Highlights from Webinar – Mental Health & Confidence in Sport
Original Article:
Why does confidence appear to be such a critical factor in sports performance?
How lack of confidence destroyed my enjoyment and my game!
During my time as a national athlete, I could have used heaps more clarity and confidence. One time, I remember being in Australia on tour for the Hong Kong National Netball Team, that I stayed awake all night before a competition, worrying about whether I could put the ball in the basket the next day. How bizarre, losing sleep over a sport I loved, why do we do this to ourselves?
Being an over-achiever
Why is it we put ourselves under enormous amounts of pressure to do well, improve or do the right thing, especially now during the lockdown; to eat well, stay connected, get involved and be on-line, with everyone else keeping fit? What if, our state of mind is not willing? It is no surprise that people get a sense of being left behind hopelessly struggling, with low self-esteem, and falling energy levels.
I tried everything!
As a mental skills specialist, my affirmations reminded me of all the times I had performed out of my skin. Positive self-talk and visualisation practise calming my busy mind filled my training diary. My knowledge of NLP and CBT developed my capacity to be mentally and emotionally aware and re-frame my thinking to reroute from habitual negative behaviours. Yet, none of these techniques brought me the confidence I needed to sleep easy and perform well. There were times when it felt agonisingly painful, leaving my whole body hurting, and my breathing shallow. The sport was impacting my mental health and wellbeing, which ultimately hindered my performance and results.
So what’s the answer, Denise?
It wasn’t until I slowed down, after leaving my role of Scotland National Coach (Netball), did I profoundly realise a truth about human life that would change my perspective forever. Telling you, won’t cut it, because it’s not an intellectual understanding, but guiding you might?
Take a step back, pause for a moment
I invite you to take a few minutes, sit back, and be in a state of reflection to consider this, is it OK to feel? Don’t answer, as the juice is in the question, not the answering. Can you see just how often your thinking and corresponding feeling state changes and nothing else has altered on the outside? Being able to watch my mind get active; emotions heightened, then in one breath of realisation quiet down, without me needing to do anything, is probably one of the most profound insights of my life.
Don’t be concerned about getting more confident?
I say this because, my definition of confidence might be somewhat diffierent to most. For me, feeling confident is not a skill, acquirable or achievable, it is a state naturally there, but for your thinking. Take a look, how much confidence is required for you to breathe, or for your food to digest? Would you consider that babies need to hone the attribute of “confidence” to learn to walk and talk?
It’s already yours for the taking
When your mind is busy with needing a particular outcome, you may not respond with your usual clarity and focus, which doesn’t bode well for productivity and results. You recognise your mental activity isn’t helpful and try hard to be clearer and more confident, using techniques, but this makes matters worse. The secret, therefore, is not to go chasing so-called confidence to rectify a stressful state, instead, leave it alone and allow your mind to clear all by itself. Like our physical bodies, the human mind is a genius piece of engineering, complete with innate mental health and resilience, designed for life!
It’s OK to feel, it doesn’t mean what you think it means!
In conclusion, the ultimate game-changer for me is when I profoundly realised that it is OK to feel. Imagine that, not taking your perspective so seriously, and knowing there is an abundance of natural confidence, wellbeing and creativity bursting to come through! For 30 years, I believed that my experiences of fear and stress were solid and somehow it meant something; my game had gone, vanished in a moment of panic and that I needed something else to bring it back, but, this is a rabbit hole and not how the human experience works! Just because you feel it, doesn’t mean you need to act on it. Also, where could your skills go; thousands of hours of training, bolstering millions of neurological pathways, and boom in a moment of worry, they’re gone, and it’s all over! The good news is we know that’s not true. So now when I work with clients, I help you to see that an anxious feeling is saying something about the quality of your thinking not about your capacity to play. The way you think and feel is optional, up for grabs, and is not inevitable given the environment or situation, even though it doesn’t look like that – realising this gave me the power back.
