Often times, people use confidence and self-esteem interchangeably. However, they are actually quite different. You can have a high level of confidence and low self-esteem. Conversely, you can have high self-esteem and low level of confidence.
What the heck is the difference between the two?!
The Definition of Confidence
The dictionary defines confidence as follows:
“The belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities”
Confidence comes from the Latin word, fidere, which means “to trust”. So, to be confident means that you trust your powers or abilities to interact and participate in the world.
When you’re confident, you’re more willing to try new things, take risks, face challenges, handle difficult circumstances and take responsibility for your life.
Confidence leads to success and, experiencing success helps to build confidence. However, what if you’re going outside your comfort zone? How can you have the confidence that you’ll succeed at something?
This is when courage kicks in. For instance, if you are a trained Chef, it’s likely you’ll be confident about hosting a dinner party. However, let’s say that you’ve been asked to host a huge wedding reception. This is totally outside your comfort zone so you may not feel that confident but you’ve got the courage to do it anyway.
Courage is, in essence, a leap of faith that you are capable of handling whatever it is that is in front of you. It requires an internal strength that, ironically, comes from being confident.
Self-Esteem is a whole different ballgame!
The Definition of Self-Esteem
As I stated earlier, you can have a high level of confidence and, yet, have low self-esteem and vice versa.
As with most words, esteem has its Latin roots as well. Esteem means aestimare which means “to estimate”.
According to the dictionary, the definition of self-esteem is as follows:
“A favorable impression of oneself”
So, confidence is about your capabilities whereas self-esteem is about how you feel about yourself and view your own worth.
Both confidence and self-esteem contribute to your level of happiness. They are both central to your physical, mental and emotional health.
When you have a low level of confidence or low self-esteem, it can contribute to issues such as depression, stress, anxiety, co-dependency, alcohol or drug abuse, social dysfunction, and unhealthy or abusive relationships.
However, it’s almost a “chicken or egg” issue, isn’t it?
I mean, which comes first? The chicken (confidence) or the egg (self-esteem)?
You can have confidence in your ability to do or accomplish something and still not feel worthy as a human a being. As a result, confidence and self-esteem are related but not causal.
If you base your sense of self-worth on your accomplishments and achievements, your worth would go down the drain if you were to fail at something.
Also, self-esteem is something this is learned and developed as a result of your upbringing. We develop low or high self-esteem based on the messages we received from our primary care givers.
Now that you know the difference between the two, which one do you think is more important?
Confidence or self-esteem?
On a scale of 1 – 10, how would you rate your level of self-esteem? How would you rate your level of confidence?
Both confidence and self-esteem are important to living a fulfilling, productive, happy life. As a result, it’s important to boost both of them so that they can work in a harmonious way, improving your ability to love yourself, love others and succeed in life. However, believe it or not, there are some advantages to having a low level of confidence and low self-esteem. I’ll cover that in my next blog post.
Until then,
{{Hugs}}
Dana
