Confidence is one of the most misunderstood ideas in performance

I’m certain many of you have been glued to the TV watching the Winter Olympics during February. Perhaps you commented on the confidence that the athletes seem to have as they face up to fear-provoking challenges on snow and ice.

Working with Winter Olympic/Paralympic athletes and coaches has taught me many things as I’ve supported them over the years, and there are many lessons for leaders that can be learned, especially around building confidence.

We talk about confidence constantly. Leaders want more of it. Teams look for it. Organisations try to hire it. Yet confidence is one of the most misunderstood ideas in performance.

Most people treat confidence as a feeling. As something that appears when things are going well and disappears when pressure rises.

But the word itself offers an insight into how you can build confidence. The word confidence comes from the Latin ‘confidere’ – meaning “with trust.” And what the derivation draws upon is trust in yourself. Trust in your capabilities. And that definition aligns almost perfectly with what performance psychology, and elite sport, has shown for decades.

What confidence really looks like

As the Paralympic alpine ski team I work with look to compete at the Winter Paralympic Games next week, we have been going back to what has given the athletes confidence.

Picture the scene at the last World Cup races. They want to do well and set themselves up with a good performance. Athletes sit poised at the top of a course they cannot fully see. Conditions change constantly. Snow changes. Light changes. Timing matters. Mistakes are costly.

And then, a crash in training. A big crash. Day before a World Cup race. Confidence could be shattered. But they go again the next day.

If confidence meant feeling calm or certain, nobody would leave the start gate. But they go anyway. Not because doubt disappears, but because they trust their preparation. They have put hundreds of hours of preparation in to get to this moment. And they trust that preparation.

High performance is skilful preparation consistently revealing itself.

Through their preparation these athletes have spent the time reflecting on their capabilities in action. After training and competition, they analyse performance and seek evidence for their skills in action. They consider mistakes and errors, and frame these as learning opportunities to bring to training next time. They anticipate how they would adapt and visualise this so that they feel prepared for uncertainty.

The trust comes from this process. And they do this again and again and again.

Confidence does not mean the absence of uncertainty, or that you never experience doubt or anxious feelings. Confidence means that regardless of these, you have trust in your own personal resources to cope. And this trust is built through your own experiences. So, confidence is not abstract. It is build from specific evidence – if you take the time to reflect on your capabilities in action.

Confidence is built from evidence, not positive thinking

One of the strongest findings in performance psychology comes from Albert Bandura’s work on self-efficacy – your belief in your capability to execute actions required in demanding situations. Self-efficacy grows from evidence.

Consider evidence of your capabilities in action lately:

• solving a difficult problem
• recovering after a making a mistake
• presenting or communicating effectively
• articulating your knowledge in a meeting

Reflections like this is where confidence develops because you are offering your brain real evidence from your experiences.

The effort you put into reflecting on capabilities in action may not seem immediately rewarding, however, when you are next in a similar situation your brain automatically processes whether it thinks you have the resources to meet a challenge. If you haven’t spent the time to give your brain the information, then it immediately activates threat responses. You get anxious, doubt yourself and definitely do not feel confident.

Elite athletes train specifically to build this evidence base. Senior leaders rarely realise they can do exactly the same.

The hidden mechanics of confidence

Across both sport and leadership, confidence tends to emerge from a small number of trainable psychological skills. We have talked about reflection and offering yourself evidence, but there are other evidence-based psychological processes you can train.

1. Attention: trusting where you place your focus

Under pressure, attention naturally drifts toward threat – doubts, reputation, judgement, consequences.

Athletes learn to manage attention in the present moment and to controllable actions: the next movement, the next decision, the next turn. So, they spend less time with doubts, questions, pondering consequences. They still have them, but they have trained to notice these and place attention on what is need in the next unfolding moments.

Confidence grows when attention repeatedly rests on what can be done, not what might go wrong.

2. Decentering: trusting that thoughts are not facts

Even the most experienced and decorated athletes experience thoughts like: “I’m not ready.” – “This could go badly.” – “Everyone is watching.”

The difference is not fewer doubts or negative thoughts. Instead, they have learned to build a different relationship with them.

They learn to notice thoughts without automatically believing or obeying them.

When leaders develop this skill, confidence stops depending on having a quiet mind. Instead, it depends on trusting their capabilities despite the mental noise.

3. Reappraisal: trusting yourself under pressure

Racing heart. Tension. Heightened alertness. Butterflies in your tummy. Sense of agitation. Many interpret these sensations simply as anxiety.

Athletes learn to reinterpret them as readiness or excitedness.  The label you give can have a massive effect, so athletes use this information to say that this just the nervous system preparing for performance.

The physiology doesn’t change. The meaning does. And the meaning you give shapes your performance.

4. Self-response: trusting yourself after mistakes

An overlooked element of confidence is that it grows when people trust in themselves after mistakes. Olympic and Paralympic athletes train how to respond after errors, resetting attention quickly rather than attacking themselves internally.

Harsh self-criticism erodes trust. Constructive response builds it.

Over time, performers stop needing perfect outcomes to feel confident because they trust their ability to adapt.

5. Where courage fits in

If you are not confident, you may need something first – courage.

In my experience working with elite athletes, particularly within Paralympic sport, confidence doesn’t arrive first. Courage does. Confidence is not the starting point. It is the result of repeatedly doing difficult things.

Courage is the willingness to step beyond what feels safe or familiar. To push against personal barriers, uncertainty, and self-doubt. Every time an athlete chooses to lean into challenge rather than retreat from it, they gather evidence:

• I did something hard.
• I handled it.
• I’m more capable than I thought.

That evidence becomes trust. And trust becomes confidence.

So, courage is not a personality trait reserved for only Olympic or Paralympic athletes. It is a behaviour available to anyone willing to take small steps beyond their comfort zone, or what I often call the ‘known zone’, the place where outcomes feel predictable and identity feels protected.

Courage shows up in moments like these:

• speaking when silence feels safer
• making decisions without complete certainty
• having conversations you would rather avoid
• taking responsibility when outcomes are unclear
• stepping forward while doubt is still present

In elite sport, courage appears every time an athlete pushes out of the start gate, not because they feel completely confident, but because they trust that growth lies on the other side of the discomfort they are experiencing.

And something important happens over time. Each courageous action expands what feels possible. What was once uncomfortable becomes familiar. What was once frightening becomes manageable.

Confidence grows not from staying inside comfort zones, but from repeatedly and gently pushing their edges. The same applies in leadership.

Confidence is rarely built in moments of ease. It is built when leaders step into challenge, learn they can respond, and carry that learning forward.

Viewed in this way, courage is the practice. Reflection builds trust in capabilities. Confidence is the outcome.

What executives and leaders can learn from elite sport

Modern leadership environments increasingly resemble performance arenas – uncertainty, scrutiny, complexity, constant evaluation.

The lessons from sport is clear:

• Confidence is not built by eliminating pressure.
• It is built by developing the skills to operate within it.

Mental skills training, long embedded in elite sport, can help leaders develop confidence. And with confidence, comes effective performance, particularly when under pressure.

Over time, confidence becomes less about a ‘feeling’ and something more grounded in capability.

A final reflection

The athlete in the picture had a huge fall in training before a World Cup competition. He was sore, upset, frustrated – and then his mental training kicked in.

• ‘I’ve made a mistake, and that happens sometimes.’
• ‘Tomorrow is another day and I know I can put my skills out there.’
• ‘I’ve prepared well and know I have these skills (says what they are).’

He went out the next day and placed 10^th best in the World.