The biggest issue when it comes to the mental side of the game with female hockey players is confidence. It doesn’t matter if they are the best one on the ice or the worst, almost every single player I’ve worked over the past 20+ years struggles with confidence issues.

I have to admit, confidence was not something I lacked as a young athlete. Which is quite ironic given the fact that I wasn’t a very good player at all. I suppose credit must be given to my parents, teachers and coaches for some of that. But I truly believe that confidence is something that comes from inside of you, not something that someone else can bestow upon you. If I could just put confidence into a little box and give it to every player I meet, I would. But that’s not how building confidence works.

Players often tell me that their coaches don’t give them confidence. I think that’s an unfair statement to make. Your coaches may act in a way that makes you think that they are less than completely confident in you, but that doesn’t automatically take away your confidence.

You must make a conscious decision to either have confidence or not – it is NOT a passive process at all.

I’m reminded of the Eleanor Roosevelt quote, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. The world of girls’ hockey has its fair share of people who are plagued by jealousy and will do and say anything to tear other people down in order to make themselves feel better about themselves. I believe this is one of the ugliest character traits human beings can have – but the truth is, it only really affects you if you choose to let it bother you. Just because someone says something mean to you, it doesn’t mean that you have to believe them. If you choose to let people take your confidence away from you, there will be mean spirited people lurking in every corner eager to snatch your self-esteem away. But you have to actively let that happen.

Similarly, there are plenty of players out there who are given compliments and told how well they are doing, and they choose to doubt the person giving them that feedback. I will continually be frustrated by young players who are simply unable to take a compliment. The truth is I believe players are scared to take compliments. They are worried about looking “full of themselves”. This is even more true for young female athletes who are constantly worried about how they are being judged by their teammates. If they are being given compliments, and are accepting them, are they being stuck up? Does it mean that they think they are better than everyone else? Is it better just to dismiss the compliments instead and make some sort of self-depricating remark instead? Amongst the hundreds of players I work with every season, I would estimate that less than 15% of the players have a decent level of self-confidence and less than 5% of them are openly confident players who will take a compliment without worrying about how they are being judged.

I have to admit, I was one of those 5% of players. I’m not entirely sure where my level of self-confidence came from, but I had it very early on in my hockey career. Given my lack of experience and ability, it certainly wasn’t due to the copious amount of compliments I was getting because of my spectacular performances.

So where did that confidence come from? If your coaches, parents and teammates can’t really give you confidence, how exactly do you build confidence?

It has to come from within you.

It comes from setting goals for yourself and meeting them. When you achieve the goals you set for yourself on a consistent basis, your confidence grows. And as your confidence grows, you are able to set more challenging goals. And once you achieve those, you confidence grows further and you reach for even more lofty goals.

Confidence comes from goal getting. Goal setting is something that many people do – whether for their school work, jobs or life in general. But we don’t do a very good job of goal getting. Goal setting gives us focus, but it is goal getting that gives us confidence.

I set small meaningful goals for myself every time I hit the ice as a young athlete. Truth is, I did it whether I was at soccer practice, on the basketball court or playing hockey. I’m pretty sure it was something I started to do naturally, and then as I got older and started to read books on the mental side of athletic performance, I realized that I was on the right track in terms of goal setting and getting already. And once I knew that I was ahead of the game, I continued to make this daily goal setting, and dogged determination to get those goals, a main staple of my personal performance plan.

I know it sounds cheesy. I do seminars with young athletes all the time and teach them about the importance of goal setting and getting, and most tune me out. After all, they’ve heard about goal setting before and they either tried it and didn’t stick with it, or never even gave it a shot. But the ones who take the message to heart, and stick with the process (even when it doesn’t seem to moving in the right direction) are the ones who get ahead. There’s a reason that there are so many books out there about goal setting – it’s because it works. It’s just that most people aren’t determined enough to see it through. If they hit a setback or don’t achieve their goals for a few consecutive days or weeks, they give up. Goal achievement is the key to building confidence in all areas of life – and it is those who buy in wholeheartedly that achieve amazing things that most people consider to be “amazing”.