Confidence is more than just believing in yourself when you win. It’s believing in yourself, even when things don’t go perfectly. As a coach, you can help athletes build lasting confidence rooted in effort, resilience, and self-worth.
Why It Matters
Athletes today are under pressure to perform, impress, and achieve in their sport. Of the court or field, they're still struggling to manage family expectations, personal relationships, and more. But tying self-worth only to success can lead to burnout, anxiety, and fragile confidence. True confidence grows when players learn to value the process and not just the outcome.
Coaching For Confidence
- Celebrate effort, not just wins: Reinforce progress, persistence, and smart risk-taking.
- Reframe failure: Mistakes are opportunities to learn and grow. Normalize setbacks as part of the journey, as this helps build resilience, and help athletes see success as the ongoing process of growth and effort – not a single win or a stat line.
- Model balance: Show athletes that taking care of their mental health is part of high performance.
- Provide positive feedback, not just negative: Use language that builds, not breaks. Offer feedback that's specific, actionable, and encouraging. Frame your feedback to reinforce your athletes' self- worth beyond their statistics (ex: "I noticed how you stayed focused even when the game got tough").
Remind Athletes
- You are more than your stats.
- Your value isn't tied to your last performance.
- Confidence comes from knowing you can keep showing up.
- It's not about being perfect.
Let's coach with compassion. Let's build confident players and healthier humans.
Find more resources to support athlete mental health at apaf.org/play.
This APA Foundation resource was written by Brook Choulet, M.D., APA Member, Brook Choulet Performance Psychiatry