Self Belief beyond Sport

Self-Belief beyond Sport

By Annette Huygens-Tholen

The most successful athletes have an unwavering belief in their ability to reach the goals they set. This belief may be instilled from their early childhood through encouragement from family and peers, or it may develop as they persist in their sport and see the results that they can achieve. Nothing breeds success like success.

This self-belief does not necessarily naturally transfer to success in other areas of life. An apparent poor track record in other areas of life such as relationships, finance or business can occur both during a sporting career and afterwards. Why can a person be overwhelmingly successful in one area of life and not in another?

It can come down to what an individual believes about what they can and what they cannot do. With success in sport, an athlete may think “I can do this”. They will often even fail but because of this inherent belief, they will bounce back and still think “I can do this”. On the other hand, an athlete or person may think in regard to finance or relationships “I’m not good at this” and then look for all the facts and events that confirm this to be true. Any times that they do it right or well will be considered aberrations and neglected.

“Whether you belief you can, or belief that you can’t, you are probably right”

– Henry Ford -

Beliefs play a big role in who we are, what we do, and the results that we get in life. They act as filters in our mind to what we take in from our experience with the world. Beliefs are basically what we see to be right and they are shaped early in life from our families, from our peers, and our early life experiences.

Athletes can struggle in life on retirement from sport if their belief system does not support creating success in non-sporting endeavors. Often people are not even aware of their beliefs as they may be locked away in their unconscious mind, and yet they influence every action and behaviour. Getting awareness of limiting beliefs in an individual’s mind is the first step towards making changes that can have dramatic impact on results.

To gain awareness you can ask yourself the following questions.

1) Ask yourself what do you believe about life, money, health or relationships; etc or

2) Consider a problem in your life and then ask yourself – What must I believe about this to be having this problem?

A coach can make it easier for you to go through this process to get to deeper core issues, but for the meantime, these two questions will help you gain insight to your beliefs.

The good news is that beliefs can be changed. When a belief is limiting a person from leading a fulfilling life, a change can immediately transform their life and their results. Change may be achieved simply through awareness of the problem, but most often some work may need to be done with a professional to go back to the original source of the belief to enable a fresh look at the situation.

When athletes transfer their positive beliefs about their abilities to everything they do then all they need to do next is decide what it is that they really want to do.

About the Author

Annette Huygens Tholen is a former international beach volleyball player and participated in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. She experienced the difficulties of transition from sport and is now a Master Results Coach and International speaker using her learnings and experience to empower athletes to reproduce emotional and financial success in their life after sport. Annette also teaches seminars for the world's biggest NLP Coaching and Training Organisation -The Christopher Howard Companies. For more information on how to successfully transition after sport, please visit www.annetteffect.com and sign up for the free mini-Ecourse.