The Confident Mind

Break it down with me: a sense of certainty—that feeling of having complete faith . . . about your ability—that you can do something or that you know something . . . which allows you to bypass conscious thought—so well you don’t have to think about it . . . and execute unconsciously—so

You can have all the “consciousness of your power” you want, but if you’re still analyzing your every step, judging your every move, and talking to yourself about how you’re doing what you’re doing, you’ll always compromise your real ability.

success in any field—be it sports, the arts, business, science, and certainly the military—requires both confidence AND competence.

will also never ace the exam, because his constant stream of negative mental chatter will prevent his recall of the facts and the details. In like manner the player who has diligently followed the conditioning program to the letter but still holds on to self-doubt lowers his chances of making the team.

Getting to that certainty is what Sun Tzu meant by the phrase “the First Victory.”

no matter how much competence you actually have, your performance when it matters will always depend on whether you feel totally certain in whatever level of competence you have achieved.