Have you set yourself a fitness goal recently? How confident are you that you will achieve it? There are many different factors which play a part in whether or not we are successful but the one that has the most impact of all is your own level of confidence that you will achieve that goal.
Last week I wrote about positive second-hand experiences, and how you can use these to your advantage to increase your level of confidence. You can read the full post here. This week I’d like to look at another factor, and that is verbal persuasion.
It won’t come as a surprise to you that the things people say to you will impact on your level of confidence. Imagine if you were about to start a race and each person you came across wished you luck but revealed that they actually had their doubts about whether or not you were capable of winning the race? How would you feel? What would be the impact on your performance in the race?
We can also see this in practice in football matches. How often does the home team win? Is it likely that the shouting and cheering from the home fans has an impact on the team’s confidence, and therefore their likelihood of winning the game? It’s clear that we need to surround ourselves with positive people who will support our goal as much as we do. We need to hear appropriate encouragement from the people near to us.
However, verbal persuasion will also come from us, and in this case it is called self-talk. We are all having an internal conversation and the encouragement we give ourselves in our head is as, if not more important that the encouragement we receive from other people.
Just think about the way you talk to yourself when you’re trying to achieve your goal. Is it “You can do this, you’ve done it before and you’ve been training hard”, or is it more like “What’s wrong with you? You’ve got worse, and now you’re going to fail”? Whether these words come from you or from someone else they can have a devastating impact on your level of self-confidence.
So there are some things that we can change to increase our level of confidence. Firstly, ask the people close to you to encourage you in the right way. If you don’t feel you’re getting the support you need from a partner, friend or coach then talk to them about it. They’ll be more than willing to change this if they know it will help you. Just as importantly, change the way you talk to yourself and give yourself the encouragement you deserve. This is likely to take a bit of practice before it becomes a habit but it will make all the difference to you in the long term.
Want to hear more from achieve more? Sign up for our newsletter here. We’ll keep you up-to-date with the latest articles, tips and healthy recipes to support you on your way to better health and fitness.
It’s so true what you say here. When it comes to tennis they do say that the difference between the top ten players is usually on a psychological level rather than on a talent level.