No chance.
How many times have you heard this retort, when you brought up something you thought would happen? And how many times have those doubts led you to question your own beliefs?
Probably more than once.
Skepticism has a powerful pull over us. It helps us stay in line with reality, and aligns our expectations with those of society.
As communal creatures, we are hard-wired to heed these warnings. They keep us from straying too far from the pack. They shield us from danger.
And yet, we lose quite a bit in this exchange. The principles of creativity, exploration and self-conviction all go by the wayside. Our toolkit for handling adversity is emaciated.
How do we take back our individualism without finding ourselves lost in the wilderness? And how can we summon the courage to explore new frontiers without paying a heavy price for doing so?
Such crossroads make up the Confidence Conundrum.
I am a man of faith.
Not in the way you might expect. I do believe in God, but you’re not likely to find me in a house of worship as the week winds down.
No, I am a man of great faith in myself. I believe that I will achieve and persevere.
Such self-belief has been critical throughout my life. It’s helped me navigate both adolescence and adulthood. And it’s helped me rebound from the setbacks I encountered along the way.
But such faith is not completely unbridled. There have been plenty of moments that have given me trepidation.
Some of these moments — such as the start of a new job — make many of us queasy. Others — such as moving to a new apartment or assembling furniture — are less prevalent concerns.
The situations that give me pause might seem disparate. Random even.
But they have one thing in common. They represent moments of rapid change.
I don’t do well with quick transitions. I rely heavily on precedent and routine to guide my actions. And when normalcy gets uprooted, it’s as if the rug was pulled out from under me.
So, I slow the pace when the winds of change hit. Instead of blasting blindly into the unknown, I let the dust settle before making my move.
It’s a pattern that’s worked well for me. But it’s not exactly a commonly espoused one.
There are a few places we know to expect the unexpected. Where the improbable becomes plausible.
This happens with Disney movies. It happens with the Texas weather. And it happens with the world of sports.
Sports encompasses a world of matchups. Of head to head competition. Of the victors and the vanquished.
The binary nature of sports can tempt us to handicap. To assess the match ahead of time and make our predictions.
Anyone who has donned fancy clothes to attend a horse race, tuned in to a two-hour football pregame show or placed a wager at a sportsbook knows how prevalent this practice is.
We prognosticate so that we can get a handle on what’s coming. We predict so that our emotions are primed for what we are to experience.
And we use a bevy of information for this process. Advanced statistics. Detailed strategic analyses. Even physical attributes, such as the size of the athletes.
The predictions we garner from all this information do come to pass — some of the time. But not always.
There are plenty of upset victories in sports. There are countless instances where the team or competitor deemed too small, too inexperienced or too talent-deficient comes out on top.
Why does this keep happening? How have we not learned from our errors by now?
The answer is intangible. It comes down to the one measure we can’t measure: Confidence.
Athletes believe in themselves. They draw on their experience and ability to give themselves a competitive edge. They’re not focused on the might of their opponents or anything else outside their own orbit. They’re honed in on what they can do when given an opportunity.
Sometimes that confidence can prove to be misguided. I once attended a high school football game in West Texas where the kids on the hometown team were half the size of their opponents. I could see that the home team believed in themselves despite the size disadvantage. And they did indeed hang tough for a bit. But the final score was still lopsided in favor of the other team.
Still, there are plenty of times when that confidence gives an athlete or team all the edge they need. When that self-belie is the slingshot David needs to slay Goliath.
It’s what we love about sports. Unless, of course, our team is the one bested by the plucky upstart.
Talent only takes you so far. Belief is everything.
Simple choices.
As the world gets more nuanced, we seem to want these more than ever.
So, we delude ourselves. We look for examples of binary decisions and foist them upon our complex world.
Sports is Exhibit A of this.
Think about how many sports terms are now part of our everyday vernacular.
Swinging for the fences. Playing hardball. Three strikes and you’re out.
And that’s just baseball.
We love to use these terms. They’re catchy and they flow well.
But they really don’t work the same outside the lines.
This is particularly the case when it comes to confidence. It’s tempting to tell ourselves that if athletes can keep the faith in all circumstances, we can too.
But this is a critical error.
In sports, victory is all that’s on the line. Athletes are simply looking for the chance to be better than someone else at a particular feat.
In other words, the floor is high. Professional athletes will get paid, win or lose. The worst outcome they might face (outside of injury) is that their season will end before someone else can hoist a trophy.
Even amateur competitors likely won’t see the bottom drop out. Their worst outcome is the dashing of their professional athletic dreams. And even if that happens, they walk away with an advanced degree in leadership, teamwork and preparation.
So, there’s really no reason for athletes not to be confident. In the grand scheme of things, what’s on the line isn’t all that dire.
The same can’t be said for all of us in the world outside of sports. If we walk into a situation we’re ill-equipped to handle, armed only with a dose of self-belief, we risk it all. We could end up delegitimized, destitute and devoid of hope.
Then again, self-doubt is also insidious. If we don’t believe in ourselves at all, we punt on our potential and cede control of our destiny.
This is a puzzle of the highest order. A quandary we can’t afford to sidestep.
It’s imperative that we recognize this conundrum for what it is. And that we strategize accordingly.
That strategy can take many forms. Some may do as I do, and pick certain spots in which to be cautious. Others may keep their sense confidence close to the vest, believing in themselves without letting the world know it.
But regardless, we must identify The Confidence Conundrum. And we must come to terms with it.
The stakes are simply too high to do otherwise.