Everything You Need to Know About Self Confidence & Esteem

Self confidence and self esteem are two words that we hear a lot, whether in business, dating, creativity, or just making friends. They're often used interchangeably, even though there's a difference between the two. So what is that difference?

Confidence
Confidence is about trust. Having self confidence means that you have trust in yourself. Not just in your skills but in your ability to adapt to challenges and opportunities that the world throws at you. Someone with good self confidence is also grounded enough to take responsibility for mistakes when things go wrong in any area of life, without taking a devastating blow to their own pride. 

Though wins, whether big or small, can absolutely boost one's self confidence, a foundation of it can pave the way to success. It's important to identify the areas that you're confident in, and the areas that you are not so confident in. Maybe you're a skilled in public speaking, but writing your speeches is not your strong area. In this case, there's another key component to confidence that needs to be harnessed: courage. Courage is about facing what we don't know even when our confidence feels shaky. Embracing the uncertainty, even the fear, is what fuels courage in the face of the unknown. Remember, the unknown is inherently about endless possibility. That's what scares us: not knowing what will happen. 

Let's talk about self esteem. If they're not the same thing, then naturally we can assume that they don't always go together. Someone can have very high self confidence and be sure of their abilities, while still suffering from a dangerously unhealthy low self esteem. 

Self Esteem
Self esteem is about how we value ourselves. It's essentially our measure of self worth. It's more of an emotional system than self confidence, because we filter every experience, thought, feeling, and action through the lens of our self esteem. This greatly affects our relationships with family, friends, partners, and coworkers. 

For example:
Someone with a healthy and stable self esteem doesn't measure their worth based on external factors such as how much money they make, how famous they are, how many awards they've won, or how much praise they get in the workplace. They are firmly grounded in the knowing that they are worthy of love and respect just by being themselves and they have nothing to prove to gain it. Even the fear of rejection or failure (even of success, as strange as it sounds) has no hold on a strong self esteem because even if things go wrong, their identity won't crumble under the failure.  This doesn't mean they're emotionless robots, of there will be times where they feel disappointment, which is a normal human emotion. But the difference is that it won't crush them. Instead, through the resilience that self esteem gives them, they're open to the learning experience of failure, and continue to grow and find meaningful lessons from each step in life. They forgive themselves and know that they are still worthy despite any mistakes. 

Many people in the world today, particularly in the area of career, tend to focus only on their self confidence because it's something they feel they can build up with material things such as a nice home, a promotion, and general recognition. But this doesn't allow them to explore their own flaws and to ask themselves what they really want in life. 

Finding that balance between self esteem and self confidence doesn't have to be a juggling act. It just takes honestly and unconditional compassion with yourself, no matter what kind of journey you're on.