There are many ways to interpret the word confidence. Via Merriam-Webster, it’s defined as:

  • “A feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or of reliance on one’s circumstances”

  • “Faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper, or effective way”

  • “The quality or state of being certain”

  • “A relation of trust or intimacy”

  • “Reliance on another’s discretion”


Interestingly, though the word ‘certain’ is only included in one, these definitions express a level of certainty; to be confident is to be sure. But confidence, in practice, is less about being certain and more about being true. In this sense, confidence isn’t achieved so much as it’s gathered as you learn and grow—for life. Confidence, then, is a sibling of resilience, where resilience is the ability to adjust or recover from change or misfortune.


You likely know that building confident, balanced teams enhances mental resilience. Many articles, such as this one, outline similar, helpful pathways to curating resilience. For example, they suggest:


  • Emphasizing process goals rather than outcome goals, such as enjoying practice every day as part of the process of winning a championship.

  • Celebrating ‘small’ wins the same way you might celebrate meeting larger goals, such as a small increase in a bench press rep in the weight room.

  • Eliminating ‘shoulds’ such as “I shouldn’t have made a mistake” or “I should be able to remember this skill or play,” and replacing them with a holistic reflection on what you can do differently next time, paired with what you did well this time.


These approaches are important for crafting a coaching ethos—one that centers confidence and resilience. But what is a well-rounded definition of confidence, in the context of sports teams?


Perhaps a confident, balanced team isn’t certain about outcomes, but instead, is grounded in who they’re bringing—individually and as a full team—to every training session, practice, and competition. The sense of certainty or surefootedness comes from faith, trust, and integrity surrounding a group of people who are always intimately true to themselves, including their skill and what they offer to a team. This is an ecosystem that you can nurture: though they’re intertwined, confidence sprouts from who you are, before what you do.


For example, consider spending time exploring this directly in a team building exercise. Everyone on the team—including coaches and staff—can answer two critical questions:

  • What do you bring to the team that isn’t a sport-specific skill? An example could be an athlete who intuitively knows how and when to make everyone laugh during intense training sessions or stressful games, ultimately relieving stress.

  • What sport specific-skill do you bring to people outside the team (family, friends, peers, etc.)? Perhaps one of your players is an excellent passer because they see and scan the court, field, or rink exceptionally well. Outside of sports, this might show up as being great at babysitting many young children at once or noticing who seems lonely amid busy lunch breaks.


Asking these questions helps braid together and integrate identities and contributions—things to be confident in! It lift the weight off of a single skill or trait to be valued for, such as scoring points. When too much weight is on one fraction of identity, it’s easier for confidence to crumble when that fraction takes a punch. This is also how pressure builds. Pressure, then, is a vital part of the conversation on how confidence and balance beget mental resilience and health.


For coaches and athletes alike, performance pressure can be debilitating. Reflecting on their novel, A Sharp and Endless Need, former basketball player and writer, Mac Crane, says that:


“Because you, as a player, are cognizant that you have an audience, there is a performative element to it. You practice in private, just like a performance, just like a play and then you come out and the curtain drops, and then you have the audience there and it’s happening live. So you know it’s not filmed like a movie or TV where you get a million takes. It’s whatever happens, happens, and you’ve been preparing for it, but you actually can’t always fully prepare and the audience participates in so many ways that it feels impossible to separate it from a performance.”


Here, crane is speaking about a game setting, but performance can easily become pervasive as the most common, baseline state of functioning—in the classroom, in practice, and even among friends and family. Handling what feels like a requirement of performance adds pressure, and that pressure is overwhelming when the performance standard sought is suddenly unattainable. Confidence, then, is shattered, because you become trapped by what you think you ‘should’ be able to carry—often alone.


Further, the best examples of confidence don’t necessarily come from athletes or coaches who appear to be best at ‘coping’ with performance pressure. Part of coaching confidence is being aware of when it’s a mask, maintained by mechanisms that dull the feelings of performance pressure rather than actually releasing the pressure.


Crane notes that the culture of substance use and abuse in sports is widespread, which isn’t a well-known trend. The rates of alcohol and drug use also increase with competition level. Crane describes this as a bonding ritual and form of escapism that’s largely normalized in athletics, even among youth. As a coach, try to be aware of this dynamic by not treating it as something to be ashamed of or punished for. Perhaps this trend is also true of coaches—is there a way in which you resonate with what turning to certain coping mechanisms feels like? Do your best to demonstrate and instill confidence in navigating the inherent uncertainty of performance. In other words, you have the power to alleviate pressure in other ways—for yourself and your athletes.


How do you gently let out some of the air from an over-pumped ball, so that it doesn’t burst or lose all of its air rapidly? You start very small, and redistribute the pressure. Consider and share, with your athletes: Who else is carrying the weight that you think you’re the only one carrying? Or that you think you have to carry alone?


Whether it’s pressure to be the best, make a team, or get a scholarship, hardly ever is the weight of achievement or performance on one person. Spend some time talking to your athletes about situations where they might feel that they are solely responsible for their performance. For example, game performance hinges on hundreds of variables and people, only one of which is any individual athlete. An individual athlete’s performance, therefore, depends on much more than themselves. It depends on their coach as much as it depends on the tires of the car that drive them to the game (without the right pressure distribution, those tires won’t be working very well!). When you redistribute pressure—who is sharing and carrying the weight—it allows athletes to build confidence in their contribution as necessary, but not sufficient alone. They also, then, have an opportunity to build confidence in the contributions others make toward their performance, and vice versa. They will hopefully feel a sense of confidence in their belonging to a whole, rather than confidence in a certitude that they should be able to carry everything on their own.


In the same vein, your athletes may not have other adults in their life modelling mental health this way. This can be hard—there’s no other way to say it. Of course, you can’t become a substitute parent figure, but you can have a role in helping them maintain and see the type of confidence and resilience you’re building for individuals and as a team. You can always welcome them into that ecosystem, and offer it as a safe place. Continue showing them what balancing performance pressure healthily looks like, and hopefully, they’ll feel enough value in your relationship to see and follow what you’re modelling.


At the beginning of this conversation, we spoke about how confidence isn’t something to be achieved once. It’s a way of walking in the world, and on the court. This means it can be shaken. That’s normal, and where confidence is always in conversation with mental resilience. Much of what we’ve discussed in this article also serves as a roadmap for course correcting. When you’re using a maps app for directions and you accidentally make a wrong turn, you may feel frustrated and rattled for a moment, but the app finds another route almost immediately. Confidence can be similar. When the team under performs, everyone may question themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that—it’s a healthy instinct. But there’s another route to not only performing better next time, but feeling grounded in that shift, and confidence is about how quickly you choose to trust and follow it together.