"It's all about a mindset that I've cultivated through my training, style, and little rituals". - Gabby Thomas
In a TEDx Talk titled The Skill of Self-Confidence, national champion soccer coach and college athletic director Dr. Ivan Joseph said the most important skill an athlete can have is self-confidence–the belief that you can accomplish any task no matter the odds, difficulty, or adversity.
To be great at anything, you have to be willing to put yourself out there and make mistakes, and if you don’t have self-confidence, you either won’t put yourself out there to the level you need to, or you won’t be able to bounce back from adversity as quickly or as strong as you need to.
Dr. Joseph calls self-confidence a skill because we can learn how to have it and grow it like any other skill.
Confidence comes from practice and success. When we do good, we feel good and our confidence grows. During his talk, Dr. Joseph shared a story about a Colombian goalie with hands like stones who through practice, time, and repetition, became a professional goalie. The goalie was terrible at catching the ball, a very important skill for a goalie to have, so every day he would kick the ball against the wall and catch it.
His goal was to do that 350 times every day for 8 months. The goalie with terrible hands eventually became a professional goalie in Europe.
Confidence doesn’t come out of nowhere. It comes from hours, days, weeks, and years of work and the success that comes from the work.
Question of the Day: What is something small you can commit to doing every day to build your skill and confidence?
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