Usually grouped under the confidence banner, you’d be forgiven for thinking they’re really similar but explored individually these family members bring something entirely unique to building and enriching your confidence.
Let me introduce you to a little family of Confidence Cousins that we rarely acknowledge but are important in their own right.
- Optimism – an attitude about the world
- Self Compassion – is a way of being
- Self Efficacy – is the belief in our ability to succeed at something
- Self Esteem – an attitude about ourselves
OPTIMISM
Optimism is an attitude about the world and a question of interpretation. Optimists expect the most favourable outcome in any situation and have the attitude that everything will work out – the classic glass half full perspective.
If you are an optimist you notice good things happen to you and you feel grateful for them. A pessimist probably doesn’t pay attention to positive things and when they do occur they believe them to be chance occurrences.
Confidence and optimism together encourage action, optimism is the sense that “everything will work out”, confidence is “I can make this work”. Optimists have a sense that they can effect change.
Research has shown that optimism can be learned through achieving and getting good at something as well as experiencing set backs.
SELF COMPASSION
Self-compassion is a way of being. At the core of it is the idea that we should all be kinder to ourselves because this makes us healthier, more fulfilled and more successful at what we choose to do.
Self-compassion says that we should treat ourselves as we treat our friends. We pick others up from set backs but we are less likely to do that for ourselves. It takes our imperfections and sufferings and put them in the context of shared experiences of being ‘only human’.
We all know that we won’t win all the time but we also know that setbacks are very things that make us who we are – if they didn’t and we did everything right all of the time, we might as well be robots!
Self-compassion drives confidence, it becomes a safety net that enables us to try more harder things knowing that we won’t always win helping us to cushion failure connecting us to others by being ‘only human’ and accepting that that’s ok.
SELF EFFICACY
Self-Efficacy is the belief in our ability to succeed at something and if self-compassion is the kind, gentle cousin self-efficacy is the just get it done member of the family!
If you have a strong sense of self-efficacy you will look at challenges as tasks to be conquered, you will be deeply involved in the activities you take on and you will recover more quickly from setbacks. A lack of self-efficacy leads us to avoid challenges and to dwell on negative results.
To develop self-efficacy, try hard, become good at something – a belief that you can succeed.
Of course, the reason it’s a cousin is because it’s so closely linked – but the distinction is that self-efficacy is to succeed at something, confidence is more generally about your whole abilities to succeed in the world.
How do you view challenges? Do you views them as tasks to be conquered? Do you recover quickly from setbacks?
SELF ESTEEM
Self Esteem is an attitude about ourselves, it is essential for wellbeing, but distinct from confidence because confidence tends to be tied to how we feel about WHAT we can achieve. Self-esteem is a bit deeper than this – it’s more about our self-worth and personal value
Self Esteem and confidence are very close cousins influencing each other. In many situations where you don’t have confidence – if you don’t believe you are able to do something – you may also feel bad about yourself, you’ll have low self-esteem.
When your esteem is low you’ll view yourself in a negative or critical light and most likely look for evidence to confirm this.
On the other hand, building your confidence helps you to feel good about yourself. And if you feel good about yourself, you feel more confident about your abilities and life in general.
As you live your life, what happens to you – your experiences, how you treat others, how they treat you and behave towards you – will influence your self-esteem.
Good news is that you can develop new, positive ways to see yourself and your abilities, remember you also have the CHOICE to think and to view yourself in a positive way.
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Want to understand more about Confidence and our DNA? Check out my YouTube video explainer
