In 2009, performance psychologists Kate Hays and Mark Bawden interviewed seven male and seven female athletes to learn about their highest highs and lowest lows. They weren’t ordinary athletes. Thirteen of them had won a medal in at least one major championship such as the Olympic Games. The remaining one was a world record holder in her discipline. This interview was part of a study investigating the role of confidence in those who have reached the pinnacle of their sporting career.
We often assume that these world-class athletes are immune to the feelings of doubts and insecurities that you and I experience. But what this research found was the opposite. Despite their high calibre, all fourteen athletes suffered from moments in which their confidence decreased. Not only did these great athletes experience lapses in confidence, but this lapse negatively influenced their thinking, feelings, and actions.
When they were experiencing low confidence, the athletes were irrational and unable to control their nerves. They couldn’t think positively. They were also unable to maintain focus on their usual routine. These most accomplished athletes became indecisive and lacked the fight they were known for. In contrast, when these athletes had high confidence, their performance improved. They felt in control of the situation and experienced positive emotions.
Confidence affects how we see challenges before us and our ability to handle them. Even the elite performers are not immune to its influence. So how can you be confident? Building it is simple: believe in yourself. But most advice on building confidence focuses on outside, creating an appearance as someone who looks like a strong, self-assured person, writes performance coach Steve Magness in his new book Do Hard Things. As a result, you focus on appearance. You act confident, walking around with your chest puffed out, showing that you can handle any challenge regardless of your capacity to face it. You talk big. You don’t mention your doubts and insecurities. When you can’t build real confidence, you believe you are better off acting rather than revealing the truth.
Unfortunately, when the going gets tough, this facade falls. According to Steve Magness, building real confidence is not about ignoring the doubt and insecurity you have, but coming to terms with them. Real confidence is not showing off that you can do anything. Instead, it is about knowing what you can achieve within what you are capable of. To develop real confidence, Steve Magness suggests the following five actions:
Set manageable expectations
When it comes to setting goals, we frequently hear “Go big or go home.” We often set goals that are higher than we have ever achieved before. For a runner, this can mean running faster than he ever had before. But we can rarely repeat our best-ever performance. Our confidence decreases when we can’t achieve what we aimed for.
Instead of going all in for a massive breakthrough, aim for a performance that falls within the realm of what you are capable of or just a touch outside of it. This doesn’t mean you are lowering your expectations or playing it safe. It’s that you know what you are capable of. You aim to be consistent. You feel confident that you can achieve this performance.
So, rather than aiming for your best performance, something that you can only accomplish rarely, aim for improving your best average. If you are a runner, this means running faster than average in your five most recent performances.
Embrace who you are
Real confidence lies in understanding who you are, what you are capable of, what challenges the task brings, and where your weaknesses might lie. Truly confident people find the right point of risk versus reward.
Being vulnerable and exploring your weaknesses without fear of being shamed is the only way to obtain real confidence. The remarks and critiques that could irritate us when we are insecure lose their impact if we acknowledge them and come to terms with them. The only time our vulnerabilities may be used against us is when we try to hide them.
If you can accept your fears and insecurities, you can gradually overcome them. Don’t react negatively when someone criticises your appearance, writing skills, or IQ. Treat them as things to know and grow from rather than as things to hide.
Trust your hard work
Real confidence is built on hard work. But only working because you’re nervous about failing or losing won’t make you more confident. Insecurity reigns when fear is the main motivator.
Confidence gradually increases when work is done to improve, relish the process, and seek mastery of the craft. It’s the writer who comes to work at her desk each day; the dancer who practises her routine for a very long time; the analyst who plans almost every possible scenario.
Build your basics and practise the job over and over. Even though the outcome may not always be what you hoped for, you’ll gradually grow your skills and confidence.
Develop a quiet ego
Your ego serves as a social immune system that protects you from psychological dangers. But it can harm you if it is overactive and supports a false sense of yourself. You do not want to suppress your ego. All you want to do is to reduce it to a reasonable level.
Social psychologist Heidi Wayment pioneered the idea of a quiet ego. Quiet ego is about accepting that you want to be confident while remaining aware of your own and your situation’s advantages and disadvantages. It’s capacity to step back, gain a wider perspective, and recognise that a short-term loss is frequently a component of a long-term gain.
How can we quiet our ego? Ask yourself these questions: What causes you to pain, think deeply, and withdraw? What makes you naturally take a defensive stance? Do you take criticism seriously or do you immediately disregard it? Your answer should reflect a mix of self-awareness and reflection. It’s okay to feel some insecurity and doubt. Your ego is too loud if you become overly defensive and protective.
Accept good and bad
When you fail, what do you do? Do you now believe you are a poor Math student if you receive an F in Math class? Developing a comfortable yet adaptable view of yourself is key to building confidence. And a significant portion of that is determined by how you view success and failure.
According to research, people generally integrate their positive and negative ideas into who they are in one of two ways: either through compartmentalization or evaluative integration. The compartmentalisation is all or nothing. You view the item as either entirely positive or entirely negative. If you fail in Math at school, it is entirely bad news and you probably don’t have a future in Math. But it isn’t all or nothing for those having an evaluative integration. They can see both the good and the bad in situations. They might feel anxious at the score in Math, yet they can look for areas of improvement and believe that they can succeed in the future.
When researchers examined people according to whatever self-structured group they belonged to and linked that to their ratings on confidence, results were obvious. Those who were better able to integrate instead of compartmentalise attained true confidence. They were also better at thriving in difficult conditions.
Having confidence is essential if you want to succeed in your career. The key to real confidence is not about putting up a facade. Instead, it is about accepting your strengths and weaknesses, recognising the good and the bad, setting your standards and doing the hard work.
How to build real confidence? (#45)