The power of confidence: they can because they think they can
I played basketball during my teens. I consider it to be one of the greatest influences on my life.
I picked the interested in basketball at around 11 years old. I was a small kid, who was insecure about his height — I was the smallest kid in the class and, genetically speaking, I would probably always be a small guy.
I think I never said this to anyone, and actually maybe never thought about it since, but this lack of confidence about my height was the reason I became interested in basketball. I found a game played by big fellows, and I wanted to prove myself that I was as capable as them. I wanted to prove myself that my height wasn’t a limitation.
During my basketball years I worked harder than I ever had for anything so far in my life. I’m not saying it to brag, because there were other players working as hard and harder than me, but I honestly did. I used most of my free time to play basketball — every school break, every day after school, every practice, every weekend… be it hot or cold, be it with companion or alone.
During my basketball years my place in the team varied. I remember to, specially in the first years, being part of the starting five in the majority of the games. But later in time that started changing. In part that happened because I had the pleasure to play in better teams, but I also believe that my skills didn’t evolve as they should have.
Despite this, I surely kept working hard. I was in love with the game and the competition and, was I part of the starting five or not, I was seeing good results results of my effort.
During a few of those years (intermittently) I had a coach that taught me a lot about basketball. I can actually say that it was with him that I learned my greatest basketball skills, and was him who passed me the love for defence — one of my personal marks. He was the most demanding basketball coach I ever had, and the person with most love for the game that I ever met.
He was very demanding in every situation — be it during practice or during the game. And, as good as this can sound in principle, it actually backlashed for some people during the games. That was my case.
We weren’t allowed to make practically any error. If during the first minutes in court I made a bad pass which resulted in a turnover, I was very probably coming to the bench. Unless I quickly made a great point, pass, or other move that could compensate my previous error. He sometimes told me that I was starting the games already with a negative balance, so I had to first turn it positive before I had any opportunity to fail.
This affected my confidence in the game. More specifically, I became too afraid to fail, and very conservative of every move I made in court.
This stayed with me for a while.
During my last basketball year, for political reasons (read money), the basketball team I was part of had to terminate. So a few of us moved to the team from the closest city.
This new team we moved to had some really great players already, with a few of them playing in the national team. It was a good team indeed, and I wasn’t expecting to win a better place in it than I had in the previous latest years. I mean, I was going to surely try my best, but I had to be realistic of my expectations.
A new season started — a pre-season to be more precise. This is the time when you are demanded to get in shape very quickly — your muscles will make sure to tell you that — and the coach’s time to evaluate and pick the players for the first games of the starting season.
Things were going okay for me. I was fitting well in the team and, at least in physical terms, I was in a good shape.
But one day, during one of the pre-season practices, the new coach suddenly blew his whistle. He stopped the practice and gestured to signal us to come to him.
We could see in his face that he wasn’t happy. But we didn’t knew why — we where just making normal 1-on-1 exercises, so there wasn’t nothing particularly hard we could be doing wrong, we thought.
He started by asking us what the hell we were doing there. Then continued by telling that he was surprised with our lack of confidence in what we were doing, and consequently our performance in the court.
Then, he looked straight into our eyes and said:
“Most of you have been playing basketball for years now. You have been playing basketball for 4, 5 and some even 10 years. If you don’t know to play basketball, then what the hell do you know to do?! You surely know how to play basketball, so assume yourself! You know to play basketball. So play it as you knew what you were doing!”
These words striked me immediately, in a very good way.
The moment I realised that I must have to be a good basketball player, my attitude, and thus performance in court, improved considerably.
I didn’t become a superstar (sorry about that) but, as a team, we achieved some great victories that culminated in a great season — probably the best basketball season I’ve had, to which I can say to have made an important contribute.
But it didn’t stop there — this thought has stayed with me for the following years of my life, and I know it influenced who I am today and what I am doing now.
I know there were things I would not have done if I didn’t realize I had enough experience to be capable of doing it. I would have not achieve certain accomplishments if I didn’t realize that there were other people with my level of experience that have also done it, and fantastically well.
Confidence has a tremendous impact in what we do and who we are. When we believe in what we’re capable of, — as long as we maintain our twist of humbleness — we achieve things we weren’t otherwise.
Virgil, a Roman poet, once wrote:
Success encorajes them: They can because they think they can.
And he was absolutely right.
I’m Daniel, from Whitesmith. I started blogging on Medium recently, but have many other posts (including about how to build confidence) on my website. If you would like to receive more stories like these, feel free to subscribe to the newsletter in the button bellow.
