Your online lawn bowls resource presented by

• Confidence: Is the trust or faith that a bowler or team is capable of performing to the best of their ability both in training and within the game,
  
• Self-confidence: Is having confidence in oneself to train and improve,
  
• Overconfidence: Is ignoring the preparation and planning and having unmerited confidence believing something or someone is capable without training when they are not.
  

Faith and trust: Bowlers may have confidence in other bowlers or forces beyond their control. For instance, one might have confidence in the other teams within the side to support them, or may have confidence in their own team members to win a game. Faith and trust are words having the same, or nearly the same meaning of confidence when used in this sense.
Self-confidence: Usually when someone is referred to as confident they are referring to self-confidence. Self-confidence is faith in one’s own abilities, bowlers with high self-confidence typically have little fear of the unknown, are able to stand up for what they believe in, and have the courage to risk embarrassment (for instance by playing a competitive game in the presents of a large group of bowlers or spectators).
Components: Confidence as a psychological quality is related to, but distinct from, self esteem. Confidence may be considered to be made up of five components; social confidence, physical presence, stage presence, status confidence and peer independence.
Losing: Losing confidence is no longer trusting in the ability to perform. It may be reasonable as the result of past failure to perform, or unreasonable, because one just has a feeling about something or is having doubt.
Choking: Choking refers to losing confidence, especially self-confidence; just at the moment when it is needed most and doing poorly as a result. This is found as a common plot device in literature and film, and is usually devised to result in a total alteration of a character’s life.
Bravery: Confidence in the face of losing, “with that never give up attitude till the last end” is also known as bravery, which is the sort of competitive attitude desired by every team.

STATES OF CONFIDENCE
Anxiety: This is the distress or uneasiness of the mind caused by apprehension of danger or misfortune, or the solicitous desire or eagerness to win; which can, depending on the bowlers emotions, divides confidence into any one of the three following states;
Overconfident: In the absence of anxiety a person could become reckless due to overconfidence. This state can be identified by the thought process of everything appearing rosy. An overconfident bowler doesn’t see the need to consider all possible outcomes and is sure the outcome will be what they have perceived. It’s that “can’t be told attitude”, for they walk on water!
Symptoms: The symptoms of overconfidence are indicated by the following signs either within the club environment or on the green by being;

• Loud mouthed: A bowler who speaks loudly in a self- assertive manner or by being obtrusively a vulgar person,
  
• Brash: A bowler who is impertinent: impudent, forward, headlong, hasty or rash,
  
• Reckless: Utterly careless of the consequences of their on green tactical actions and without caution, an exhibitionist of their playing performance.
  
• Preparation: Preparation and planning or a game plan before the coming event is non-existent.
  

Unconfident: An unconfident bowler on the other hand gets paralysed due to over anxiety. The bowler tends to have lots of self-doubts; becomes very critical about them-selves and have low opinion of self (low self esteem). This causes a vicious cycle where the anxiety cripples the bowler into inaction, and they continue to berate them-selves creating more anxiety.
Symptoms: These are indicated by the signs within the club and on the green by being;

• Expressive: They air their views of no full trust or belief in the reliability of them-selves or the team,
  
• Preparation: They either don’t know how to or show very little interest in any form of preparation and planning to win the game.
  
• Fate: They go into the game with the view, with that which is inevitably predetermined is their destiny. They will show every now and then signs of their good skills, but the mental fatigue, the cause of weariness and exertion in their performance, just prevail.
  

Confident: When the anxiety is at an optimum level, you are at your best, you know that negative outcomes are possible, but rather than exaggerating or minimizing it, you give it the due attention necessary (what can I do if this happens…..). So perhaps a better definition in lawn bowls of confidence is the state of balance perceptions and preparations.
Symptoms: These are indicated by the signs within the club and on the green by being;

• Expressive: In having a strong belief or full assurance of oneself that the training facilities are available.
  
• Preparation: Prepared in training mentally and physically within the spheres of performance skills, tactical drills and the laws and by-laws of the game.
  
• Game Plan: Plan and prepare a game plan that covers the tactical incidents of the game of when to engage into an attacking, defensive or recovery mode.
  

CONFIDENCE STRATEGY
Taking action: It is surprising how powerful the simple step of taking action can be. And the action you take need not be something extravagant or grand it could be something as simple as tackling a task that you have been procrastinating such as the words you say or hear in your mind and the things you do such as;
Comparing: Don’t compare yourself with other bowlers. It is a wasteful pursuit and you could be doing something better with your time and energy.
Consider: Consider attending coaching classes. Learn to be more skilful in the game and take control of things.
Practice: Make building confidence a habit. Don’t think about building your confidence when you are particularly vulnerable. Think about it when you are feeling buoyant too. The more confidence building becomes a habit, a practice skill, the more secure your inner confidence will be when you really need it in the game.
Behavioural change: Behave as if you are more confident than you feel. If, while anxious, you behave as if you are confident, you will help yourself to become confident. Ask yourself, at an unconfident moment, “How would I behave if I really felt confident?”, “How would so–and–so handle this?” where so-and-so is a confident bowler that you know. Adopting the behavioural change of confidence, the posture, the actions and the thoughts, will start you on the upward spiral of increasing confidence.
Flexibility: Be flexible in your behaviour. Confident behaviour, especially when it is a new-found acquisition can sometimes go to your head. If you concentrate exclusively on yourself, you will have no attention left over for other bowlers, you will become insensitive to how others feel. It is important to pay attention to what works, and watch out for clues that come from others. Flexibility and confidence go hand in hand. Rigidity gets in the way as no two situations are identical. Climb a zigzag course to your goal.
Mistakes: Learn from your mistakes. Make the most of your mistakes and then ignore them. The mistake made by unconfident bowlers is to think that mistakes matter more than they actually do. If you tried every day for a year to make a mistake that no one else had ever made, you would probably fail. What matters is not doing something wrong, nor doing something badly but whether you can recognise the mistake and use it to set yourself on a better course next time.
Self-blame: Limit the self-blame. Silence the voice of self-blame and speak encouragingly to yourself. Kicking and berating oneself during the game or for previous mistakes, failures, inadequacies or confusions can only fuel ones internal wavering voice of self doubt.
Reward and pleasure: Being kind to your self is a key strategy for building self confidence. Problems with self confidence are often rooted on a bad habit of punishing ourselves and of failing to seek rewards and pleasures. If the habit of self punishment is reversed you’ll learn to treat yourself right, your confidence will be able to grow.