Mindset is one of the most critical components of any sport. Getting into the right mindset for sport is often the key to unlocking success. Although this sounds cryptic, it is a simple enough concept. Being prepared will help with mindset and confidence; in this article, we explain this in more detail and provide some context to help.
What do we mean?
With the right mindset, you can use this to gain confidence from your preparation. Being prepared in general centres around practice and training. The more you do, the more confident you will be.
How can preparation help?
Preparation helps you by ensuring that you feel confident about your sport. In football, for example, you would practice and practice nearly every scenario until it becomes second nature for you and your teammates. By doing this, an individual and a team feel more confident. The more you can prepare together, the more the team can intuitively move together, making for a more confident and productive performance.
Being the best physical specimen will drive your confidence.
Being prepared technically is one thing, but being prepared physically is another. In Football, strength training and fitness have become synonymous with top performance. If you want to equip yourself for fitness, consider Mirafit.co.uk for your home and commercial gym equipment needs. Once you are physically fit, you feel better; this preparation helps avoid doubt and provides confidence.
What common training scenarios would help with the preparation
In Football training, we prepare for match play; using several core scenarios, we can gain a level of readiness that will help you feel confident. Here are some examples of how preparation can help.
Throw-ins – The position, height, length and conditions are all tested to provide the players with confidence and a good level of preparation so that if they are faced with the same scenarios, they know how to adapt and overcome without as much guesswork.
Corners – Playing long, short, downfield, near post and far post by playing these critical situations over and over with the team, players know their positions and the best approaches to any given situation.
Penalties – Speed, judgement, pressure, conditions, and ball feel all play their part in the practice required to be a superb kicker. Homework on the goalie and previous stats can also help. Confidence in your approach and mindset comes from knowing that you are prepared.
Free kicks – Different locations, opposition formations and weather conditions are essential. It helps the kicker read the pitch, conditions, and the likelihood of success in any given scenario.
Play changes – These are used to practice essential formation changes and learn each other’s strengths in the team. Play changes are good for unsettling the opposition and also for practising working formations in your team.
You can help mindset by feeling prepared. You can help your performance by being prepared. Preparation in most sports is one of the most important components of success.
How can confidence help?
Confidence helps by removing nerves that can hinder performance, and it can help by giving you the right attitude. It allows you to believe that winning is achievable, and thinking it’s possible often makes it so.
According to members.believeperform.com
Confidence can help by providing the following:
- Confidence in performing physical skills
- Confidence to use mental skills
- Confidence to make the right decisions
- Confidence to learn new things
- Confidence in physical fitness
What are other examples of mindset, confidence and preparation?
Marathon Runners
If we consider marathon runners, they run 26.2 miles or 42 kilometres. This is not a distance that you can just run. If you have never run a marathon before, preparing is critical. Marathon preparation starts as much as 20 weeks out; it requires 3-5 runs per week. The mindset for running a marathon is essential; you must believe it is possible and have the distance in you. The way to do this is to get enough preparation to give you that confidence. Running up to 20-22 miles a few times will ensure that you are almost at a distance and that your bones, frame, tendons, ankles and other leavers are ready to endure the challenge. If you do not train to this level, you will fail.
Digging in on runs before the big day, when you feel like your legs will fall off, is when you must search for the strength and confidence you need to succeed. More on why mindset matters in sports here. Not preparing correctly is preparing to fail.
Strongman
When deadlifting massive weights, building your strength over time is critical to avoid injury and to allow all of your joints, muscles and soft tissue to strengthen. Strongmen who ascend the ranks too quickly can have short careers because they are plagued with injuries that will inhibit performance and ultimately cause them recede into the background disappointed by the chance they were given and how poorly it went for them. Those that choose to prepare and train always win through.
What can we learn?
We have unpicked why preparation is essential and how confidence comes from preparation. We have explained that training is part of preparation and that mindset supports confidence.
If we were to summarise, it would look something like this:
Mindset and confidence
Preparation
(practice, fitness, training, etc.)
Mindset and confidence are underpinned by preparation, which is practice, fitness, and training. If you practice, then you are ready for the task. If you train, you are physically prepared for the activity; if you have these things, you can go in fit for the task and be confident in your ability.
The summary of this is that approaching with the right mindset will help. However, preparation feeds your mindset and gives you confidence. You can now see the importance of curating the right approach for your sport and how it will provide the greatest chance of success. We hope that this has helped to focus you on the important elements.
