The Importance of Confidence for Professional Athletes

Confidence is extremely important for professional athletes, because if they don't believe in themselves how can they put everything into their performance? If you don't believe you can win, you may not push yourself hard enough to actually make winning a realistic possibility. You have to have self-confidence and believe that given the right training and preparation, you have as much chance as anyone else of being a winner. It is this kind of mentality that professional athletes have to adopt, which is perhaps why so many of them can end up coming across as arrogant in interviews.

Of course, it is difficult to sound modest when you're the best in the world at something. If you are a world champion cyclist or triathlete, then it would sound rather disingenuous to say that are completely surprised by your outstanding performance. To be a professional athlete obviously requires a great deal of physical strength, endurance and speed, but the psychological component cannot be ignored, either. A lot of psychological games go on between competing athletes and it is generally those who have confidence that come out on top.

When Mark Cavendish became world road race champion in 2011, it was largely because he had confidence in himself and his team also had confidence in him. Cavendish was the favourite to win and whereas many British athletes have baulked under such pressure, he did not. The British team decided to lead from the front, which demonstrated just how confident they were in their team leader and Cavendish certainly didn't let them down. It was obviously quite difficult for Cavendish and the whole British team to play down the expectations of him before the race, when everyone already knew he was the fastest sprinter in the world!

There have been occasions where other athletes haven't fared so well under this amount of pressure. For those who are deemed the best at what they do, continually putting in performance after performance can become quite stressful. Sometimes, a professional athlete can find himself on a losing streak that is hard to break, thus undermining his confidence further and making it even harder for him to come up with the goods. It only takes one good result for his confidence to start climbing again, though getting a win or a top-ten finish is often the real challenge.

With self-confidence and belief so important for professional athletes, it is not surprising that the role of sports psychologists has grown in significance, as athletes look for ways to harness their power to take their performance up a level, achieve good results consistently and become the best of the best.