Performance File #03 - Developing Powerful Confidence - in Business, Sport & Life

“Show me how to maintain my confidence when things are not going well.” Does it surprise you that many of the most successful business executives and athletes today sometimes wrestle with the problem of lost confidence?

Here’s a basic truth that I’ve confirmed many times over the past 30 years working with individuals in the high-performance domain: It’s easy to be confident and have a positive mindset when things are going well! The true champion however, is one who’s able to retain a strong sense of self-confidence even when the wheels are “falling off his wagon” and in so doing, still bring his or her best performance to the game regardless of the challenges that they face! High level competitors understand this and this explains why for many, this is the second Holy Grail of the performance equation.

But why do we sometimes suffer crises of confidence? The answer lies in the yardstick by which most of us measure success, and around which we build our confidence. That yardstick is – you guessed it: RESULTS! So often, we let our confidence be dictated by the results we achieve. When results are good, it’s easy to maintain a high level of confidence but when results are poor, our confidence often takes a beating and our personal performance nosedives. We doubt ourselves and wonder whether we’ll ever be able to climb out of this performance ‘hole’. And when you lose your confidence, is it tough to climb out of that hole…to turn that kind of negative and destructive thinking around? You bet it is!

But the truth of the matter is, more often than not... WE CAN’T DETERMINE THE RESULTS!

No matter how well you perform as an individual, in most instances other factors outside of your direct control have an effect on the outcome. But how do you get around this problem of loss of self-confidence? How do you maintain your confidence in yourself when the results are far from what you’d hoped they would be? The solution is simple enough…but it’s not very easy: You have to change the yardstick.

What’s the only thing that’s 100% within your control, that’s not dependent on any other factor? The answer of course is “you” or more precisely it’s the commitment you make and the effort you invest to give your personal BEST every time you’re called upon to perform. YOU are the only one who can cause YOU to give less than your very best effort in the face of every challenge you take on. If you choose to give your best effort, there’s nothing I or anyone else can do to cause you to give less than that. Consider what would happen to your confidence if your yardstick was changed to measure how well you gave your honest-to-goodness best effort when you were called upon to perform.

If you regularly accomplish this task, you’ll prove to yourself that YOU can count on YOU to give your best no matter how great the challenges you face. If you consistently behave this way, your confidence will only grow to become stronger and stronger. And so will you’re self-esteem since self-esteem is the reputation we develop with ourselves. It shouldn’t be only about the results you achieve, it should mostly be about the personal commitment and the effort you invest to give your best at all times.

You will still be disappointed about some of the outcomes you achieve because results are outside of your direct control, but the realization that you can count on yourself to truly give your best effort will help you to grow your confidence in yourself. This confidence will then allow you to approach the challenges you face with greater calm and with a more directed focus on the process of that performance, rather than on its outcome.

The irony of it is, when you focus on the process of personal excellence and commit to giving your best effort every time you’re called on to perform – win, lose, or draw – the results most often take care of themselves and your performance ends up being the best you’ve got. The less you focus on the results while you’re trying to achieve them and the more you focus on the process of simply performing ‘in the moment’, the better the results typically are.

For Dr. Jacques Dallaire's entire vault of Performance Files, or to learn about Dallaire Performance Consulting's leading business performance programs, individual/sport seminars and mental skills products, visit Dallaire Performance Consulting.