Who does not know the situation "Now we shall play against "The All Star Team Goalmakers". We are sure to get beaten". The self-confidence is non-existent and the game is lost before is has started. Even good players becomes uncertain and some fakes an injury to avoid to play

or

"The other players on my team are much better than I. I can never learn"

In both cases the player has seen the defeat and has given up beforehand. If the coach can turn these negative thoughts to positive thoughts the results will soon show. In fact there are no single factors that are more important for success than self-confidence.

Self-confidence can be defines as:

1. You accept yourselves - both the good and the bad sides
Here the players must work with themselves. It can be a help if the players focus on his/her success experiences and not his/her failures. The player can keep a training diary, which contains all the successful experiences for each day of training.
Those could be:
- Monday 2-9-2002
- 2 shots right in the upper corner
- Cheated Marie with a feint
- Was able to run around the court fasten than I use to do

- Wednesday 4-9-2002
- While the catching/throwing exercises I did not loose the ball a single time
- Made a goal during a fast attack

Then when the payers thinks that nothing works, the diary can be read and be worked mentally and act as a confirmation that quite a lot of things actually works.

2. You believe in your own abilities
Here the coach has a great role building up the players' self-confidence. Small progress must be praised and errors must be corrected positively, so that the player experience, that what was difficult before is now more easy. The training must be arranged in such a way, that progress can be made. Instead of asking the players to perform the exercises, as many times as possible, the coach must put their attention to the fact, at each exercise must be performed with concentration and no sloppiness.

Example:
The players shoot at goal and you see, that they shot pass the goal or directly at the goalkeeper. The 12 players perform only one goal. They are now informed, that a miss is equal to 5 push-ups. The next round will result in maybe 6 goals or more. The players are now concentrated because they hate push-ups and they have obtained a success, which they can use

Put up more schematic for a single player:

	Not concentrated	Concentrated
Assignment	Shots on goal for x minutes	Shots on goal for x minutes
Result	15 shots 6 goals	10 shots 7 goals
Experience	A lot of missing shots	I made a lot of goals
Reaction	I am not good in scoring	I am good in scoring
Mental reaction	Doubt on own abilities In-security	Easyness  and knowledge about one self Security

If you can learn the players to concentrate on the assignments, these will be performed with a better result, and by this increase their believe in their own possibilities.

3. You feel secure
You know what you can and you know your assignment and feels, that it is within the boundaries there you feel secure.

But this security may tip if you are exposed to influence from the outside. Here the coach also has a role

If the score is 15-15 and the coach in a misunderstood socialistic thought takes the least skilled 7-meter thrower in to take the decisive 7-meter throw, because the player is the only one, who has not scored, you can be sure, that the player is close to pass out by fear and definitely do not feel comfortable with the situation. If the players do not score, it will be taken as a confirmation of his/her own inability and if the ball hits the net, it was only luck. The team's confidence to the coach will most certain also suffer.

If the players feel, that errors or failures will result that the coach will tear them to pieces, they will feel uncomfortable during the game, and that nervousness will be seen in the way they are playing.

Therefore the coach must make sure, that the safety is kept:
- Give the players known roles and assignments
- A lost fight is not equal to be scolded
- Put up demands, but not impossible demands
- Show the players that they have your confidence and believe that they are doing their best
- Give encouragement - not scolding
- Correct positively
- Stop the negative
- Bring the players through the game as safely as possible.

I can remember a strip from a comic book about an Australian sheep dog, where a football game was played. The dog was put into the goal and the opponents won the game 25 - 0, the libero made hat trick, the opponents had several girls on the team, who all scored and even their goalkeeper scored. Everybody, both the coach and the players agreed that the dog was to be blamed for the defeat. The dog's only comment to this was: Who made zero goals in the other end??

A quite important question. Handball is a team sport, and you cannot point fingers on a single player. The coach must know his team and their abilities and not start yelling at them because they could not play beyond their abilities or put a single player on an impossible mission. A lost fight is not the same as a bad fight. And even if the fight was bad, the coach must not attack a single player and must also stop others personal attacks on a single player. It breaks down the self-confidence. If a player deserves a thunder speak, it must be done after the game, where the coach and player is alone. The coach however must still remember, that the speech must not be all negative. Instead he must look for the reason for the bad performance and work his way from this point of view and keep the players self-confidence

"Modesty is a virtue"
There is no doubt that a good player, who informs the surroundings that he/she is good will receive a lot of negative reactions and information where he/she is lousy, and that is not the way to greater self-confidence, as there surely are something, which can be criticised and surely will. But there are no problems in telling oneself what you are good at. By this a positive self-understanding can be achieved which will reflect on ones behaviour and believe, that there are something which are well performed and something which are bad and can be improved.

Conditions which beaks down the self-confidence:
- Fear of failure
- Unrealistic goals
- Fear of being ridiculed
- Being be told off
- Arrogance
- Injuries
- Bad results
- Monotonous training
- Expectations from others
- High sour looks
- Negative self-analysis or over-analysis
- Fear of criticism
- Overloaded demands
- Don't put forward own needs
- Always be compared with others

Conditions which build up the self-confidence:
- Positive attitude
- Joy
- Experience - knowledge
- Humour
- Quality in training
- A goal
- Good performances
- Mental training
- Relaxation
- Challenging goals
- Learn to say No
- Self-acceptance

When is the self-confidence in order?
The following describes a person with self-confidence:
- Seeks the challenges and is willing to try something new
- Can withstand pressure
- Don't give up
- Can deal with success and failure
- Can deal with problems
- Is in balance with him/her selves
- Knows his/her strong sides
- Knows his/her weaknesses
- Is not afraid to ask for help
- Can participate in a debate and defend unpopular views
- Realise his/her own performances
- Realise the performance of others

The player knows, what he/she can - he/she knows that other knows, what he/she can - and he/she knows because he/she could do it before.