I recently ran an online workshop for UK Coaching as part of their Coach Development Conversations series. These Conversations bring together a super group of coaches from across a wide range of sports involved in developing other coaches. There is an openness and readiness to learn and share each other experiences. So a great forum to bring my confidence-centred coaching ideas and practices.
This blog post picks up on a question one of the participants raised that I only started to answer, said we’d come back to but didn’t as we ran out of time. I’ve been reflecting on her question since then: “what about over-confidence?”
It’s not a question I’ve thought much about before – and I missed the opportunity to ask her what lay behind her question (with apologies). My work tends to focus on an absence rather than excess of confidence. So the following shares some thoughts and reflections since the workshop.
“Now there is nothing in the understanding which was not before in the sense. And therefore to exercise the senses well about the perceiving [of] the differences of things, will be to lay the grounds for all wisdom, and all wise discourse and all the discrete actions in one’s course of life.”
What is felt before the words
And I start with a fundamental premise of all confidence-centred coaching. As I outlined in the workshop, how we understand confidence I believe needs to be completely rethought.
It’s not a “thing” that some people have and some don’t. We might think we see confidence (or lack of confidence) in others - but really have no idea what is going on for them. And we also need to let go of any sense of judgement - confidence as something people should have and needs to be fixed if they don’t.
Like the beautiful quote here that I picked up in an article by Michael Rosen: to truly understand and work with confidence we need first to enter the realm of deeper feelings, emotions and sensations, attuning ourselves to what is felt – by us and by those we are seeking to support.
So I’ve been wondering what deeper feelings and sensations might be at play when we think we see over-confidence and how best to respond. Three thoughts come to mind.
Exuberance and Safety
Think of how young children typically seem to have a fearless, total absorption in a physical activity like scaling a climbing frame or careering down a hill. We might marvel at their apparent boundless confidence and ease.
I sense something similar when I’m giving swim sessions to disabled children (through the charity Level Water). One young swimmer in particular gets so caught up in the excitement and sheer joy of moving freely in the water, unencumbered by the need for his walking frame and wheelchair, that he frequently gets over excited, takes in water and would sink but for me quickly catching him.
Now, there’s something really precious and magical in this kind of natural, uninhibited exuberance, a child so immersed in the energy of the moment. It seems to me the last thing I should do is intrude with my anxiety and concern. I have to curb my instincts to yell out “be careful!” or snatch them away from possible harm, whilst at the same time be highly vigilant to the risks. So when my young swimmer shouts at me to back off - “by myself!” - I’ll sometimes wave a hand and say an exaggerated “bye! see you!” as he slowly moves forward (but never without my other hand hidden close under the water ready to catch him if and when he goes under).
Turning to our more general coaching, how hard it can be to find the space for keeping everything safe whilst also allowing those we coach to stretch themselves beyond what they – and others – think possible. There’s also something about “getting out of the way” and allowing young people to find what they can do for themselves. And for me there is a key element of belief and trust in what others (and I) can do, captured in my coaching philosophy: to always believe in the amazing things people can do with just the right degree of challenge, expert care and encouragement.
Over-Ambition and Realism
This leads on to another premise or principle: I want my coaching to come from a place of always respecting the ambitions of the person in front me, as if invited to share a precious gift. Sometimes, however, ambitions seem to unrealistically over-reach what is likely to be possible (or so I might initially think). Perhaps this isn’t so much over-confidence as not being fully aware of the scale of a challenge. Again, there’s something in the feelings, though, that I need to connect with and understand before jumping in with a limiting prescription.
A client I’ve been working with for two years recently came to the end of a really successful season and said to me in the coming year he wanted to aim even higher. He asked about adding one of the hardest ironman triathlons around to his list of big aims for the coming year. Like my young Level Water swimmer, I’m wondering how do I reconcile his animated ambitions with my duty of care to point out what is likely to be involved?
Trying to get to the underlying feelings, it seems to me there’s something different to the uninhibited exuberance of young people, absorbed in the moment without any sense of their limits (until instilled in them by over anxious adults!). What I see is more about an adventurous excitement to go beyond the limits of what has been done before. It’s the thrill of discovering how it would be - unsure if it will be possible but excited to try - that I see in my ambitious clients and that needs to evoke a deeply respecting response.
And trying hard to hold to these principles of treating such ambitions with respect, we talked through what would be involved in taking on the bigger challenge, what compromises and sacrifices might be needed, how it might be made to work. I’m quietly relieved to say he decided to rein in the ambition and save the extra challenge for another time.
“Smashing It” and Uncertainty
One final thought: quite often when friends or club colleagues hear of someone about to undertake a big challenge they’ll say something like “you’ll smash it”, “you’ve got this”, “you’ll nail it.”
Though well-intentioned, my sense is that such enthusiastic expressions can actually be quite distancing. They are unlikely to be in tune with what someone is feeling and the support that would help them most. And it can add extra pressure to perform to others’ expectations, as if not smashing it (whatever that is meant to be) will be regarded as a failure.
This goes to one of the emotions or deeper feelings that we looked at in the workshop: of having a sense of control. But unlike much of what is written about confidence, we need to couple this with a recognition of uncertainty: of things that can’t be controlled. Who knows what might happen on the day of a big event we have meticulously prepared for? I encourage those I coach to expect the unexpected. And one of the feelings we are after is a stilling, calm composure, knowing they are as well prepared as can be and at ease with the uncertainties, seeing them as part of the experience that is about to unfold.
so what about over-confidence?
I don’t know if these thoughts really answer the original question from the workshop (be nice to know, though.) In the end, just as I have an unease about how confidence is typically thought of and talked about - as a thing that some have and some don’t - so too the idea of over-confidence, with it’s pejorative connotations of being beyond what anyone should have, seems misplaced. Who is to judge the ‘right’ level (if having a level were a helpful way of thinking)? And a key question for ourselves is what might it trigger in us? What is going on for me should I catch myself thinking someone is over-confident?
We come back to the principle that if I can be attuned to and aware of my feelings I am more likely to be able to tune in to what is going on for the person in front of me.
Many thanks to Martin and Marianne at UK Coaching for inviting me to run the workshop, to everyone who took part so openly reflecting on my big “what if we made confidence the centre fo coaching” question and for the thought-provoking question.
Please use the comments box below to add your own reflections - be great to have some responses.