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15 Summary – Self-Confidence – Ryan Collins

Confidence is a popular conversation in the sports performance world from amateur athletes to pros we see

on TV. Confidence is I believe something that’s critical to high-performance and similarly to imagery and other

mental skills, allows athletes to perform up to their level of potential or ability. I think most of us have experience

with people being underconfident, overconfident or cocky, as well as right at the optimal level. We’re presented and

inverted-U chart demonstrating the relationship between confidence increasing and performance, until it hits a line

where the overconfidence affects performance negatively. For all our athletes or staff even, we must help them

realize this relationship and increase their confidence as necessary or help them learn to continue to be humble and

always respect their opponent.

There’s something very powerful to be said about the power of belief, as illustrated in the early story of the

first man to break the “physically impossible” 4-minute mile mark. Once one man did it, at least 12 more did in the

next year. People believed for so long it couldn’t be done, and runners heard that and never broke that mark, but

once you think something’s possible, it’s amazing what you can accomplish. There’s a saying I love that goes right

with this story: “Whether you believe you can, or you can’t, you’re correct”. If you truly believe deep down that

whatever you want to do is obtainable, that’s the first step in accomplishing it. We must be obviously aware of

physical limitations and the practical skills and experiences necessary to do this though (despite a belief I probably

won’t be in the NFL for my lack of size, skills, and football experience or an Olympic swimmer for lack of physical

and technical abilities and physical injuries), but if a physically gifted athlete with the technical abilities wants to

accomplish that, they must believe in order to achieve. Or if I desire to coach at a power-5 D-1 university despite not

coming from that background and starting at the bottom of youth coaching and I’m willing to spend the time and

effort necessary to learn the technical skills required, make meaningful connections, and experiences coaching in the

sport and continuing to climb up, I believe that’s possible.

There’s a short passage about Roger Federer from a competitor that I’ve also similarly about great college

football coaches and even athletes regrading each of these people having an aura about them, just releasing a bit of

confidence they have and almost drawing others towards them. I don’t believe this is something you can make or

create without effort and work but is something I desire to indirectly strive towards as I increase my skills and

abilities as well. I think with many things in this text there’s a bit of state vs. trait components to it. Going from

previous coaching experiences where I had more experience, understanding, and belief I felt I may have had this at
Ch.15 Summary – Self-Confidence – Ryan Collins

times but now in a first-year volunteer role with a new team and level/age it’s changed me a bit, and I so desire to

continue to improve at this so I can get back to being “myself”. As coaches we must empower our athletes to

develop and feel confident, especially if they’re in a similar spot or mindset to how I currently feel. The text presents

ways to develop confidence and sources of it that are all extremely valuable to us as leaders, but I’ve always

believed the greatest source of confidence is preparation.

From understanding what it’s going to take to achieve the desired goal and all the steps along the way, if

we can do this and truly believe what we’re doing technically and in our system/program as an organization is

correct, then you can look back and say: we’ve done everything possible to be in the right spot, and now here we

are, ready to succeed. There’s a line in the movie Moneyball about a baseball executive going about traditional

business in a whole new way with lots of resistance and they’re debating giving up the “new system” when he says

to his assistant: “Do we really believe in what we’re doing here?” and the assistant replied “yes”, then “then why

are we even talking about changing away from this new system we believe in?” They did their research and truly

believed in what they were doing, stuck with it through the adversity, and it ended up working out pretty well.