Confidence Comes From Surviving Doing The Scary Thing - Coach Tip Tuesday

Whether it’s at a race, a group workout, or as we drive past them on a solo workout, we’ve all seen those athletes: The ones who don’t seem to get anxious, who make their sport look “easy” and almost effortless, and who exude self-confidence.  Where does this come from?  Is this a trait that only certain humans - and therefore athletes - are born with?  Or does this kind of confidence come from somewhere else?

Where Does Confidence Come From?

Yes, it’s true that confidence does come more easily to some athletes than others.  But over the course of my personal athletic journey, I have learned that it’s not true that some athletes have confidence while other athletes simply do not.  I’ve learned and observed that confidence comes from surviving doing the scary thing.  As a coach who has worked with and observed hundreds of athletes over the years, I am now even more convinced that this is true.  

We are not born with a set and finite amount of confidence.  Even if we are not born with heaps of it, confidence is absolutely something that we can cultivate, nurture, and grow.  Rather than being finite, one could say that our capacity to develop confidence is infinite.  As always, experience is the greatest teacher.  Attempting hard and/or scary things and then surviving them is one of the greatest catalysts for confidence, as that experience of facing something scary and then coming out of the other side is extremely empowering.

We will never know for sure if we can do something until we try it and see what happens.  So, so many people want to know in advance how things will go, how things will play out, and what the end result will be.  (If you want evidence of this, look no further than compulsive weather checkers who check forecasts long before they will ever actually be accurate.)  But life is not a sure-fire thing.  We never actually know what is going to happen in the future.  Yes, we can make reasonable - and perhaps even accurate! - predictions based on our experience and knowledge.  But if we’re being honest with ourselves, we never actually know how something will go until we give it a go and let the experience play out.  A lot of people are not honest with themselves about this because admitting this truth (especially out loud) is both uncomfortable and uncertain.  Yet, if we want to grow as athletes (and humans!) and/or achieve our goals, we have to work through and live through the discomfort of that uncertainty.  As I’ve said before: There is no shortcut to attain the wisdom that is gained through actual experience.

In both life and endurance sports, it’s not unusual to face something scary or intimidating.  In fact, in endurance sports, it’s not uncommon for athletes to choose a particular race type or goal precisely because it is intimidating or scary to them.  At least on some level, even the most risk-averse among us are curious about how we’ll fare if we face the Discomfort Dragon and take on something scary or intimidating.  To paraphrase a quote from President Theodore Roosevelt, we are curious to see what it’s like to be in the arena and to dare greatly.

What is Scary for Endurance Athletes?

What is scary for endurance athletes is extremely personal and individualized; what is scary to one athlete may very well not be scary at all to a different athlete.  That being said, each and every endurance athlete does have something that they’re at least intimidated by in endurance sports, if not outright scared by.  Here are some examples of things that either I’ve been personally scared by or that athletes who I’ve coached have been scared by (this is by no means a comprehensive or all-inclusive list of what people can be intimidated by):

• Running a marathon
• Doing a triathlon
• Riding a road bike
• Doing an IRONMAN
• Riding a mountain bike
• Saying their goal out loud and/or writing it down
• Traveling to a race
• Doing a group workout
• Training and/or racing with high-level athletes
• Racing on the national or world stage (aka at National Championship or World Championship)
• Calling themselves an athlete

When facing something scary, it’s important to acknowledge that it is, in fact, scaring us.  That we are, in fact intimidating us.  As paradoxical as it may sound, saying out loud that something is scary reduces its power and therefore can reduce just how scary it actually seems.  So if you are scared of doing a particular thing - for example, doing a triathlon - say it out loud.  “I am scared of doing a triathlon.”  Say that, and say what is also likely on your mind: “I am scared of doing a triathlon, and I’m curious to see if I can do one.”

There is always a possibility that things won’t go our way or that we might even fail.  But here’s the good news: Every experience - whether it’s a failure or a success - teaches us something (potentially a lot of things).  And if we do something scary and survive to tell the tale (and remember: statistically speaking, whether we succeed or whether we fail, we do survive the scary things we confront in our lives), our self-confidence grows.  In my opinion, the possibility of that reward of confidence is worth the risk of failure and it’s worth that experience of discomfort. 

Discomfort is, well, uncomfortable.  Some levels of discomfort might make us feel physically sick.  (Believe me, I know.)  I know that and I also know that that sensation of discomfort - no matter how nausea-inducing it may be - pales in comparison to how good hard-won confidence feels.  Both of these things can be - and are! - simultaneously true.  That sensation of knowing that we knew something was scary, that we faced it and attempted it anyway, and then we came out on the other side of it still intact is something that cannot be adequately or succinctly put into words.  

Confidence is Intangible, But Not Non-Existent

But just because it can’t be put into words well doesn’t mean we can’t see it or feel it.  As I’ve often said, some of the most meaningful and significant things in endurance sports (and in life!) cannot be measured tangibly.  This intangible is that confidence we can see in other athletes at races.  We can feel it exuding from some athletes in group workouts.  We can’t quantify it or wrap it up with a bow, but we know it’s there, all the same.  Each and every athlete deserves an opportunity to experience how empowering and positive that kind of confidence feels.

Confidence like that is something that each of us should desire for ourselves.  It is something that makes the process of setting, training for, and attempting goals that much more fulfilling and enjoyable.  Confidence like this can also inspire us to aim higher than we previously thought possible; once we see it’s possible for us to do one particular thing, other things may not seem quite as far-fetched as they once did.  A great historical example of this is how no one ran a mile under four minutes until Sir Roger Bannister did in 1954.  Seeing that breaking this barrier was possible, within 46 days, someone else ran a mile in less than four minutes, too.

I know I personally experienced this phenomenon (on a much smaller scale, of course) back when I was first getting into endurance sports.  I went to Fleet Feet Syracuse to purchase a heart rate monitor (times have changed; back then, just a heart rate monitor was $500!), and saw a boxy-looking watch in the case.  When I asked what that watch was, the staff member told me that it was for athletes who do triathlons.  

“What’s a triathlon?” I asked.  

“It’s a thing where you swim, you bike, and you run,” they replied.  

“Swim, bike, and run all in the same thing?” I interrupted incredulously.  

“Yes,” they answered.

“That’s nuts and I’ll never do that,” I vowed.

Famous last words.  Six months later, I crossed the finish line of the Cazenovia Triathlon.  Four years later, I ran a marathon on the Great Wall of China.  Six and half years later, I crossed the finish line of IRONMAN Louisville.  Once I saw that I could finish a sprint triathlon, I started considering what else might be possible.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  I began to experience what you could call a “confidence snowball”, where I kept facing something that seemed intimidating or scary, trying it, and seeing how it went.  When I realized that I would, in fact, survive the things that scared me or seemed impossible (whether I failed or I succeeded), that realization was a powerful feeling that helped me grow into a much more confident person (not just a more confident athlete!) than I had been before I became an endurance athlete.  

I’ve seen the same phenomenon happen for so many of the athletes who I’ve coached over the years.  If I’m being honest, watching this unfold for those athletes who I’ve coached has been the main thing that has kept me loving my job and wanting to continue to work with athletes.  I want each and every athlete to experience what it’s like to confront something scary, to dare greatly, and to see that they can succeed.

‍The Bottom Line

There will always be something that we are either scared of or intimidated by - both in life and in endurance sports.  Knowing that confidence and empowerment are possibilities that lie on the other side of scary and intimidating things can help us be brave and draw up the courage to face them.  Surviving doing scary things is what breeds confidence.  So take a deep breath, acknowledge the scary thing, and face it head-on.