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Understanding the Difference Between Self-Esteem and Self-Confidence

Sometimes it’s difficult to understand the difference between self-esteem and self-confidence. People often confuse these two terms. The average person uses the terms interchangeably, but that doesn’t speak to the fine distinguishments between the two terms. A person can have a lot of confidence in a certain area while also having low self-esteem. The opposite is also true.

Having both is important. Taking the time to cultivate both qualities will enable you to be happier about your life.

Read on to see how self-confidence and self-esteem are two different things:

  1. Self-confidence is situation-specific. You can have a lot of self-confidence regarding your ability to do math, host a great party, or stand up and give a speech. You can simultaneously have zero self-confidence in your ability to cook, drive, or sing.
  2. Self-confidence about trusting yourself to do certain things well.
  3. Your self-esteem is a form of self-love, made up of how much esteem you have for yourself holistically. Contrary to what you may believe, you can have low self-esteem alongside high self-confidence (and vice versa).
  4. Self-confidence is easier to build. When you have a record of feeling fear and doing what scares you anyway, it’s built step-by-step.
  5. You can build your self-confidence with success, but not so much with self-esteem. Having a large bank account, a huge house, and a prestigious job will not increase your self-esteem, but your confidence will be reinforced. You can be good at becoming successful without loving yourself as you truly are.

Building self-confidence is work, but the work that needs to be done is quite clear. If you want to be confident at shooting free-throws, shoot 100 of them each day until you’re consistently successful.

Learning to love yourself more will help you build self-esteem.

Practice these techniques to build your self-esteem:

  1. Identify your values and use them to guide your decisions. Take the time to really think about your values and list them. Keep them top of mind and make choices that honor them. Low self-esteem often comes from living out of integrity with what you believe in.
  2. Reject perfection. Stop trying to measure up to others’ ideals, because that’s an effort bound to fail. If you really sat and thought about it, those ideals aren’t even yours. You self-esteem will improve when you change the metrics you use to declare yourself falling short. Being pleased with yourself is more than allowed…it’s required if you want to live a happy and successful life. Perfection is nothing but anxiety dressed up in her finest outfit.
  3. Manage your self-talk. If you catch yourself being less than self-compassionate, feel free to stop! Imaging someone else saying those things to you. Do you feel like crap? It’s hard to feel good with this unchecked habit. Make a real attempt to reframe the messages from your inner critic moment by moment. Managing negative self-talk can be tiring, but it can (and must) be done.

You can have one without the other. However, having both will make you more powerful than you already are. Only having self-confidence can give you success, but without self-esteem, you’ll lack life-satisfaction. Having self-esteem and confidence will help you to create a life that no one else could dream of doing.

Boost your self-confidence in the ways that matter to you, especially if they make you proud of yourself. Build your self-esteem so you can love yourself.

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