I have short mental game tip for you today, which after confidence is the most important mental skill you (or your athletes) must master…
If you are unfamiliar with football, Tim Tebow is a first year NFL quarterback for the Denver Broncos. Even if you don’t know football, stay with me here…
To make a long story short, the Broncos, with Tebow at QB beat the Pittsburgh Stealers in a NFL playoff game yesterday.
Here’s the good part…
John Elway, who is now the Broncos Team President, noticed that Tebow was playing too tentatively in the previous three games (Elway was a great quarterback himself).
“That’s human nature, especially when you’re young, to become more cautious,” Elway recently told the Denver Post.
A lot of media attention was given to Elway’s comment to Tebow the week before the playoff game. Elway said: “pull the trigger.”Elway thought that Tebow shouldn’t be so hesitant when he passes.
He must be more decisive.
And Tim Tebow agreed with his mentor John Elway.
“I think that’s definitely true — especially the more you get into tighter games, playoff games, you have to be aggressive.”
“You also have to be smart but be aggressive and pull the trigger at times. It’s something that we’ll have to do,” Tebow said leading up to the game.
Tebow confidently pulled the trigger on a few key plays including the winning score, an 80-yard touchdown pass on the very first play in overtime.
And the Denver Broncos beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 29-23 in Tebow’s first NFL playoff game. It was an exciting game.
The real mental game lesson here…
When you perform cautiously, in fear of making mistakes, you hesitate for a split second and it’s too late.
The bottom line, you can’t trust your skills when you’re trying to protect from making mistakes.
This notion applies to ANY sport or athlete!
Two skills that must precede trust: (1) confidence and (2) decisiveness. When you have full confidence in your skills and are decisive (pull the trigger), you (or your athletes) can have greater trust.
The next time you hesitate when you have the open shot or open teammate…
Tell yourself to pull the trigger. Be decisive, trust in your skills, and have faith in your decisions.
Your Mental Game Coach,
Dr. Patrick Cohn
p.s. The Fearless Athlete CD and workbook program was designed to help boost trust in your skills:
Read More About The Fearless Athlete to Improve Your Mental Game
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Let me help you put a stop to the confidence leak. You can learn to have greater levels of confidence in competition than you do in practice by identifying the specific ways you undermine your own confidence and how to convert your practice confidence into COMPETITIVE CONFIDENCE.
“The Confident Athlete” is a ground-breaking system to teach you how to think like a champion and have ultimate self-confidence every time you step on the playing field, court, track, or course. The confident athletes was developed for any athlete – junior to professional –that wants to gain confidence. However, coaches and sports parents can learn how to teach others to perform with ultimate confidence. Use my program if you want to bust a slump or just wanting higher or more consistent levels of self-confidence.