“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” ― Archilochus
The effect confidence has on how things turn out is hard to overestimate. It affects how you talk, how you act, how you come across. And these in turn affect the outcomes in your life. If you believe in yourself, odds are you’re going to perform at a higher level than if you don’t. Similarly, if you expect to lose, or to do poorly, that too can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So having confidence, along with high expectations of how things will turn out, can be a good thing. But, they can only take you so far. You might expect to win your match, but if you haven’t trained in the offseason, expectation alone won’t get you the victory. Being confident may help you to perform at your “best,” but if you haven’t prepared, your “best” may still not be very good.
The danger is when expectations and confidence are divorced from the amount of preparation that’s been done — we think we just need to have more “confidence” or to think bigger, but also fail to invest diligently into our preparation. Having a positive, confident, outlook may allow us to perform “inspired” for a moment, but if the skills haven’t been built to sustain this level of performance, it will be short-lived.
On the other hand, if you know you’ve trained hard and prepared throughly, your confidence will naturally rise. You’re expectations will go up, but they’ll be grounded in the very thing that will help you succeed.
Which means, if you have a performance goal, you also need to determine what kind of preparation will be involved to get there. Whether it be in athletics, school, business, relationships, or any other area of life, confidence in itself is not enough. Having a lofty goal, and believing in the outcome, may inspire you to get moving (or not quit), but it’s practice and preparation that will actually move you closer to where you want to be.