subject: What does 'Confidence' mean for you? [print this page] Confidence is a term that comes up often when talking about golf performance. It's all about confidence' and I just need to be confident' are some of the sentences heard.
Confidence means different things to different people. This article is about helping you to grasp what confidence means for you. How do you experience it, and more importantly, what can you do to get it?
To begin, let's talk about how you experience confidence. When experiencing confidence, what do you see, what do you hear, and what do you feel? Often, it is the feeling a person gets in their body that denotes confidence. The golfer will feel centred, balanced, calm, and powerful at the same time. Sometimes the golfer will hear things in a certain way or see things in a certain way when experiencing confidence. However the golfer experiences confidence, it's useful for the golfer to acknowledge how they experience confidence in their sensory experience. This then becomes the goal. The golfer has gone from a vague term to a nuts and bolts sensory description.
Next, the question is what happens immediately before you feel confident? And then, what happens immediately before that? Try to establish the pattern that leads to you experiencing confidence; this is where you start on your journey to accessing confidence'.
Confidence is a state of mind; it is a process of behaviour, not a thing. You can't fit onfidence in a wheelbarrow. What I'm interested in is the pattern is that leads to confidence. Do you say something to yourself? Do you see yourself performing perfectly? Do you hear somebody telling you how good you are? What is involved in the process that leads you to feeling confident?
Try answering these questions?
1) The key to confidence for me is.
2) I know I'm confident when
3) .gives me confidence
4) ..happens right before I experience being confident
5) If I want more confidence, I ..
As a final thought, it's important that you balance confidence with realism. For example, being confident about flying is not a good idea. Look for reference examples in your past that demonstrate you excelling at the skill you want to be confident doing? Try replaying that success over and over and over again, knowing you can do that again in the future. Does that make you more confident?
