As a sport psychologist, I have worked with a variety of athletes, and I always enjoy learning about a new sport. I feel like I am learning a new language – is it a competition, game or a meet? Is it training or practice? Were you using a top water spinner bait or Carolina Rig? That last one would be the language of fishing.

Through my work, I’ve become fluent in fishing. But why would a professional angler work with a sport psychologist? As one of my guys once said, “confidence is the best lure in your tackle box.” I get exactly what he was talking about.

Fish have homes. Fish will stay at their homes unless there is a weather change or water level change. Anglers study conditions to learn where the fish are located and what technique to use to catch them. If an angler is in one area of the lake and is thinking he should be in another area of the lake, he isn’t confident in his decision. Lower confidence leads to lack of focus on his cast. Without focus, he won’t put the right action on the lure (the wiggle under water that makes the bait attractive to the fish) so he won’t catch the fish.

If “confidence is the best lure in your tackle box” doesn’t translate well for you, then maybe this will: Confidence is your best accessory. What makes the power suit so powerful? Is it the crisp lines? The perfect fit? The strong color? Or is it the confidence you wear with it?

I was preparing for a women’s retreat and I wasn’t sure how to pronounce a name from the Old Testament. My husband is a pastor so I asked him how to say it. Instead of offering the answer I expected, he said, “it doesn’t matter how you pronounce it as long as you say it with confidence. Everyone will start pronouncing it the way you do.”

Confidence matters. We need confidence in every area of life from making a sales presentation to parenting our four year old. The great news is that confidence can be trained.

Training Confidence
Every thought you have makes you more confident or more doubtful. Unfortunately, we spend more time training our doubt that training our confidence. When you are driving home from work, do you think about everything you accomplished on your To Do list or do you think about the things that did not get completed? After you put the kids to bed, do you think about how you really connected with them today or do you think about the time you lost your temper with them last week? When you are on a diet, do you review the great choices you made each day or that one bite of cookie?

When we review our mistakes, we give ourselves a reason to doubt. When we review our successes, we give ourselves a reason to be confident. I am not a believer of simply positive thinking. There is a time and a place to review a mistake. You think about it one time for the purpose of determining a correction. After you have identified the correction, you can then think about that memory in terms of the correction rather than the mistake. When you think about the correction, you realize that you could behave differently. You build your confidence. When you review your mistake over and over, you feel like you cannot change.

Where is your confidence?
I believe that you must be 100% confident or you are simply not confident. It’s not an incremental trait. Anything less than 100% confidence brings doubt into the picture, and doubt always changes your skill.

People are less than 100% confident when they place their confidence in an unpredictable outcome rather than their ability to create that outcome. You cannot control every outcome. Can you be 100% confident you will close a sale? You don’t control all the variables. But you can be 100% confident in your ability to present your product, ask good questions and match your product to your client’s needs.

Can you be 100% confident you will sink a par putt? No, but you can be 100% confident you lined up correctly, have the right pace and can roll your ball on the line. That 100% confidence allows you to do what you have trained to do.

Can you be 100% confident your children will always come to you when they are in trouble? No, but you can be confident in the steps it takes to create a trusting relationship that is full of grace and opens the door for those conversations.

Every thought you have makes you more confident or more doubtful. Train your confidence by recognizing your success – not just the outcome, but the actions that created those outcomes. Recognizing your success is the first and most important step in training your confidence. Remember, confidence is your best accessory!