Confidence

A few thoughts

Survival

Confidence is a survival skill. Without it, early humans might not have slain woolly mammoths, dared to cross the seven seas, or codified liberty. Confidence was the platform for courage, motivation, and persistence.

Nowadays, confidence still helps people survive the highs and lows of modern life, including pitiful pickleball games.

Definition

Webster’s Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language defines confidence as “an assurance of mind of firm belief in the trustworthiness of another, or in the truth and reality of a fact”. Its root is confidens, a Latin word for trust.

Trust. Belief. Credence. “…in another…or in…a fact”.

Types of confidence

There is confidence outside oneself. As the definition indicates, confidence can be in other people, inanimate objects (“…be the club…,” golfers chant), processes, events, outcomes. The weather, even. (Meteorologists’ existence is based on confidence in their prognostications.)

In fact, another way of viewing “confidence” is as a forecasting framework.

The future, like the weather, is unknown. Essentially, confidence makes the unknown known by enabling the individual to believe in his/her ability to shape that unknown into some known end.

Another way of thinking about this is that the more certain something is, the less need for confidence. For example, people sometimes say they are “confident” the sun will rise tomorrow morning, but confidence has nothing to do with it. Besides, if the sun doesn’t come up tomorrow, there’s probably little need to think about confidence or anything else!

There is confidence within oneself. Self-confidence, according to Webster’s, is “confidence in one’s own judgment or ability; reliance on one’s own opinion or powers, without other aid”.

It is the contention of this Substack that self-confidence differs from confidence in one subtle way. The former has to occur within the person, while the latter can simply be ascribed. One may be confident in technology without, necessarily, any emotional component.

But self-confidence is a feeling, an emotion. It results from something undertaken (or not) by the person. For example, confidence in one’s own ability to sing Christmas carols well stems from past experience – with reinforcement either from oneself alone, or in combination with comments from others.

To push this point further (says this Substack confidently – ha!), although there are innumerable resources all over the place for “building confidence,” few, if any will work unless the confidence switch inside the individual clicks “on”. That is, the person has to feel that he/she can perform successfully.

With confidence “on,” there is an emotional feedback loop which provides positive framing for whatever it is the person plans to tackle.

With confidence “off,” however, emotional feedback works against the person, making success more unlikely.

ADAP

In the realm of the Age-defying Athlete Project (ADAP), confidence reflects an expectation about sport unknowns: How will the game or performance unfold? Will I be able to play well? Have I finally tamed that hook/flaccid serve/awkward flip turn/tendency to row out of sync…etc? How will my teammates react? What will our competitors think and do? And much more.

Some ADAPers bemoan their supply of self-confidence. Tammy, 63, explicitly reports, “I lack confidence.”

To her, tennis has been “…good. It has its ups and downs. Find your spot. There’s a lot involved…Tennis plays on your psyche, almost as if I’m back in high school dealing with mean girls.”

Others describe how athletic undertakings strengthened their trust in themselves. Gail, 66, reported: “Started with a Pro and joined [Ladies Golf Association]. They have [mentor] program. During COVID, husband lost job. Club temporarily renovated one course all par threes and that was when I found success. Par fives daunting - just hit, hit, hit. We played almost every day on the par three course and it built my confidence.”

Charles, 63, adds a future note: “A scuba friend encouraged us to try golf. We were still working then and didn’t have a lot of time. Greta liked golf, and we discussed it. We thought it would be something we could do into our 70s with confidence.”

A trust about something yet to unfold in the future.

Four other points about confidence

· Self-confidence and confidence outside oneself don’t necessarily align. For example, Irene may be supremely self-confident about her ability to properly curl her fingers every time as she releases a bowling ball. But she has scant confidence about her ability to motivate the sales team in a forthcoming speech.

· Confidence is dynamic. The rower may lift and drop oars in perfect rhythm one day, leading to a confidence boost. But the next day, all bets are off.

· Confidence has discrete parts. The pickleball player may have tons of confidence about his serve, a modicum of confidence about his return of serve, but just a tiny bit of confidence about his dink shots. While this sets up prioritized opportunities for improvement, it also tends to muddy the waters about a feel for the overall game.

· Confidence may have a positive or negative (or, presumably, neutral) target outcome.

o On the positive side, one 40-year old newcomer to tennis is proud that “I can do hard, scary things. Given me confidence.”

o On the negative side, a man or women can be confident about a bad thing happening. This could reflect a pessimistic viewpoint about the economy, world affairs, drinking too much, a particular game, or a myriad of other things.

WIIFY?

The more confident the athlete, the less he or she needs to focus on the particulars of the game. This is typically known as being “in the zone”. Movement, strategy, reactions – everything is done without attending to anything when in the zone.

Another way of stating this is that the game-playing has become automatic.

In a paper entitled On the Road to Automatic: Dynamic Aspects in the Development of Expertise, scientists explored what distinguishes expert motor skills from more undeveloped skills…which is another way of distinguishing those with more skill self-confidence from those with less.

The authors write: “One of the important steps on the road to becoming expert in a motor skill occurs when the individual can perform the movements in a seemingly effortless and automatic fashion.

“…this road to automatic involves two steps: (1) an increasing reliance on the self-regulatory aspects of the motor task, and (2) a minimization of the role of mechanisms based on intentionally directed corrective movements. The interplay between these two mechanisms implies that, at a given skill level, performance decreases whenever intention intervenes. (emphases added)

“The observation that psychological factors may be as important as mechanical repetition for the development of expertise has important implications for the design of neurorehabilitative strategies.” [i.e., confidence is an emotion]

In the beginning, Age-defying Athletes and others have to think about moving arms, legs, and body, and about tons of rules, images, self-talk - some of them internally inconsistent!

As they improve, however, ADAPers need to stop thinking about these. Improvement, in fact, should be viewed as thinking less and less.

How to improve, and, presumably, build confidence?

Practice, practice, practice. Practicing a sport shapes that unknown future into something reliable, dependable…into, in other words, a known outcome. Practicing a 9-iron shot from 80 yards out 50 times a week can render that shot automatic during play. Practicing a backstroke for a half an hour Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays will tame unpredictable consistency and timing.

What’s more, the beauty of practice is that for almost every sport, one can do it alone. Ball machines and backboards for racquet sports, driving ranges for golf, pools for swimmers, lakes for rowers, paths for cyclists. Practice is an ideal way to work out kinks without the spotlight.

So, what are you waiting for? Trust yourself. Go out and practice.