Self Confidence, A Definition

Our self confidence is something we can all do with boosting; whether it needs boosting occasionally or regularly. A surprisingly large amount of the population suffers from low confidence and/or low self esteem. The self improvement market is a healthy, growing market, even in our current economy, which would indicate that we all see the need to work on these areas of our lives and that we all understand the importance our confidence and esteem. So, what exactly is self confidence?

Self Confidence - What Is It?

Self confidence is having a belief in your ability and future performance. Having a high level of self esteem means you are more likely to see yourself as someone who is worthy of happiness and success. This, in turn, means you will have the confidence to push yourself to try harder and to aim for whatever goals you want to set out to try to achieve.

So What Does This Mean?

The definition of self confidence actually goes further than believing in your ability and performance. If you are a self confident person, you are a lot less likely to worry about the disapproval of others if you happen to fail at something - and less worried yourself about this failure too. So, in a nutshell, you are far more likely to enjoy the experience and the act of taking part - failing or losing becomes irrelevant really. Ironically, this leads to the probability that you are more likely to succeed anyway!

How is Self Esteem Different?

Basically, self confidence is belief in your abilities and future performance, self esteem is feeling a sense of pride in yourself. It is how you see your own self worth. This is evaluated in several ways including our emotions and our beliefs. Any feelings of despair of triumph we have are as a result of our emotions; feeling worthless or worthwhile is down to our built in beliefs. Self esteem can be applied to specific parts of us (like our ability to do something specific) or globally to us as a whole (for example, if we believe we are a good or bad person in general).

Why should I care?

The benefits of having a good level or self confidence and esteem are endless! Building your confidence and esteem will build your belief in both yourself and your actual ability to achieve whatever you want to have a go at. It gives you the courage to be yourself; to live life the way you want to. So the question should really be - why wouldn't you care?