The Confidence Cycle

Sports psychologists have developed a simple 3 step process for improving your confidence called the “confidence cycle”.

The concept of the confidence cycle is HUGE. 

It simplifies your path to becoming more confident into an easily memorized 3 step process that you can repeat over and over.

Knowing the confidence cycle gives you a big advantage. It is your pathway to becoming more confident in any area. 

The confidence cycle occurs in 3 steps:

Step 1: Believe in Yourself And Think Positively 

Everything starts with a belief in your ability to succeed.

Without this, you’ll never even get started.

Positive thinking plays an important role here.

You have to believe in your abilities to reach your goal and you also need to believe that whatever goal you are aiming at is worth pursuing.

Important thoughts to have here are things like: I can do this! I am determined to make this work! I will put in the time to be the best I can be!Note that NONE of these statements have to do with actual results.

These statements are focused only on the things YOU CAN CONTROL.

 The Positive Thinking Rule: FOCUS ON THE PROCESS TO SUCCESS, NOT THE OUTCOME. The outcome is not always in your control, but the process is. Your job is to “control the controllables”.Write down some positive affirmations for different situations that you want to increase your confidence in. Say them to yourself every day.

Step 2: Take Some Risks And Try To Make Things Happen 

YOU CAN NEVER BUILD REAL CONFIDENCE IF YOU NEVER TAKE ANY RISKS. The next step is to go out, take some risks, take some chances, and get some wins.

Risks should be suitable. Start small and gradually build up.

Take small risks at first, then a little bigger risks, etc.

This is also the stage where you work your bottom off. (Investing time and energy into something is itself a risk!) Learn, train, engage in deliberate practice, and go out and take some risks.Taking appropriate risks requires courage.

YOU WILL NEVER BUILD YOUR CONFIDENCE BY “PLAYING IT SAFE” ALL THE TIME.

Great things never came from comfort zones.

Step 3: Experience Some Success:

If you train hard and intelligently, and take risks, you will eventually experience some success. Your efforts and risk will be rewarded as your skills increase.

SUCCESS BREEDS CONFIDENCE –

Having those “wins” under your belt really does wonders for your confidence. The more successes you have, the ore confidence you’ll have.

Be careful how you define success.

Focus on the PROCESS NOT THE OUTCOME. “Control the Controllables” - Take responsibility only for those things under your control. 

A lot of times external circumstances are beyond your control.

You have direct control over your own thoughts and behaviors. You might roll really well and do amazing and still lose the match.

That didn’t mean you didn’t improve. It can still be a big success! So success might mean having a great practice session or the tiniest improvement in any area (instead of getting tapped out every 5 seconds, now you can last for 20 seconds)