If you can determine a way a man thinks about himself, you won’t even have to watch what he will do.

Confidence is one of the hardest things to develop. Real confidence. Not the fake stunting and fronts that people put up. I am talking about the type of confidence a man can have when he doesn’t even need to play himself up or talk about himself. I’ve seen this in other people and you know, even behind their nice demeanor and great smile, that they have a “I am going to eat this opportunity alive” type of confidence. I wanted that. I am developing it.

The last time I had that type of confidence was when I was on fire pitching in my senior year of high school. It didn’t matter who was coming up to the plate I was going to throw my pitches with conviction and I knew that I was going to get them out.

Our confidence takes hits throughout the years. When baseball ended, my baseball mentality started to dwindle. That mentality would have kept me out of a lot of bad situations in life. Because when you walk someone in baseball, you have to keep your eye on the runner but focus on the batter at hand. If you mind is elsewhere, you are going to have a horrible inning because the negatives are going to start piling up on you.

Life works in the exact same way.

If you take your mind out of the now and you start focusing on the past or the future, you are going to get raked. Not being present and going through the motions because of it is one of the worst habits to fall into. You become a gigantic self defeating ball of mediocrity and if you even have some great dreams and take some shots at them, you are going to take yourself out in the end anyways.

You have to develop confidence

But how?

Focus on the small wins of the day. You might not have any confidence now, but if you focus on the small stuff, those little steps that climb mountains, you will start gaining momentum. When you focus on the small things and understand that they are part of the bigger picture, you give yourself the best chance to succeed. I have always felt like I got lucky when I didn’t prepare and I did well. Luck is the worst thing that can happen to you. Why? Because you were rewarded for not preparing and came out successful. Thing is, your mind will tell you that you can do it again because hell…it happened and worked out last time right?

Wrong

Prepare your butt off and be ready for an opportunity. It is better to be prepared and not have an opportunity than to have one and be underprepared. Keep that in mind. Do what you have to do day in and day out and you will be ready for the chance the rolls across the table.

Strike at it.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project