It was 2008 and I was on the starting line of the New York City Marathon. I had just completed the best training segment of my entire life. Yet, here I was petrified, staring at the world’s best runners (Olympic medalists, world record holders, and past champions). Needless to say, I underperformed and left incredibly disappointed. Fast forward to 2011. I was on the starting line of the Rock n Roll Marathon in San Diego. Nothing in my training block had stood out. I was ready to accept whatever outcome happened, but I was calm, relaxed, and itching to run. That day I ran a new PR of 2:14:38. The difference? It certainly wasn’t the training. It was the same training I had done for years. No, the difference was my self confidence and that is a major bummer. Today, I want to explore the idea of self confidence a little more and how you can make sure yours isn’t going to be a factor in your next performance.
What is self confidence?
It is simply the belief in one’s self to successfully perform a desired behavior. From that, there are two types of self confidence- trait confidence and state confidence.
Trait confidence is the notion that self confidence can be seen as something that is more stable and part of one’s personality. An example of this might be that regardless of weather a runner is confident they will stick to the training plan. For the most part, I feel like this is me- when it comes to training, at least. It might not be true when it comes to races though!
State confidence is a feeling of confidence that is felt at a particular point in time, but relies on the current state of mind of an individual and may only be demonstrated momentarily. An example of this might be when a runner is normally very confident until it comes to a stressful situation. Then the person loses their confidence. This was me on the starting line of the NYC marathon!
The Four Sources of Confidence
Mastery:
By far the most dependable of the sources. If we continually see defeat, we tend to have lower self confidence. It’s not a lot of fun seeing a race fall apart over and over again, right? So we want to build in successful experiences to experience a sense of success. These are even more important for those with low self confidence in general- stemming from negative life experiences. Even small victories stacked on top of each other can gradually build your confidence.
In terms of running, say you are running your first marathon. You really aren’t great at long tempos and as you do longer and longer tempo’s, you continue to struggle and fall apart. Not good for the mastery idea and confidence, huh? So, as a coach, I might look at that and break those workouts up. I might find a way to build the person up in accumulating the volume at marathon pace, without throwing them into a weekly workout that they continually struggle at.
Modeling:
This is where a good coach and community can be a big help. Those with less experience are likely to have less confidence in themselves. Let’s use the first time Boston Marathon qualifier. They heard all the stories about the course and the crowds and are panicked a little bit. As a coach who’s run the course, you can help them by modeling their training after the course. You could provide your experience from running the race and how you handled situations. Another example is something very common in our community. People have my book, but it doesn’t look like a common training plan. So, they post their fears in our community looking for advice. Thankfully for me, dozens of runners chime in who went through the same experience and were successful. The runner can then model their training based on others’ experience of the same situation.
Social Support:
This is another area we see a lot of in our community. A person posts a workout in our group in hopes to get a bunch of likes and encouragement. This can help, for sure,