0:17 – Introducing the Confidence Skill Circle
0:40 – How Coach Edwards became a lacrosse goalie.
1:28 – A goalie has to already possess confidence to decide to step in the cage.
2:15 – Once a goalie is confident, they start gaining more skill that leads to more confidence and, ultimately, more skills.
2:40 – Goalies lose their confidence when they get hurt and end up losing skills.
3:32 – Protecting yourself as a goalie is the best way to help regain lost confidence.
Introduction
Hey there, Coach Edwards here with LacrosseGoalieTips.com and LacrosseGoalieUniversity.com and today I want to talk about the confidence skill circle.
The Confidence Skill Circle
What this is, is, I have a little infographic that if you picture at the top of a circle it says “confidence,” and at the bottom of the circle it says “skill,” and there’s an arrow going from confidence to skill, and then an arrow going from skill up to confidence.
Blast From the Past
I want to share with you this story of when I first started playing lacrosse goalie. It was 5th grade. It was a gorgeous spring day, and Mr. Winslow asked, “Hey, who wants to be our goalie?” And I said, “I’ll try that!” It was me and Mike Moyer. Mike Moyer was the other goalie. Mike was one of my best friends, and we said, “Sure, we’ll try.”
Confidence vs Skill
Now, what made me want to pop in the cage? Did I have the confidence to play? Or did I have the skill to play? At the time it was probably a little bit of both. I played enough lacrosse that I just loved the game and I fell in love with the game and I played everywhere. I played defense, I played attack, I played midfield, I faced off, it was natural for me to say, “Well, I’ll pop in the cage too.”
What Came First? The Chicken or the Egg?
I didn’t really have the skill to play, but I had enough confidence to get in the cage. I think a lot of people, this is kind of a chicken and the egg type of question. What came first, the chicken or the egg? No one really knows. So in this case, for a goalie to get in the cage to begin with, they’ve got to have enough confidence to think, “I can give this a shot,” right? But from here, from this point, in order for them to get better, they have to have confidence enough to get in the cage and learn more skills that allow them to stop the level of shot they’re currently seeing, which will then give them more confidence.
Confidence Leads to Skills and Vice Versa
So if they’ve got confidence, they’re going to have the confidence to learn the skills which will make them better, which will give them more confidence to learn more skills, face better shooters, to gain more skills, to gain more confidence. You see where I’m going with this? We’re basically going around the circle over and over again.
Layering Skills and Confidence
Here’s what happens. Goalies will get in the cage and they’ll have enough confidence to get in the cage. And then, at some point, they will get stung with a ball that will now hurt their confidence and now they won’t be able to focus on acquiring skill because they’re worried about pain. And if you’re worried about pain, you’re not gaining confidence and you’re not gaining skill. So the circle, basically, every time we go around the circle we’re adding a layer. We’re adding a layer of confidence, a layer of skill. It’s almost like an onion. An onion as it grows it gets layers and layers, or a tree trunk is a better example. Every ring on that tree trunk, that tree trunk gets bigger. But if we do something that limits the confidence, that ruins the confidence then the skill acquisition goes down and we’re not really improving that goalie.
Increasing Your Confidence
If you’re a goalie and you get in that cage and you’re lacking confidence, the best way to increase your confidence is to make sure you’re protected. That’s rule number one. You want to be in a learning environment where you can focus on skill acquisition, learning more skills so that you gain more confidence. And then round and round we go, adding layers and layers. I hope that makes sense.
Conclusion
Feel free to shoot me an email. CoachEdwards@LacrosseGoalieTips.com. Leave a comment below on the blog post, whatever you’ve got to do. Give me an example of where your confidence has improved or things that you’ve done to improve your confidence and also, you might want to share some experiences where you’ve lost your confidence or something. A lot of times I’ll get emails from parents going, “Oh, you know, my son was doing so well,” or, “My daughter was doing so well until this happened.” Well what was that “until” for you?
Again, Coach Edwards here at LacrosseGoalieTips.com. Thanks again. Stay tuned and we’ll come out with more blog posts for you, more podcasts, more information that will make you a better goalie. This is a labor of love for me and I’m happy to be here to help you with your game. So thanks a bunch. Talk to you soon.
Recent Comments