What is Confidence?

Confidence and Self-Esteem are not the same

You can have high self-esteem but low confidence and high confidence but low self-esteem. It can seem like a contradiction, especially because a lot of people use these words interchangeably. However, they don’t actually mean the same thing. Self-esteem is just a general term for how someone feels about themselves. It can range from positive to negative feelings. Some people also have pretty neutral self-esteem. Do you like yourself? That’s part of self-esteem. You can like yourself without feeling confident. You can also feel confident without liking yourself.

Low self-esteem can be just as harmful as low self-confidence, but they’re harmful to someone in different ways. The same can be said for having these traits in really high levels.

So what IS confidence?

Confidence is the belief that you can do something. It implies a sense of competence and a belief in success at a task or skill. When you learned how to ride a bike successfully, you felt confident in yourself at being able to brake properly or not having to worry about falling over. You feel confidence when you get a really difficult math problem correct, because you’ve strengthened that skill. Confidence is something that can be grown and broken daily. Working on confidence is a matter of looking at the things we can do and do well. It’s also important to consider the things we don’t do well. What are ways we can improve in those areas, if those areas are important? That in itself can increase confidence.

What’s the difference between too much and not enough?

Too much confidence can be harmful to us in a few ways. To others, it can come across as arrogance or even looking down on others. This can put strains on different types of relationships, especially at work.

It can also harm us by making us think that we can do more things than we are actually capable of. In most cases, this isn’t a terrible thing, but in some cases this can result in harm to others. It can cause us to take on more than we can actually handle, too. This means we can end up missing deadlines at work, getting things done incorrectly, or harm our jobs or other tasks we need to do in other ways.

Not enough confidence is also harmful. Someone with low confidence may not apply for a job they’re qualified for because they don’t believe they can do it well, despite having the knowledge to do the job. They may not ask for a raise or other job benefits because they don’t think they deserve them for their work. It can result in not asking someone on a date or even turning down a date. Maybe it can even be not making friends because we don’t have confidence in ourselves to be a good friend.

Both high and low confidence can result in missed opportunities and strain on interpersonal relationships.

How can I work on my confidence?

Working on raising confidence is something a lot of people desire. Usually, people know they have low self-confidence and they know it’s negatively impacting their lives. The best way to really look at and work on self-confidence is to think about the things you’ve done well and how you’ve improved at things you weren’t initially good at. However, for some, even this is a really difficult thing to do. If you find that low self-confidence is really impacting your life and you don’t know how to change it, consider reaching out to a therapist for help in this area.