Confidence

      My swimming career was marked by instant success.  I was a big fish in a small pond and I really enjoyed it.  Peopled praised me and made me feel special.  As the years progressed, I become more and more focused on receiving that praise.  I put a lot of pressure on myself to be the best.  At some point along the line, I started having weird tingling sensations before races.  It caused me to be hesitant with my starts and thus handicapped my races.  I never realized what was happening until my mid twenties when I read an article about anxiety.

      In the end, I think it made me a much more humble person, but it was extremely frustrating at the time.  The more I read, the more I realize I was not alone.  Even the great cyclist, Eddy Merckx, had confidence issues early in his career on mountain stages.  In a recent interview, the great Olympic distance triathlete Simon Lessing said it took him 10 years to become confident in his run.  In his book Eleven Rings, Phil Jackson spoke of confidence issues with several professional basketball players.  One player went so far as to ask other players not to throw it to him when he was outside the paint.  These are professional basketball players, yet they are still afraid.

      During my psychology internship at the Lindner Center of HOPE, I had the opportunity to work with Charles Brady, Ph.D. on Anxiety and Exposure Response Prevention Therapy.  He was a big proponent of taking small deliberate steps to overcome one's fear.  He would say, when in doubt make the challenge easier.  He wanted clients to feel a sense of accomplishment and progress.

      The book Stop Obsessing was another good resource. It is a very clear and practical guide for understanding obsessions with specific strategies to manage one's anxiety.  The biggest trick anxiety plays is convincing us it is real.  Our mind distorts reality causing us to make false assumptions.  In truth, the mind is only part of who we are.  Our thoughts are just thoughts, they are not facts.  Learn to acknowledge/accept those thoughts and you will be set free.

The following are Strategies for enhancing one's confidence and shrinking Anxiety's power:

• Acting confidently
• Try standing, putting your hands on your hips, or speaking in a deep voice to increase confidence.
• Thinking confidently
• Repeat a mantra such as "Strong and Capable" to feel confident.
• Imagery
• Imagine yourself being successful.
• Being in good physical condition
• Improving one's physical condition improves confidence.
• Planned exposure
• Purposely and progressively place yourself in feared situations.
• Postponement 
• Put off worrying or engaging in a behavior for a specific amount of time.  Try waiting 3 to 15 minutes.   Do not postpone indefinitely as it will cause you to focus on the issue.
• Acceptance 
• Acknowledge the current reality.  It is what it is.  Trying to avoid or get ride of anxiety will only make it worse.
• Awkwardize 
• Do the behavior in a fun or awkward way.
• Ritual Tax
• Tax yourself every time you engage in a specific behavior. 
• Rationing 
• Limit the number of times you allow yourself to engage in specific behaviors
• Emotional Competition 
• Anger, sexual arousal, & humor cannot coexist w/ anxiety.
• Write or speak your fears
• Write or speak your fears over and over until they become meaningless. 
• Sing about fears
• Create a funny song to sing about your feared situation.
• Gratitude
• Each night find three things from your day that made it enjoyable. 

      Start small and commit to a specific behavior for 1-3 weeks then reassess.  If you were successful, continue the new behavior.  If you were not successful, make the commitment more realistic.  Too often people believe they need to make drastic changes and it inhibits them from even starting.  Other times, people start off too aggressive, too large, and fail to maintain their commitments.  Start small and grow your confidence.  Through greater self-confidence one can enhance positive emotions, facilitate concentration, set more challenging goals, increase effort, and cope better with adversity.