WHAT’ S WRONG WITH BEING CONFIDENT( OR NOT): Q & A WITH A SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY CONSULTANT
LIFESTYLE
WHAT’ S WRONG WITH BEING CONFIDENT( OR NOT): Q & A WITH A SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY CONSULTANT
By Kristin Zielmanski Zielmanski Law LLC kristin @ zielmanski. com
I
recently had the pleasure of meeting a sport psychology consultant, Abby Keenan, co-owner of Intrepid Performance Consulting. Since 2011, Abby has been working with middle school, high school, collegiate, and professional athletes, helping them to improve their performance on the field and in their courses. Before starting her own company, Abby worked as a Cognitive Performance Coach at Fort Bragg, where she trained Army Special Operations Soldiers on cognitive enhancement techniques to increase their ability to endure, evolve, and excel during their courses, as well as enable them to become effective operational soldiers.
As Abby described some of the issues that her athleteclients commonly experience, it occurred to me that her expertise and strategies could also be helpful for lawyers. After all, the majority of lawyers I meet describe themselves as being“ very competitive”, which makes perfect sense. As they made their way through high school, college, and then law school, lawyers were often the overachievers: the honors students who were involved in multiple extracurricular activities and sports, and who ultimately chose to pursue a career requiring them to compete within an adversarial system. Having chosen to practice law, lawyers are involved in arguing and negotiating, as well as winning and losing, on a daily basis. This undoubtedly contributes to the unfortunate statistics about lawyers suffering from depression and addiction, and high rates of suicide. Given this, one could conclude that a little more focus on the psychology of lawyers would be helpful.
With this in mind, I recently sat down with Abby for a Q & A to see if she had any helpful insight from working with her athlete-clients that could apply to those of us in this profession:
KZ: What is one of the biggest issues you commonly see among the athletes you work with? AK: One of the issues I often see in working with clients is confidence – either a lack thereof, or issues with being overly confident.
KZ: What problems arise when someone lacks confidence? AK: When someone lacks confidence, you often notice this due to his or her poor body language, negative or degrading self-talk( what you say to yourself), and in general, decreased performance. Over time, if confidence is not built, you will also typically see a loss of motivation.
KZ: What is the problem with being overly confident? AK: When people have too much confidence, there can also be negative effects. With a tremendous belief in their abilities, they may put less effort into their continued development or implementing changes based on feedback. When they do make a mistake or experience failure, they also tend to place the blame on external sources rather than evaluating what they did wrong and how to fix it. As you can imagine, this can impact their relationships with teammates( or co-workers) as well.
KZ: Where does confidence come from, or how does one get it? AK: Great question, because a lot of people believe confidence is something either you have or you don’ t. The truth is, it is a skill that can be built over time by leveraging four( 4) sources of confidence: 1. Past experience. This is based on your own personal experience, including success and failure. Ideally,
32 June / July 2016