“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
Self-confidence has been described as the most valuable psychological tool. The term is commonly interchanged with self-efficacy and defined here as the belief in one’s ability to succeed. Confidence is instrumental to achieving peak performance and can fluctuate during a game, a season and even a career. In completing my doctoral work, I researched attributes of NHL captains and discovered that a high level of confidence rated as the top characteristic of these high-performing hockey players.
This quality extends to teams as well as individuals. Doc Rivers, former head coach for the Boston Celtics, frequently talked about the value of continually building his team’s confidence. He credited the success of his teams to a collective belief in themselves.
