How to Conquer Self-Doubt

By Daniel Ferguson

What is self-doubt? Self-doubt is about having a lack of confidence in your own abilities. It's thoughts that manifest and develop within your mind telling you you aren't good enough and that you aren't capable of doing something, in sports terms, this could be not feeling good enough to take a corner in football. This creates a lower sense of self-efficacy, which is a person's belief in themselves when it comes to performing a particular skill or action. A person with a high self-efficacy has stronger beliefs in their capabilities of doing it, however, a person with a lower self-efficacy will have weaker beliefs; more self-doubt.

Moment taken from the 2005 ashes tour

Let's say you're a cricketer. It's mid season, you started off the season fabulously, hitting 4s and 6s at a strong rate. But, your figures are dropping and those 4s and 6s aren't as consistent as they were previously. You've had a few poor innings now and your confidence is seemingly getting lower and lower. Your head is consumed with self-doubt: "I'm no longer good enough," "what's happening to me," "I can't bat anymore." What can you do?

Focusing on cricket, self-doubt has been present in many cricketer's minds. Mark Wood stated he doesn't know a single cricketer who doesn't have any self-doubt. Taken from an article from cricket.com, Mark said, "you have doubts every game you play for England." He sees the nerves before a game as excitement, as energy he can use positively. John Drury wrote an article about overcoming self-doubt and having played cricket himself, he states he experienced self-doubt after a bowler clean bowled him, this made him start thinking it could be his last season playing cricket. Adam Gilchrist (ex-cricketer from Australia) spoke on his time during the 2005 Ashes tour where he felt he was, "absolutely being strangled by self-doubt." Self-doubt is very normal.

How can we conquer self-doubt?

A vital way to crush self-doubt is to learn to recognise the negative thought and then counter it with a more positive state of mind. This is learning to rationalise your thoughts, make more sense of the negative self-doubt and reframe your thinking to boost self-esteem. Here's a way you can do this (idea used from Peak Performance Sports):

grab a pen and some paper, then write down the negative thoughts and doubts you had from a recent performance
now go through each one and change the thought to something more positive, a great way to do this, is think, what would the most positive teammate or coach say?
after this, you will see how you can recognise your negative thoughts and flip them into positive ones
in your next performance, when a negative though appears in your head, give this a go, but in real time

To add to this, when creating your positive thoughts, practice self-compassion. Self-compassion is being kind to yourself. For example, you're batting in cricket, a negative thought appears, "I'm going to mess this bat up," recognise this thought, and tell yourself, "this bowl may be strong, but I believe in myself to hit the ball as well as I can." Apply this to life in general too: be kind to yourself, and others.

Another way to conquer self-doubt, which can be used in the technique above is, always doubt your doubts. Why should you doubt yourself? You don't always need to take the negative thoughts in your mind seriously. Doubt those doubts. Believe in yourself. Doubts often fade too, let them breathe and give it some time.

Finally, use your support network. Have good support. By this I mean speak to those who you trust, a lot of your fellow teammates will be experiencing the same kinds of thoughts. Speak to your parents and your coaches too. By speaking about your self-doubt it will help crush the negative thoughts even more and having people to speak to, who care and are helpful, will create a good support network for yourself as an athlete. By talking, you can discover who those people are.

Conquering Self-Doubt

As athletes and people in general we have many thoughts pass through our minds. These thoughts can be very overwhelming. Our mind will tell us things that may not even be true, but makes us feel as though they are. Conquer your mind and crush those negative thoughts. Don't avoid or suppress them, recognise them and counter them with positive thoughts and affirmations.