Confidence

Confidence is not born. It can be trained through practice. 

People who are close to me know that I love skiing. I learned how to ski at Mad River Ohio. At the beginning, I had no confidence at all. It’s a new sport to me. I knew I would fall just don't know when I would. When someone in front of me was blocking my way, I would just pray that somehow I would be able to avoid a clash. Confidence? Near zero. 

Gradually, after many falls on the green trails, I became more confident and moved to blue and black trails. 

Mad River has a 1,160 feet Base Elevation, 1,460 feet Peak Elevation and 300 feet Vertical Drop.I have high confidence cruising Mad River Trails. 

A few years ago, I went to Breckenridge CO for a skiing trip. Breckenridge has 9,600 feet base elevation, a 12,998 feet of Peak Elevation and a 3,398 feet of vertical drop. Standing at the top of the mountain, I was scared and super nervous. The trails are miles long. The green trails looked more difficult than the black in Mad River. How could I do it? OMG! I had no confident whatever so ever. 

What did I do? Started from the basics - one step at a time. Keeping an eye to the end goal, but focusing on the current skiing. Again, through practice I was able to move from the green to blue trails. In some other subsequent trips, I got used to the more difficult trails. During the most recent trip, I skied on the black trails in Breckenridge. I was telling myself “Is this truly black?! That’s not very difficult? Why did I think it was difficult last time?”. 

The trails didn’t change. My skills did. Because my skills got improved, I got more confident. Skiing on blacks felt like cruising the mountain. The feeling is free and in total control. 

Confidence is not born. It can be trained through practice.