How Coaches Build Confidence in 6 Steps

“Confidence is the bridge that connects expectations and performance, investment and results.”

In our communication with coaches, we often hear statements like: “She didn’t have enough confidence to win.”; “They didn’t believe they could do it.”; “His confidence has been shaken by his recent matches.”

Confidence is Certainty

But what truly is confidence, and how can you, as coaches, build it in athletes?

One of the simpler definitions of confidence is the belief or certainty that we can overcome the challenges ahead of us. We can agree that individual athletes have varying degrees of confidence, but it is also important to note that confidence is developed and built. Furthermore, confidence is not a category that, once acquired, we can stop paying attention to. Confidence is constantly worked on. One of the key factors in building confidence across all levels of athletes, in both team and individual sports, is precisely the coach.

Characteristics of Confidence

How to recognize an athlete with high confidence:

• Has a “I can do this” attitude
• Displays positive body language
• Enjoys competing against others
• Does not worry excessively about failure and mistakes
• Does not blame others for poor results
• Shows good emotional control; is calm and composed in moments of tension
• Uses positive self-talk during matches and/or provides verbal and non-verbal support to teammates
• Maintains good concentration during training and competition
• Has no need to impress others
• Accepts themselves, including their strengths and weaknesses

An athlete with low confidence:

• Worries about what others think of them
• Is very negative, often saying “I can’t.”
• Looks for excuses for poor performance
• Looks for evidence of why they are not good
• Has poorer concentration – is focused on what they cannot do
• Poor body language
• Does not enjoy the sport
• Very easily becomes overly emotional and thinks irrationally
• Is dependent on others, their opinions, comments, and criticism
• Focuses on defeat and worries excessively about the result and its consequences

How Coaches Can Influence the Development of an Athlete’s Confidence

1. Be an Expert and a Role Model for Your Athletes

A coach’s expertise, knowing what needs to be done, and informing the players that this is the correct path is the foundation for building a confident player or team. A coach who exudes confidence—meaning the belief that what they are doing is good for the athletes—is a coach who passes that same confidence onto their athletes. Research shows that when working with female athletes, it is highly important to pay attention to the established relationship. For female athletes, much more than for male athletes, the relationship with the coach is crucial to their attitude toward training and competition. Male athletes, unlike female athletes, can remain motivated for a longer period even in the absence of positive support from the coach, but coaches with a negative attitude will inevitably damage an athlete’s confidence over time. Insecurity breeds insecurity, but the reverse is also true. Be confident in your knowledge and be a positive role model for your athletes every day.

2. Present Your Plan Clearly

Athletes will demonstrate higher levels of confidence if the coach presents their ideas in a clear, understandable way. Clarity brings confidence, and the goals, along with the path to achieving them, should be presented at the beginning of the season and repeated regularly. A small reminder for every training session can be:

• We are currently here…
• This is where we want to get to…
• This is what we must do to get there…
• This is what we need to focus on today…

3. Train Hard, but Bring Fun into the Workout

For all athletes, the feeling that they have prepared well for the challenge ahead brings the certainty that they can handle that challenge. The best teams are those that place a heavy emphasis on hard training and believe that they have certainly trained more, harder, and better than their opponents. When athletes have this feeling, they also feel they deserve the victory more than their opponent. The coach’s task is to present hard work as an investment rather than a sacrifice that the athletes have to make. And the best coaches are those who realize that demanding training sessions also need to be filled with fun, because the best work can only be done when an athlete arrives at training motivated and in a good mood.

4. Focus on the Athlete’s Potential

There are two types of coaches: those who focus on what an athlete can do, and those who focus on what an athlete cannot do. The former plant the seeds of success in athletes by encouraging them to realize their potential, striving to make the athletes feel important, valued, and ready to achieve great things. Often, it is precisely these coaches who help athletes push past the limits they have set for themselves.

5. Recognize and Reward Good Performance, but Above All, Effort

Every player likes praise. The only difference is that some need it more and some less, but everyone likes to be rewarded, at least verbally, for a job well done. Stick to the general rule: praise in public, criticize in private. In this way, other athletes will also adopt your values and understand what is important to you, while the athlete’s confidence will remain preserved when criticisms are delivered face-to-face. With young athletes, it is highly important to praise engagement, meaning the effort they display during training/competition. Young athletes are learning, and therefore they make mistakes more frequently, but effort is something without which they cannot master the required skill. If only good performance is praised, then praise will be much rarer, and young athletes will eventually begin to hesitate to try something they have not yet perfected.

6. Maintain a Broader Perspective

How often do we see confidence built during training destroyed during competition precisely because of a lack of a broader perspective? The final outcome is influenced by an extraordinary number of factors, and the coach’s task is to preserve the athlete’s confidence regardless of the result.

The Importance of Feedback

Keep in mind four different outcomes and adapt your feedback accordingly:

• They played well and they won – celebration and praise
• They played well and they lost – a disappointing result, but praise the good elements of the performance
• They played poorly and they won – okay, but today we were lucky, and we need to focus on the elements we need to fix
• They played poorly and they lost – it is necessary to maintain cohesion, define the poor elements, train hard, and retain the belief that success will come

Coaches, remember, confidence is the belief that the challenges ahead of us can be overcome. Also, you are one of the key figures in developing and maintaining confidence in athletes. But no pressure! 🙂

P.S. For more advice, you can contact us for a free info meeting or attend our education for coaches!