Self-confidence is every lifter’s best friend and just as with friendship, you have to maintain your confidence all the time. You are of course aware that one moment you can be full of confidence and optimism, and a minute later, your self-confidence is blown away. What you're easily able to pull during training suddenly don’t work at all in a competition. A mistake often leads to another mistake and you find yourself performing at a level where you were several years ago.
Confidence is the key to performing well.
But if confidence fails me during the competition - what do I do?
Unfortunately there is no magic spell to take in such situations, but there are some things you can do to increase your confidence in an emergency situation. Try them next time, it could be the difference between winning and losing.
Here are five tips to quickly get back your confidence during competition.
1st) Go back to basics.
Most of the times when we perform worse than we are accustomed to, we have forsaken the basic technique, the one we have used for years and really mastered. In a situation with high pressure we have instead begun to complicate the technique and let go of what we usually do to try to “fix things”. You should probably never try anything for the first time in a competition. Visualize a successful performance and take some extra time to gather yourself before it's time for the contest.
2nd) Don’t think too much about the result.
Sometimes when we are performing well, we start thinking about the results of our performance. We are too obsessed by performing as good or better in every lift, and compare ourselves to other peoples results rather than our own. When we’re going to do the same thing again it may not be as good, and that is when the negative thoughts start coming. Then we must remind ourselves that failure is a natural part of our sport and it is a motivation to try harder next time. Forget the result, concentrate on the actual execution. Just do it!
3rd) Forget the past – Start fresh
Put your energy into what you can influence. You can’t do anything about a bad start. Whatever it is, you have let the past setbacks affect your performance and your confidence. What has happened has happened and no matter how much you want to change it, you can’t rewind the tape and do it again. It’s easy to start dwelling on failures, you lose focus and energy, and your day is ruined. Try again and make it better.
4th) Stay in the present
This is also a "classic" mistake. Everything is going great, you are focused and relaxed, but in your mind you are already doing your next pull. You already beginning to think about what is going to happen next and how well you are going to perform in the event AFTER this. Suddenly you have lost your, and it’s easy to be doing unnecessary mistakes.
5th) Be careful with your expectations.
It is important to have high expectations, but being too confident and cocky can make you lose your focus and (subconsciously) abandon the winning game, the simple and basic stuff that brought you to where you are today. You start thinking too much and make things much harder for yourself than they need to be. Do not expect
perfect every time, it is not realistic.
However, you should have very high expectations of your own attitude - every time
By:
Isa Olsson
Content originally written for Fitmarker.com -- © 2011 All Rights Reserved. Images copyright of their respective owners. 
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