“Confidence is everything in this game, if you don’t think you can, you won’t” – Jerry West,

Confidence is, according to Webster – a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities.

To get a better understanding of the influence of confidence, think back to a time when you didn’t feel good about yourself and your performance was not good.

You probably got caught in a vicious cycle of negative thinking which led to poor performance on the basketball court, which led to more negative thinking and even poorer performance until your confidence was so low that you didn’t want to compete.

This vicious cycle usually starts with a period of poor performance. This poor performance leads to negative self-talk: “I’m terrible. I can’t do this. I don’t have a chance.” You become your own worst enemy. You may start to get nervous before a competition because you believe you will perform poorly.

All of that anxiety hurts your confidence even more because you feel physically uncomfortable and there’s no way you can perform well when you are tight and tense.

The negative self-talk and anxiety causes negative emotions. You may feel depressed, frustrated, angry, and helpless, all of which hurt your confidence which leads to a physical reaction and cause you to perform even worse.

The negative self-talk, anxiety, and emotions then hurt your focus.

If you have low confidence, you can’t help but to focus on all of the negative things rather than on things that will enable you to perform your best.

All of this accumulated negativity hurts their basketball mental game.

As bad as you feel, you just want to go home. If you’re thinking negatively, caught in a vicious cycle, feeling nervous, depressed, frustrated, and can’t focus, you’re not going to perform well.

One thing you can do to help break this cycle is recall when you have been really confident on the court. Your self-talk had to be positive: “I’m a good athlete. I can perform well.” I’m ready.” “I got this.”

With positive self-talk, you begin an upward spiral of improving your mental game in basketball, which will lead to basketball mental toughness. This in turn will build your confidence which will lead to more positive thinking, which will leads to better performance.

Positive self-talk will help you focus on the things you need to focus on to perform your best. It will build your confidence and help you trust your abilities which in turn will help you to perform well and reach peak performance.

All of the positive thoughts and feelings will motivate you. If you are thinking positively, riding an upward spiral, feeling relaxed and energized, experiencing positive emotions, and focused on performing your best, you’re going to reach your peak performance.

To build your confidence you must change the way you think.

A 100% of the time it is 90% mental.

Confidence is a mind-set skill that doesn’t just happen by chance. You must work at it. To build your confidence, specific strategies are required. These strategies can be found in my workbook – An Athlete’s Guide to Peak Performance Series– Building Confidence

Go to sportspsychologybasketball.com. Click products and get started on Building Your Confidence with Sports Performance Top Mental Game Coach.

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