Confidence to Perform Consistently

For a few years now, I've been watching an emerging rugby team play. They have been ranked very highly over recent seasons in 15 a-side rugby and 7s. Yet for some reason, this season, their potential hasn't been realised. The team lost a number of games to teams they had previously beaten and heads went down. They hit a poor run of form that they couldn't shake off.

It's hard to put a finger on what actually caused the sudden downturn in form. A couple of players out with injuries? Other teams being physically larger this season? A tougher fixture list? Not really. Surely a good team doesn't become a poor team overnight?

I've reflected on what I witnessed and I came to the conclusion that the reason for the slide in performance was a loss of confidence. This then drove a lack of self belief. Over a period of time, you could see it becoming contagious.

Subsequently, I talked over this loss of form with a number of coaches, managers, educators and mentors in a number of fields outside of rugby to get as a wide a view as possible. A theme emerged from my conversations: one of the biggest performance killers is a lack of self belief which manifests itself in low confidence. That lack of confidence stops so many from getting back up and running or even making an attempt in the first place. I decided to investigate confidence.

I have to point out here I'm not advocating the development of hugely inflated egos - there are enough of those around in all walks of life. No, I am talking about the "objective understanding of ability and personal qualities" that enable people in all walks of life to take a step forward - often, as it were, to take  a step of faith -  in order to achieve something or attempt something different.

I thought long and hard about confidence in a sporting context and specifically about what are the "abilities and qualities" that drive performance. I concluded that essentially there are four key areas: technical ability, creativity, cognition and spatial awareness. They seemed to be common to most sports.

Technically, an athlete has to know how to perform core components competently: pass, tackle, kick, catch - all have to be worked at. This is true in any walk of life be it sport, a job, an area of service and even in relationships - we need to know how to treat people, how to communicate, how to listen. There are things we have to work at.

Creative thinking is that ability that allows you to think outside of the box. In a sporting sense it's the ability to play what is in front of you, responding to what you see in a constructive rather than destructive way. This way of thinking and processing real time game information is linked to cognitive ability - that is the ability to take information in, process it and replay the information in the form of problem solving using what you have worked on in training, your experience and the way the game is panning out.

Spatial awareness is the ability to see objects or people in relation to each other in space and time. It's that sense you have before you make a pass, knowing that the ball will reach the other person because you have the ability to judge space and speed. It's understanding your location on the field of play in relation to  player with the ball and the timing of a tackle or when to pass or make a break.

Sports psychologists tell us that the ability to focus and get refocussed are the keys to staying on track and sustaining performance. Doing what we know we can do and doing it to the best of our ability breeds confidence. Confidence enables us to do more of what we know we can do and sustains performance. They identify "distraction" as the trigger that so often hits confidence, suggesting internal and external reference points as a means of getting back on track and refocussing. Often a coach will have worked on a key phrase or word or an image to help a player regain composure. They are mental reminders of what the player knows but has been distracted from. Sadly, we have all seen the alternative when confidence collapses - the inevitable slide into overthinking and under performing - even for world class athletes. Its true when we experience life set backs too.

Now we all know that there are times in sport when we do actually lose a game because we meet opponents who are simply better than us. Those are the experiences from which we learn and go on to develop our own skill levels. The same is true of course in every walk of life. Unless we grab hold of the development opportunity that we are presented with in a difficult challenge or in a defeat, we are destined to produce repeat performances.

How we respond in any situation will have a big influence on what happens next. If we allow ourselves to be defined by circumstances, by what just happened, it will not only impact what happens next, but will begin to influence who we are. We start to  become responders, rather than initiators. Who wants to go through life simply reacting to everyone and everything we encounter.

The bible has an interesting observation on confidence, when it states: "don't throw your confidence away".  Its context is a passage talking about what impacts our definition as men.

How are we defined? By postcode, by job, by ethnicity, by salary, by competency, by our circumstances? Our true definition is not external. Sure, we stand in and operate from our circumstance, but they don't actually define us.

If in life as in sport, confidence is linked to our four key areas, then:

• technically we have to work on being the very best version of who we can be. 
• creatively, we can develop a sense that there is life outside of the box of the usual or routine way of thinking. 
• we can begin to appreciate that what is in front of us can be overcome, that, we can find solutions. 
• we can take a step back or pause momentarily to assess objectively where we are spatially in relation to others and what is going on around us.  

These are the abilities and qualities that help us to understand how we fit into the dynamics of a game, our jobs, a service or ministry area and relationally.

Confidence need not fly away with a poor result or outcome. Technical ability doesn't suddenly drain away overnight after we have lost a match. Our ability to read a game and creatively problem solve when confronted with a difficult situation doesn't disappear. What we have worked on, developed, become competent at hasn't been surgically removed without us noticing.

Sure there is room for improvement - that is called growth. But, we need to become skilled at identifying reference points to help us re-engage with our self belief and maintain or regain confidence.

The great thinker and writer Paul helps us with by looking at confidence from a different angle. He noted... "I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you, will be faithful to complete it" - in other words, we can have confidence in foundational things and specifically in the foundational relationship we can have with the man's man Jesus Christ. Our confidence can develop as we recognise he doesn't go back on the ground we've covered together. He doesn't quit on us when it gets tough.

Two things mark out the man who can face most things that are thrown at him:

• the confidence he has in the abilities and qualities he carries from his personal experience and training and they can't be taken from him - that's self belief. 
• the confidence he can have in knowing that he has a source of help that transcends the circumstance, the game, the situation- that's faith;

faith in the man's man Jesus Christ to deliver on his commitment to us.  So let's not throw our confidence away. Lets work at the things we can work on and commit to Jesus Christ through faith, so that win, draw or lose we have a confidence that isn't disposable.

An Act of Remembrance

In sport, there's always a sense of the unknown attached to away matches. What will the opposition be like on their own patch? You leave the familiarity of your own ground and you have to compete in their arena, their territory. The test in the face of the unknown can be daunting. We call sport combat, but it isn't warfare. Rugby is a full contact sport, but it isn't armed conflict.

When you play in an away game, you can have all of your set plays worked out, you can know all the moves and calls, but it's often the intangible bond that makes a team a team that carries you through the pressure and the physical challenges. But it's not war.

I recently visited a very prestigious boarding school with a team. We played against a backdrop of rolling hills, woodland and the towers of the old school building, complete with turrets and gargoyles. What a place to play a rugby match. You could feel the sense of tradition and history. We made history too ending a 15 year wait for an away win against our opponents. But it wasn't hand to hand fighting or roadside incendiary devices. It was a game. A game, between 30 lads, who clapped each other off the field, changed, sat down and ate a meal together.

I took the opportunity to have a look around. As I walked the corridors and entered into a great hall, I was confronted with a series of portraits of young men wearing military uniforms. There were seven (7) of them in total. Closer inspection revealed they were all former pupils. They had one very distinguished thing in common. They had all been awarded the highest military honour - the Victoria Cross. Seven from one school.

As I read the citations of their heroic acts and the notes about these incredible young men, several who paid with their lives, it dawned on me, these lads had played the same sport, on the same fields we had played on earlier that afternoon. I realised the lads who had played earlier, were these men in the making and what a responsibility I have as a dad, a friend, a coach.

My thoughts turned again to the spirit there had been that afternoon - to win. The bible has a great insight into camaraderie: "a brother is born for adversity and there is one who sticks closer than a brother". I thought of the lads, who knew their team mates were there for them. I thought of the selfless sacrifice of the seven young men, looking out at me from their portraits and of all who were helped by their heroism. I thought of the man's man Jesus Christ, who said "greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends", then demonstrated that love for all mankind through his death on the cross. Truly the one who sticks closer to us, even than a brother.

What an away trip. But it wasn't war. There are those engaged in a more fierce away match. There are families affected by the loss of loved ones and those that carry the scars of conflicts past and present. As the day for Remembrance approaches, let us not only take a moment to reflect, but let's allow the remembrance to make us act: to be the brother for times of adversity, to be a friend that sticks closer than a brother and like many who we remember and Christ who gave his all, let us give something of ourselves daily in selfless acts. After all our great sport is just that, a sport, it's not warfare.