I realised something this week while giving encouragement across the court at my Year 6 netball team. They have a fear of shooting goals. Even though they know how and have practised hundreds of times.
They are not confident when shooting goals in competitions. They fear it in case they miss. They fear embarrassment and being disappointed. They are not confident in their abilities. So they don’t try.
Rather than tactical and technical encouragement I encouraged them to ‘have a go!’ It worked. They had a go and were successful. The more they were successful the less I had to ask them to have a go.
They developed their own capacity to have a go. They became more confident. They had overcome their initial fear and felt more confident in that game, however I know as a coach I will need to continue to foster their confidence and self belief. This is my role as a coach.
Many adult participants who are new or returning back to sport have this same lack of self confidence. They fear being embarrassed. They fear looking foolish. They fear not being able to do it! So they don’t have a go.
For many potential new participants this means that the first step to attending a session is overcoming their lack of self confidence to do so.
What can coaches do to build self-confidence?
Some ideas are simple for building confidence:
- Know something about each participant.
- Know their goals and reasons for attending your session.
- Find out what they believe their barriers (or fears) might be.
- Praise meaningfully.
- Praise achievement of goals.
- Acknowledge effort and commitment.
- Encourage an atmosphere that supports having a go.
- Create small opportunities to be successful, a simple skill or short game.
- Create opportunities for participant to contribute to your session.
It is suggested that confident participants are more likely to continue to return to your sessions. It therefore seems appropriate that coaches should think about what their existing participants' fears may be and how it affects their self-confidence.
From that point, coaches will be better equipped to help participants overcome fear and become more confidence.
Regularly planning activities or re-emphasising some coaching activities with a confidence-building focus is an easy way that coaches could enhance their sessions.
Go on, have a go!
It goes without saying that coaches may themselves have to overcome some confidence issues in trying something new within their sessions.
They will also have to overcome their fears of failure and getting it wrong.
So why don’t you try something in your next session that builds confidence with your participants. So go on - have a go!