By Rhyeli Krause and Eric Martin
(September 14, 2022)

Whether in youth sports, high school, college, or even professional sports, many athletes suffer from a lack of confidence in their ability to perform. Lack of confidence can be harmful to the athlete, coach, and team and can prevent a performer from achieving a high level of performance. As a coach, you are an important figure in your athlete’s life and there are many ways to help your athletes feel more confident when they are participating on your team.

The Coaches Impact

Sport confidence, an athlete’s degree of certainty or belief about their ability to execute the skills necessary to reach performance success, is influenced by both mental, and physical factors. Vealey (1986) developed a sport confidence model that contained nine unique sources of confidence. These factors include (a) improving individual skills, (b) showing off those skills, (c) feeling mentally and physically prepared, (d) perceiving oneself positively, (e) watching teammates perform successfully, (f) believing the coach is a good leader, (g) feeling comfortable in the competitive environment, and (h) feeling that their situations are favorable. As a coach you can influence these factors both directly and indirectly through your own actions and how you set up your environment. This article will focus on how a coach can help an athlete develop confidence by creating an environment that emphasizes mastery, building a personal relationship with each athlete, and providing praise and constructive feedback that will positively influence your athlete’s confidence levels.

Creating an Environment that Prepares your Athletes for Competition: Focus on Developing Mastery

The environment you create will influence your athletes’ sport-confidence. One of the strongest predictors of athletes’ sport confidence is their physical and mental preparation. As a coach, you should place an emphasis on helping athletes develop individual mastery in their sport, instead of comparing their accomplishments to other athletes. Basing their success on their own progress provides an athlete a level of control and gives them the confidence to perform the skill in the future. Some other examples of how to establish a mastery-oriented climate include:

• Skill work should incorporate both team-oriented and individualized aspects. For example, for a team-oriented drill in basketball, have the whole team do a layup drill until a goal is met. In addition to the team drill, individualizing drills for each player where post players work on post moves, shooting guards work on catching and shooting drills, and point guards work on passing and dribbling drills. Incorporating both team and individual drills, helps athletes see they are part of a team but are also developing individual skills as well.
• Align athletes’ individual goals with the larger team goals. When athletes are making progress on their own goals, they are also helping the team move forward. For example, a football team’s goal could be to have a certain number of rushing yards per game. A running back could work during practice on specific drills focused on improving his own performance with the team goal in mind.  
• As a coach, make each athlete understands their role and help them see why their role is important to team success (especially when these roles are different). For example, if you are coaching a softball team and you have a reserve player, you can explain to them that their role is to be ready in case of injury and push the starters to improve during practices. Without their contributions, the team would not be moving toward its ultimate goals. 

Building a Personal Relationship with Each Athlete

A direct way you can influence your athlete’s sport confidence is how you interact with them at a personal level. First, as the coach, you should strive to build strong personal relationships with your athletes by getting to know them and better understand them. Try to be observant of your athletes as, unfortunately, you might be one of the only adults there to support them in challenging situations. Ideally, try to develop relationships with your team and each individual athlete to improve their overall success, well-being, and their performance in sport. Some examples of things to do to build relationships are:

• Make sure your athletes know you value them beyond being a player and the results of their performance. When they come into practice ask how they are doing today and get to know what is going on in their personal life in addition to their role on the team.
• Meet with players frequently. These meetings can help you form a bond with your athlete that can allow for deeper relationships and conversations.
• Communicate in a clear and nonjudgmental manner. You need to listen to your athletes and empathize with where they are coming from. Your athlete’s side of the story and how they feel is no less important than anyone else’s, and as the coach, this needs to be heavily considered to form a meaningful connection. 

Providing Praise and Constructive Feedback

If you develop personal relationships with your players, you can provide feedback in a manner that is constructive and caring, while still being sure they improve their own skills. Coaches should also be aware of using too much criticism, as athletes might see this as an indication of them being incompetent instead of you trying to help them. Instead, think of how you can phrase feedback to build confidence. When providing feedback, think about these guidelines to help your athletes be more receptive to the message:

• Ask questions to your athletes about their performance instead of telling athletes exactly what they are doing. This can help them understand they can perform on their own and develop the confidence to succeed on their own.
• Encourage your athlete when you see them having difficulties. Hardly any athletes make mistakes on purpose and providing guidance and encouragement during challenging times will demonstrate your commitment to their development.
• When athletes do make mistakes, provide them with both what went wrong as well as pointers on how to improve the next time they are in that situation. When the time is right, try to get them in a similar situation so they can demonstrate they are learning, and then debrief with them about how they made the appropriate changes. This allows your athlete to feel more confident in the mistake and learn from it rather than sit and stew about the mistake.

Conclusion

In conclusion, athletes’ confidence can be influenced by numerous factors. You as the coach should aim to enhance their confidence through creating a mastery climate, focusing on developing personal relationships with all of your players, and providing feedback in the most positive manner. Vealey (1986) sport confidence model outlines how a coach should be coaching and mentoring their athletes and team. Every athlete will suffer from a lack of confidence at some point, and you as the coach can help those athletes move from their slump with these strategies quicker than they might otherwise be able to.

References

Vealey, R. S. (1986). Conceptualization of sport-confidence and competitive orientation:

Preliminary investigations and instrument development. Journal of Sport Psychology, 8, 221 – 246.