“When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.” Joe Namath
Hall of Fame enshrined and championship-winning former professional football quarterback Joe Namath knows a thing or two about football confidence. ‘
Hollywood’ Joe famously predicted a championship on the eve of football’s biggest game while quarterbacking the underdog team in the next night’s contest, which ended in a historical upset and a new era in football.
Confidence can breed confidence, and it can extend far beyond the confines of the football field, as the mental preparation for football can be applied to virtually any aspect of daily living.
A bright and beaming football mind exudes confidence, whether it is in an offensive lineman’s uncanny ability to block the marauding defender, the field-stretching wide receiver’s knack for hauling in the game-winning touchdown pass, or the steel-legged kicker booting the winning field goal through the uprights.
Football psychology has embraced the winning attitude that originates with accumulated confidence, and mental game coaches tout the myriad benefits of a confident, winning and mental toughness that yields championships and athletic superstars.
Confidence does not apply to just the realm of football mental toughness: the same principles that amount to an on-the-field champion can create a truly confident student, employee, partner, or artist.
When confidence is low anyone can return to the origins of their confidence.
This can be practice, ritual, training and exercise of any sort, whether it is physical, spiritual, mental or creative. Managing low confidence means finding your source of inspiration, locating the drive you need to mentally better yourself, and allowing yourself to think the ‘big scary thinks’ that culminate in the new risks you take.
In sports psychology for football the more risks you take on the field can accumulate new and stacked confidence in your abilities, and the same tenet holds true for life – there can be no great advancement without a fair share of risks, and the rewards we can achieve through them are a direct testament to how confidence can be built and refined.
Confidence can transcend the football mental game and can find itself in the architect’s muse, the laborer’s production, and even the chef’s daily special.
Having and refining one’s confidence allows them to use free form expression and dabble in new, exciting avenues of inspiration and potential.
The same mental preparation for football can be applied to the carpenter’s building ambition and the author’s creative might.
This confidence frees anyone and everyone who seeks out its potential to reach the highest levels of their own capabilities, sometimes higher than they had ever envisioned.
Sports psychology for football has long been espousing the benefits of confidence in terms of outmatching your competitors, but applying learned confidence techniques are really useful to anyone that chooses to witness and experience its powers first-hand.
The football mental game may make an industry out of confidence, but we are all the richer in our lives with it as individuals.
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