Video transcript:
You hear it all the time as a baseball player. You just gotta have confidence. When you ask a player what the most important mental skill is, confidence is probably the most common answer, and it’s true. It’s incredibly important. But most of us don’t take the time to ask: Where does confidence come from? What does it really mean to be confident? And how can I build confidence that lasts? But as simply as possible, confidence comes from evidence. If we want to be confident baseball players then we have to put the work in. And then we have to go out and play good baseball. We need evidence that we can do it if we want to feel confident.
This is one of the definitions of confidence. A feeling of certainty or assurance. It feels great to be confident and it helps us perform our best. It frees us from doubt and worry and it allows us to focus on our process and the present moment with minimal distraction. But here’s the catch: We don’t always feel confident. And that’s because ultimately, we can’t really control how we feel. There will be times where you have put in the work and you know you can play well and for some reason you still just don’t feel confident. That’s where another definition of confidence comes up. An act of trust or reliance. Whether or not you feel confident, you can take confident action. Even if you don’t feel confident in your ability to get a hit in that big spot and drive those runs in, you can still commit to your plate approach and focus on that pitch coming in. Even if you don’t feel confident in your ability to throw strikes with the bases loaded, you can still take a deep breath and throw every pitch with conviction regardless of what happens when it leaves your hand.
When you don’t feel confident, shrink your focus to the smallest positive action that you can take in that moment. You’ll find that there’s always something that you know you can do. When you stack those confident little actions, you put yourself in the best position to perform regardless of how you feel. So, if you want to feel confident, remind yourself of all the work you’ve put in and all the great performances that you’ve had. But even if you truly don’t feel confident, know that you can still go out and take confident action. True lasting confidence is not just about feeling confident all the time. It’s about consistently taking yourself out of your comfort zone and trusting your abilities to handle those challenges.