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Building Confidence for Competition
This tip comes from sports psychology consultant
Dr. Alan Goldberg. Goldberg offers some advice on
building confidence for competition.
Goldberg’s Tip:
Swim practice is naturally a pretty relaxed place
that allows swimmers an opportunity to get comfortable
with themselves learning and working on new technique.
However, if you’re not used to competition,
those early meets can be very intimidating and confidence-shaking.
Now the swimmer has to deal with competitive pressures
and has to worry about her time.
On top of this, it’s very easy to get distracted
by what all the other racers are doing and how fast
they are going. The best way to handle this with your
daughter is to first “normalize” the nervousness
that always comes with these meets.
Let your swimmer know that she’s supposed to
feel nervous, that some of this nervousness is actually
excitement and that with enough meet experience, it
will actually help her swim faster.
The best way to address the confidence issue is to
encourage your daughter to focus on and compete against
herself when she races.
It’s very easy for swimmers of all levels to
get intimidated and lose their confidence when they
spend too much mental energy concentrating on their
opponents. Instead, you want to encourage her to focus
on her race and her race only. Avoiding comparisons
and “staying in your own lane” will always
help the swimmer feel better about herself.
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