It's no secret that a self-confident player performs better on the softball field. In general a self-confident person is far more effective performing any activity. For a young person, however, the task of building rock solid self-confidence can be a challenge and a frustration, particularly when it comes to fastpitch softball.

Softball is a game built on failure and adversity where self-confidence is like the chicken and the egg analogy; what comes first self-confidence or success? Certainly once an athlete possesses a solid foundation of self-confidence while playing the game consistent success is more likely to follow. However, without a track record of success self-confidence can be extremely difficult to attain.

As a coach and softball parent it is most frustrating to see self-confidence come and go in young athletes like a mirage in the desert. In this game success can be fleeting in the face of the inevitable kicks in the stomach the game is guaranteed to administer to your athlete.

So how can your athlete develop and maintain a high level of self-confidence that will act like a shield against the game's adversity and allow her to become a consistent peak performer?

1. Change Her Beliefs: What does she believe about herself and softball? Her beliefs will determine her level of success. Does she believe she is a good hitter or not? Does she believe others are better and more worthy of success than she is? Does she believe she's not fast enough, or strong enough, or quick enough to succeed? If a pitcher does she believe she doesn't throw hard enough to succeed? These limiting beliefs will rear their ugly head after adversity and failure hit, reinforcing her distorted beliefs and leading to more failure.

2. Change Her Perceptions: How does she perceive the game and her  results? Is she effort driven or results driven? Does she judge her  performance harshly? Does she expect to be perfect? Does she spiral downward  emotionally after one mistake? Distorted perceptions of performance  will kill future performance. If she recognizes that adversity is part  of the game and can frame every mistake as a learning opportunity to get  better she will free herself from self-judgment and begin the process of greater building self-confidence.

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