You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you’ll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.
Joe Paterno

The road to mental toughness includes strengthening an athlete’s confidence to withstand the pressures of adversity, injury, loss and disappointment. All football players experience negative events, but the athlete with football confidence does not let any negativity diminish their mental toughness or focus. Building a strong football mind also requires eliminating any unhealthy beliefs that damage confidence as well. Understand that reaching peak physical performance on the football field is 90% mental preparation.

Identifying and eliminating any negative confidence destroyers are vital to developing confidence in your game.

4 Common Unhealthy Beliefs

• Strict Expectations—it is important to set high expectations and goals to improve achievement. Problems occur when the expectations are too strict or too high so that when they aren’t met it creates a negative focus and sense of failure. Examples would be the athlete who thinks, “I can’t make any mistakes if I want to win,” or “If I want to make the team I can’t ever mess up in front of coach.” These cause the player’s mental focus and energy spent on the worry of a mistake, not on being successful.

• Negative Self-Labels—often these are handed to the athlete by others surrounding them. A coach says they are too slow, or a sports article focuses on their recent fumbles, might be examples of how an outside source offers a label. The problem develops when the player assumes this label as their permanent description of ability, and not simply as motivation for improvement. If a coach comments on a player’s speed, then use this to create a game plan for quickness exercises in the offseason. If fumbles are an issue, then use visualization techniques to first “see” keeping the ball secure. A label is simply a description of ability at a given time, but is never permanent as long as the athlete chooses to view it as positive motivation.

• Over-generalization—when an athlete maintains a thought that pertains to every situation based on one or a few experiences. The confident athlete focuses on the present situation, not making generalizations based on past situations. An example would be the player who so says, “I never perform well on wet fields.” This is considered an over generalization because they haven’t played on ALL wet fields. They limit their performance mentally before they ever set foot on the field, wet or dry. This kind of belief can also give an “excuse” for poor performance rather than developing a specific plan of improvement.

• Unhealthy/Irrational Beliefs—sometimes after a coach criticizes a player, the player develops a feeling that the coach dislikes or hates them. Or taken a step further, the athlete may feel they can “never” do anything right in the coach’s eyes. Certainly football coaches are known for toughness, but criticism does not typically mean that the coach doesn’t like a player or is even angry. The mentally tough athlete must maintain a focus on what he can control in his effort and performance. Energy spent on another person’s reaction, whether it’s a coach, parent or even sports reporter, is wasted because you can only control your thoughts, actions and behaviors, not anyone else’s.

Sports psychology in football is necessary for developing a strong mental toughness and football confidence. It is a process, and requires time, mental preparation for the game, constant analysis of thought.

Hall of Fame running back Emmit Smith spoke of this daily focus on improvement, “For me, winning isn’t something that happens suddenly on the field when the whistle blows and the crowds roar. Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream.”

Confidence grows from cultivating practices that keep thoughts in a positive mindset, and creating tangible goals on a daily basis. Every workout and game has a purpose, and confidence grows as unhealthy beliefs are eliminated.