Do you doubt yourself going into games? What about during games…do you question your skills and second guess yourself?
Self-doubt kills confidence. It eats away at any trust you have within yourself and causes you to hesitate and play with the question on your mind of, can I do this?
Self-doubt is also normal. We all doubt ourselves at times and question what we can do. But when talking about it in a performance sense, we must work to manage any doubt that presents itself before or during a game.
In this article, I have outlined what causes self-doubt in sports, how doubt hurts your game, and a few tips you can use to manage self-doubt as an athlete.
Cause of Self-Doubt in Sports
Self-doubt can be caused by many factors, all working together to force you to question yourself and your skills.
Some of the most common reasons athletes doubt themselves are:
- Recent bad performances
- Comparison
- Mistakes in the moment
Recent Bad Performances
Let’s say you’ve had a string of subpar performances recently. These can be poor games or poor practices. How will you be feeling going into your next game?
The easiest option is for you to doubt yourself.
Due to the recent bad games or practices, you will question whether or not you’ll be able to go out there and play well in this upcoming game.
This occurs a lot in athletes who base their confidence levels on recent games. If they play well, confidence is high. If they play poorly, however, confidence suffers and self-doubt forms.
Comparison
Another key contributor to self-doubt is comparing yourself to other players.
This occurs when you compare yourself to other players on your team or players on the opposing team.
Some athletes I work with in one-on-one coaching have intermittent self-doubt. It comes and goes based on the opponent their playing.
When they face an easy opponent, they don’t doubt themselves. However, when they face a challenging opponent, they question themselves and second guess their abilities.
Comparing yourself to others will typically result in you finding reasons to doubt yourself.
Mistakes in the Moment
When you make mistakes during a game, it’s easy for self-doubt to form following the mistake. Especially if you get frustrated with yourself.
If you get angry with yourself over the mistakes you make, the mistakes stick with you. You keep thinking about them over and over.
As you continue to think about your mistakes, doubt grows.
After you make a mistake, you may question yourself and begin to hold yourself back. One player I talked to recently said he avoids getting himself into a similar situation to the one in which he just messed up.
This behavior leads to timid play and can actually result in more mistakes, further worsening the self-doubt you’re experiencing.
How Self-Doubt Hurts Your Play
Peak performance requires confidence.
When I’m working with an athlete on getting them to perform up to their potential, we focus mainly on the idea of letting go and playing freely.
Playing freely means you aren’t holding yourself back, second guessing yourself, or hesitating.
You allow yourself to just play!
To let go and play freely, you must trust yourself. Trust that is difficult to come by if you doubt yourself.
Self-doubt hurts your play because it keeps you from trusting in yourself and playing confidently.
When you doubt yourself and your skills, we will see hesitation occur. This hesitation happens due to overthinking and questioning yourself.
I was talking with a basketball player recently who was explaining to me how he hesitates on the offensive side. He doubts whether or not it’s a good shot selection, which leads to hesitation.
However, by hesitating, he turns it into a bad shot selection. He also increases the chances of himself turning the ball over.
Self-doubt leads to hesitation and stiff play. When you doubt yourself and your skills, you play timidly and inhibit confident and free play. That is why, when you play with self-doubt, you underperform.
Tips to Stop Doubting Yourself During Games
Self-doubt eats away at confidence and leads to underperforming. Therefore, we must work to let go of doubt and build trust in ourselves.
The three tips outlined below are a great place for you to begin if you want to stop doubting yourself during games.
Tip #1: Change Your Thinking
What does it mean to doubt yourself?
It means you question yourself. Okay…what does it mean to question yourself? To wonder if you can play well and question how good you really are.
It means you are asking yourself those types of questions. Your self-talk is doubtful. You think about whether or not you’ll be able to play today and you think about how good the other team is and how badly you’ve been playing recently.
The common factor among all of what I just wrote is your thinking…to doubt yourself means you are thinking in a doubting way.
If you want to stop experiencing self-doubt as an athlete, you must learn to change how you think. If you allow thoughts of doubt to thrive in your mind, you will continually lack confidence.
To change your thinking, begin practicing reframing.
Reframing is the practice of noticing when you have a thought of self-doubt, and then reframing (changing) it into a more positive thought.
Here’s an example of how this would work:
- “The other team looks really good, I don’t think I’ll play well.”
- “I can play well against anyone. I trust in myself and will give it my all during the game.”
You aren’t pretending like the other team isn’t good or trying to convince yourself of such. All you’re doing is speaking to yourself in a way that will increase your trust.
Our beliefs are built on thinking. When we think a certain way over and over again it forms a belief.
The same is true for our emotional state. If you want to change your emotional state, i.e. go from doubting yourself to having confidence, you must change your thinking.
Reframe doubtful thoughts to confident thoughts and you will be on your way to eliminating self-doubt from your game.
Tip #2: Reflect on Your Wins
Building confidence requires success. Confidence itself is built on the memory of success. The idea of I know I can do that again because I’ve done it before. That is where strong confidence is found.
What’s interesting, though, is that the success does not need to be large. Small wins can compound into big confidence.
But you must be sure you are giving attention to these small wins.
I worked with a college hockey player who saw her confidence go up and down. It would rise after phenomenal games, but then drop drastically after games she didn’t think went well.
And the drops lasted for a while.
I remember one of the last drops she had and the conversation we had afterwards. She explained to me (after much probing) that the games recently hadn’t been all that bad. She just felt like they hadn’t been extraordinary.
There were still good things about the games, though.
We discussed the importance of reflecting on these good things (wins) as a way to keep her confidence steady.
Because once she got down on herself, self-doubt would take hold, and this turned into a snowball effect and many more bad games followed.
For yourself, if you want to reduce self-doubt, be sure to reflect on your wins. Curb the tendency to be overly self-critical. Focus on the wins, no matter how small they may be, as a way to build confidence and eliminate doubt.
Tip #3: Focus on Controllable Actions
The final tip involves how you play the game.
When you doubt yourself, this doubt leads to hesitation and timid play.
Confident play involves you playing aggressively and giving full effort.
Something I talk to a lot of players about is how you can play aggressively and give full effort even if you don’t necessarily feel confident. And the cool thing is…confidence will follow!
Giving full effort and playing aggressively are controllable. Meaning, no matter how you feel or how well you’re playing, you can still give full effort out there.
When you doubt yourself, you want to focus on controllable actions. Your mind will naturally focus on outcomes (like winning or losing or playing well or not) since it is the outcome that drives doubt.
But when you focus on the outcome, this only worsens your doubt and leads to more anxiety and fear.
We must get your attention fixed on the process. The best way to focus on the process when you play is focusing on controllable actions.
Think about how you would act if you didn’t doubt yourself and had high confidence…then choose one to two of those actions and focus on them for the game.
Mental Coaching for Self-Doubt
It’s natural to doubt yourself. Whether due to recent poor performances, comparison, an in game mistake, or anything else, self-doubt can quickly form and wreak havoc on your game.
Which is why you must begin taking steps to eliminate doubt. The tips I have outlined above will help with that.
In addition to those tips, I also offer one-on-one mental coaching for athletes experiencing self-doubt.
I will work directly with you to reduce doubt and build confidence within your game.
To learn more about one-on-one coaching, please fill out the form below. Or you can click here to schedule a free introductory coaching call.
Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.
