All this is by a famous psychologist Albert Bandura, you might have read something about or written by him. A watered down version, a coke with water… this was the real deal…  just to summarize…
1.  Preparation breeds confidence
2.  Mental skills reinforce confidence
3.  Adversity ingrains confidence
4.  Support bolsters confidence
5.  Support validates confidence. 
Now usually I prefer including or mentioning dedicated thesis or studies in the world of sport…. And yes he worked as a sports coach.
But with Bandura, he actually traces his interest in human psychology back to when he was a youngster working on the Alaska highway. And it was in the Yukon that he got exposed to as he called it gambling and drinking.
Then as a student… and no don’t worry this podcast isn’t about him… its about you… but I am getting there. Setting up the context… stick with me it will make sense.
Bandura came to support a style of psychology that sought to investigate psychological phenomena through repeatable, experimental testing. His inclusion of such mental phenomena as imagery and representation,
Now here it comes…. Representations. That sounds complicated, but its not… Mental representations (or mental imagery) enables representing things that have never been experienced as well as things that do not exist.