Confidence is having belief in yourself that you can do things.
- Having belief in yourself is often called having self worth.
- Knowing and believing that you can do things is often called self efficacy.
It is important for coaches to understand that people having the ability to take part and believing they can take part are not the same thing. People may take part but lack the self-efficacy to be fully confident in their abilities.
How does confidence affect people taking part?
Low confidence can mean that people in your session are unwilling to try new things and engage in your session. The level of people’s confidence can affect how they join in, their ability to perform well, whether they gain maximum benefit from taking part and whether they opt out of some activities.
Achieving success helps people build their confidence. This includes small steps of success and improvement, not just the achievement of big goals.
Being over confident can also affect how people take part. They believe too much in their own abilities and misjudge their ability to take part. They may overstretch themselves and risk injury to themselves or others.