Understanding the Difference Between Self Esteem and Confidence

Summary : Self-esteem vs. confidence: what's the difference? Uncover insights with SoulSensei to build a healthy sense of self and achieve your goals.

Self-Help

Understanding Self-Confidence And Self-Esteem

You might have heard the words self-esteem and self-confidence many times throughout your life and wondered what’s the difference between self-esteem and confidence. While they both might seem to overlap in their meanings, they are slightly different from each other after all. Self-esteem refers to how you view yourself. It translates to how much you value yourself and it can change through your life based on your experiences and interactions with others. Self-confidence, on the other hand, refers to your belief in your abilities and strengths. This can vary from area to area in your life. For example, you might be more confident in your professional life as opposed to your romantic life.

In the race of self-esteem vs confidence, no one wins because they’re equally important for every individual to live their lives successfully. They’re both essential in their ways and contribute to your thriving in life. If you suffer from low self-esteem or confidence, it can result in negative thinking, social anxiety and a fear of trying new things in life. It can also affect your interpersonal relationships as it can result in poor communication skills, social anxiety and lack of assertiveness. There are many ways to improve your self-esteem and self-confidence, but first, let’s understand some key differences of self-confidence vs self-esteem.

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Key Differences Between Self-Esteem and Confidence

While both these terms sound similar, there are some key differences between them. The biggest difference between self-esteem and confidence is the area of focus for both. While self-esteem focuses on your self-worth or inner validation system, confidence focuses on your belief in your abilities to do a task or perform in all the areas of your life. The second key difference between self-esteem and confidence is the scope of both terms. Self-esteem is a much broader concept and is influenced by many more factors compared to self-confidence. Confidence is more specific to certain areas of your life, whereas self-esteem is more intrinsic and deep-seated. Additionally, self-esteem can be influenced by past experiences and internalised messaging, while self-confidence can be developed through working on achievements and abilities.

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Is It Possible to Have One Without the Other?

Self-esteem and self-confidence are interconnected. Esteem vs confidence go hand in hand and work parallelly. But to some extent, it is possible to have one without the other. Some individuals may have high self-esteem but low confidence. This means they feel good about themselves overall but struggle with some areas of their life. For example, public speaking or physics examinations. In this case, confidence can be built by training in those areas since confidence is more skill-based.

Others might have low self-esteem but high confidence. They suffer from negative self-talk and negative beliefs about themselves due to past traumas, but that doesn’t stop them from performing well in certain areas of their lives. Confidence can be influenced by self-esteem, and self-esteem can be influenced by confidence. Both these concepts are interconnected, so while, to some degree, it is possible to have one without the other, having both can significantly improve the quality of your life.

Learn ways to boost your self-esteem in this short session with Kanchan Wadi.

Self-confidence and self-esteem are interconnected and overlap in their meanings. Yet there are some key differences between them. Self-esteem refers to the way you view yourself and is tied to your self-worth. It translates to how much you value yourself and what kind of inner dialogue you have with yourself. Low self-esteem can result in negative self-talk, social anxiety or anxiety in general, poor communication skills and lack of assertiveness. Self-confidence refers to your belief in your abilities. It is skill-based and can be improved by training in the areas you feel under confident about. For example, you might not be good at a certain sport and, therefore, have low self-confidence in your physical abilities. But by regularly training in that area, you can master the sport and improve your physical abilities. Confidence can be influenced by self-esteem and vice versa. Learn more about improving your self-esteem and confidence with experts on SoulSensei.