What separates a Chris McCormack or Barb Lindquist from other less successful professionals? Do they have superior physical capabilities? Perhaps. But what is noticeably different about them and other top triathletes is their unwavering belief in their ability to succeed. In fact, confidence is the single most important mental contributor to triathlon success. Whether you are a pro, a committed age grouper, or a first-time triathlete, in addition to building the fitness to be successful, you want to develop a strong and resilient confidence in yourself to give your best effort, perform at your highest level consistently, and achieve your goals.
Confidence Either Hurts or Helps
Confidence is so important because it influences your training and competitive efforts in two ways. First, you may have the physical ability and fitness to, for example, break three hours in an Olympic distance race, but if you don’t have confidence in that ability, you won’t use your ability to its fullest extent. Second, confidence affects every other mental factor. If you lack confidence, you will have a lot of negative self-talk, saying things like, “My bike is so weak” or “I know I’m going to bonk on the run.” You will feel nervous before races because you won’t believe you can be successful. All of that anxiety hurts your confidence even more because you feel physically uncomfortable and there’s no way you can race well when you’re so uptight. The negative self-talk and anxiety cause negative emotions, such as frustration and despair, all of which hurt your confidence more and cause you to perform even worse.
The negative self-talk, anxiety, and emotions hurt your focus. You can’t help but focus on all of the negative things rather than on things that will enable you to do your best. All of this accumulated negativity then hurts your motivation. As bad as you feel, the last thing you want to do is train or race. The bottom line is that if you lack confidence, think negatively, feel nervous, frustrated, and can’t focus, you’re not going to have much fun and you’re not going to achieve your goals.
In contrast, high confidence positively influences all of the other mental factors. Your self-talk is positive: “I’m going to give my best effort” or “I’m going to have a great race today.” Instead of being your worst enemy, you are your best ally. Your confidence and the positive self-talk get you feeling relaxed and energized. You have a lot of positive emotions like joy and excitement. You focus on things you need to perform your best. All of the positive thoughts and feelings motivate you to work hard and achieve your goals. If you’re thinking positively, feeling relaxed and energized, experiencing joy and excitement, and are focused on doing your best, you’re going to have a lot of fun and you’re going to be successful.
The Chicken or the Egg?
A question I’m often asked is, “Do you become confident by succeeding or do you succeed from being confident?” I believe that triathlon success comes from confidence. You don’t just go from 0% confidence to 100% confidence in one big step. Rather, it’s a building process, just like your fitness, in which confidence leads to success which reinforces the confidence which, in turn, leads to more success. For example, you may only have, say, 40% confidence in his ability to complete a half-Ironman that is 12 weeks away. By training hard and working on your triathlon skills, you confidence goes up to 60%. With your confidence you’re going to have greater focus and intensity in your training, which results in improved fitness. Your hard work and progress raise your confidence to 80%. Your improved preparation and greater confidence results in better endurance and speed in your training. Your increasing stamina and speed lifts your confidence to near 100% as the race nears, enabling you to go to the start confident that you will achieve your goals.
Confidence-Building Strategies
Confidence is a skill, much like physical skills, that can be learned. Just like with any type of skill, confidence is developed through practice and experience. If you don’t believe in yourself as a triathlete, you must take steps to build your confidence. The strategies described below will help you to steadily build your confidence as you approach a big race.
Preparation breeds confidence. Preparation is the foundation of confidence. If you believe that you have done everything you can to perform your best—put in the hours swimming, riding, and running—you will have confidence in your ability to achieve your goals. This preparation includes the physical, technical, tactical, and mental parts of triathlon. If you have developed these areas as fully as you can, when you get to the start line, you will have faith that you will be able to use your preparation to have your best race possible.
Mental skills reinforce confidence. Confidence is a skill that develops with practice. A meaningful way to strengthen your confidence is to use mental skills increase your belief in your ability to handle anything a triathlon can throw at you. These mental skills include goal setting to bolster motivation, intensity control to stay relaxed, keywords to maintain focus and avoid distractions, emotional control to stay calm when things aren’t going well, and pain control to combat discomfort at the end of a race.
Adversity ingrains confidence. One of the most demanding aspects of triathlon is the many types of adversity that you confront in races—cold water, surf, bumping against others in the swim, hills, headwinds, and flat tires on the bike, and sore legs, blisters, and fatigue on the run. Your biggest challenge is to maintain your confidence when you’re faced with adversity. To more deeply ingrain confidence in your ability, you should expose yourself to as much adversity as possible in training. Instead of avoiding swimming in cold water, riding when it’s windy, or running in the rain, you should seek out these opportunities, so when you get to the race and you have these conditions, you can say, “Been there, done that, no big deal.”
Support from others. Whether you belong to a triathlon club like the Golden Gate Triathlon Club, a formal training group, such as Team Sheeper, or you just train with friends, the social aspects of triathlon is one of its joys. It is also an important contributor to confidence. Training with triathletes who are positive and motivated is contagious. When other triathletes show confidence in you, you’re reminded of the progress you are making, it helps you through difficult times, and it reinforces your own growing confidence in yourself.
Success validates confidence. When most triathletes think about success, they think about having great races and reaching their competitive goals. But success starts in training. Every day you swim, ride, or run, you’re scoring little victories. With each of these small “wins,” your confidence steadily increases until you have the confidence to achieve a big “win.” After every training session, be sure to acknowledge the small victory—give yourself a pat on the back for your effort and remind yourself of the goal you are working toward—let them accumulate.
All of the previous steps in building confidence would go for naught if you did not then have a good race and achieve your triathlon goals. Success validates the confidence you’ve developed in your ability and fitness and shows that your belief is well-founded. These big “victories” further strengthen your confidence, making it more resilient to the frequent challenges you face in training and races. Finally, success rewards your efforts, encouraging you to continue to work hard and strive toward your triathlon goals.
Mind Over Body
All of your efforts to build your confidence are put to the test late in triathlons. At some point, your body begins to rebel, communicating to your mind, “I get the point! We can stop now.” You may think there is simply nothing left. Your mind and body will get into a battle over who’s in charge. If your body wins out, your mind will use negative self-talk as a weapon against your triathlon aspirations. If you say things like, “I can’t do this. It’s over,” your race is over; you will slow down or stop, and you will not achieve your goals.
But there is always something left (short of a Julie Moss experience)! The only chance you have to tap into that final reserve of energy is for your mind to win the battle over your body. Then you can use positive self-talk as a tool against fatigue and pain. If you can say, “Keep at it. This is what I’ve worked so hard for. I will not give up,” then your body will listen—however reluctantly—and you will cross the finish not only having succeeded against the course and the clock, but also having claimed victory over your greatest challenge—YOU—and there is no greater joy than that!
