuse the two. The confidence you acquire through good practice and trust is what you feel when it's time to perform. You've built up your confidence and know-how to execute, and now you need to trust it. When you remind yourself to "TRUST IT," it will create a sense of ease, it will relax you, and you can then perform freely. You quiet your mind and just let it happen.

The most important thing to remember is to transfer your mindset from "Practice Mode" (building confidence through mechanics and technique) to "Play Mode" (trusting what you know and letting it go). You see, there is a time to practice, and there is a time to play, and it is crucial to separate them days before you play.

"Practice Mode" is creating your brain to focus on the "how-to" of mechanics and technique. By using that slow-motion action of feeling it, this is where you are getting the technique down and tweaking your mechanics to create a fluid, confident feeling. Once you have that feeling, you can then begin to execute it over and over. During this time of tweaking and fixing, you are creating interruptions within your brain waves and in your thought process. These are good interruptions, sort of like building muscles. You are tearing and rebuilding to become stronger. However, you cannot perform with greatness if you remain in this fixing mentality during a competition. Like muscles, you need to let it set and heal. It is said that the brain needs to turn off the "Practice Mode" one to two days before a competition in order to eliminate brainwave interruptions from mechanical tweaking. The way you can do this is by using visualization, scrimmage games, or a practice match. The tour pros practice on Mon and Tues. On Wed they play their practice round. Don't let the word practice fool you. They always play for something to make it competitive, and that is how they change gears from "Practice Mode" (fixing) to "Play Mode" (trusting). When the tournament begins on Thur, they are mentally set and ready to compete.

SUMMARY

• Build CONFIDENCE through practicing with purposeful intent and make each execution count
• Use concentrated slow-motion movements over and over to feel it and see it
• Use a consistent pre-shot routine
• Play a round or game through vivid visualization
• Schedule practices with enough time to transfer to "Play Mode"
• Once in "Play Mode," TRUST IT and play freely

 Thank you for reading my post, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. As a mental performance coach, I will be happy to answer all your questions and help you any way I can.

Yours in sports,

Jaime Costanzo

email: [email protected]

www.mentaledgecoach.com