Positive Results by Sabrina

What are your confidence boosters?

How do you get through the tough times?

Talking to athletes that are struggling and watching my dog fail her A race or the year fills me with reflections and questions. We all deal with confidence ups and downs. We all react differently to the things that make us proud and those that disappoint us. 

The thing we have in common is the mental game. As you prepare yourself for the task, execute and recover, it’s all mental right? When things go according to plan, you can celebrate. When things don’t go the way you were hoping, do you beat yourself up? Do you analyze the good, the bad and the ugly?

Our dog competed in a big test today and it didn’t go the way we expected. When we talked to the trainer about what happened he said “she thought she was in trouble so she was trying to do what she thought she was supposed to do so that she didn’t get in trouble.” When we played with her and loved on her, we watched her confidence return and the fun come back out. She’s a dog. Well cared for and loved. What does she know about disappointment? Has she ever missed a meal, forgotten to pay a bill or lost a job? No! But she knows what success looks and feels like in her world and she carried the weight of missing a mark with her.

Athletes in all sports deal with the confidence burden. Coaches are taught to do everything they can to get their athletes’ minds and hearts right before a game. Boost their confidence through actions and words. Give them workouts that they know they can slay. Remind them of their successes and accomplishments. In team sports we even go so far as to remind them of the other team’s weaknesses so that they know what to capitalize on. We spend so much time sizing up the competition in relation to ourselves that we can lose track of the fun of the game.

As running is mostly an individual sport, we work hard to boost an athlete’s confidence through past evidence, accomplishments and hope for the future. Hopefully, you’re tracking your workouts and keeping notes about the times that you feel strong, successful and confident. You’re comparing your current workouts to past workouts and you’re paying attention to the progress that you’re making. Ideally, you’ll review these confidence notes before your A race and let your own evidence fortify you before you take off.

How do you keep yourself confident outside of sport? How do you summon the confidence to apply for a job, ask someone on a date, or try a new activity? If you’ve never played a sport and had the confidence boosts from a coach, are you automatically at a disadvantage? (Life Coaches enter here…) If you’re not currently one to journal, my hope is that this may be the day that you think to start. You’ve worked hard to get where you are. You’ve most likely overcome things that would have flattened other people. Now is the time to remind yourself of that. Hold your head high and confidently. Look forward to where you want to go. Only look back to celebrate the boulders that you’ve used as stepping stones. And when you reach the top of the highest peak you’re willing to climb, reach back out and help someone else up. We’re all stronger together!