First post, sorry for any wrongdoings in advance.

After watching the recent match between the Hawks and Thunder, it wasn't to my surprise that the 6 ft. 9 in. star Kevin Durant scored 41 points that night, making this 11 games in a row with at least 30 points, as well as his sixth 40-point game of the season.

Now, this post wasn't made to rant about his basketball prowess, although I could easily do so. What really stood out to me was what he said after the 111-109 victory in the locker room during an interview:

“I’m just trying to play,” Durant said. “I’m not coming in saying ‘I got to do this or I have to do this.’ I’m not one of those guys that predetermines anything, I just go off how the game is played and the different schemes teams are throwing at me and be aggressive that way. I’m just enjoying it, just having fun with it and taking it a day at a time.”

I know many of us have a negative connotation around the word confidence as a piece of advice. We are often told to "just be confident", as if its a switch that can be turned on and off. But honestly, real confidence can be achieved relatively quickly is you push yourself. True confidence is achieved by by knowing you are capable, realizing your fears, eliminating them, stepping out of your comfort zone often, as well as having experience. KD, as well as anyone with any highly-developed skill, is confident in his abilities because he knows what his is capable of. He knows he's a beast on the court. This guy knows he is good, and has good reason to think so. He has gotten great by practicing, failing, then succeeding. He is aware of his abilities, his successes, as well as his failures, but he does not let them determine how he will do in the next game, or the rest of his games for that matter.

I guess what you should take from all this is:

Believe in absolutely every thing you do.

But never leave it to your imagination to determine if an outcome will be an immense success or horrible failure.

TL;DR: Achieve confidence through experience & stepping out of your comfort zone. Be confident and believe in absolutely everything you do, but do not let your imagination predetermine exactly what the outcome will be.

An article on the game can be read here

I hope you all can apply this to all parts of your life. Hope y'all have a nice day.