Through my previous projects self-reflecting, journalizing, designing a journal, and experimenting with it in the classroom, I have come to a result so far that confidence is the key to mental toughness. when you truly believe in yourself and your abilities, everything else will flow such as negative thoughts, inner self-critic, and fear of failure. Having self-confidence doesn’t mean you won’t experience these feelings; however, the effect will be much less than someone who doesn’t believe in themselves because a confident person won’t pay much attention to the negative side and know how to control them. Through my training, most of the self-talk I practice is about believing in myself and my capabilities which creates a great positive feeling through my training.
Observation
In this project, I observe different athletes at my gym for one week period. There were two female athletes who had my attention while lifting a heavy snatch lift. Snatch is an Olympic weightlifting movement and is also a part of Cross-Training. One of the athletes was keep looking around the room while getting ready for a lift. She seems distracted and not focused even when she was lifting the weight and her body language shows a lack of focus and confidence. On the other hand, the other athlete inspired me by starting the lift completely focused like she is in her own bubble, didn’t pay attention to anyone around, and successfully lifted the heavyweight. She did fail one of the lifts but her confidence and motivation drive her to successfully lift the failed weight and more. My own exploration, experimenting with my classmates, and observations of the athletes at my gym prove that confidence is the key to mental toughness. Confidence brings positivity and motivation to be the best version of yourself and that’s why it is important to believe in ourselves to get the best out of the training session and enhance our performance to achieve our goals.
Outcome
In this project, I designed three different posters to capture different expressions of an athlete (myself) during training showing different emotions such as self-critic and confidence. Additionally, to create positivity through the CrossFit community by hanging these posters at the entrance of the gym. These posters could be positive statements they could use while training, which might help them through their workout of the day.

The first poster illustrates the steps of mental preparation through heavy lifts, the beginning, during, and end of the lift.

The second poster is designed simple and straightforward with the message “Believe in yourself.”

The last poster is titled “silence your inner critic,” showing self douting expression through training. Inner-critic kills performance. It is low self-esteem. When someone is insecure or low on confidence, they might actually believe the negative criticism they hear and feel like a victim and have self-doubts. That’s why self-confidence is the key to mental toughness. we all hear that inner voice that judges us, however, when you are mentally tough and confident, these thoughts won’t shake you or stop you from what you doing. Additionally, you will know how to control them.