You should know that confidence is not self-esteem

[nvictor]

Hello people, here is my thoughts about what I've learned today. The original article is from a french psychology-related website.

The french dictionary says, confidence : feeling of security --- self-esteem : good opinion about oneself. So according to these definitions we can know when our problems are confidence-related or related to one's self-esteem. It's simple.

1.
If you are not confident doing something, it's because you are afraid doing that thing. It's normal for an adult you know!. He has experienced similar things before, or he has been taught to be scare of what he doesn't know. Take children as example, they often try it several times before quit. And that "quit" will be memorized. If they quit it the first time, it's because the experience was too brutal...

The conclusion is confidence come by trying, by experience. It's not about doing it eyes-closed. It's about choosing not to do it because you've done it before and know what you have to lose, or do it because you don't really know what can happen.

My personal conclusion is that confidence is about choosing the next best thing to do when you know what are the stakes.

2.
Well, the article says that self-esteem is having a good opinion of yourself. It's about being valable. Do you consider yourself valable? To who? Your family? Your friends? Yourself? That last one is very important but often missed by people. How much do you respect yourself? Your values? How much do you let others know these values?

Think about it a minute. Is your problem a confidence problem or a self-esteem problem?

Well that's about self-esteem, I don't know that many songs that boost self-esteem but you can listen at "Hero" by Mariah Carey, it remembers you that the real hero lies in you. And you can also listen to "Return to innocence" by Enigma [you will love it, it's coupled with indian chants] that I quote below:

"Love...devotion...feeling...emotion
Don't be afraid to be weak
Or be too proud to be strong

Just look into yourself my friend
That would be the return to yourself
The return to innocence...
...

And if you want then start to laugh
And if you must then start to cry
Be yourself, don't hide
Just believe in destiny

Don't care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don't give up and give a chance
To return to Innocence.
"
Return to innocence by Enigma

Have a good one

Victor

[Mark Lapierre]

Originally Posted by nvictor

The conclusion is confidence come by trying, by experience. It's not about doing it eyes-closed. It's about choosing not to do it because you've done it before and know what you have to lose, or do it because you don't really know what can happen.

My personal conclusion is that confidence is about choosing the next best thing to do when you know what are the stakes.

In my understanding, confidence is a feeling of assurance, and a belief in ability/capability. I don't think it's about choice of the next best thing to do, because choosing would imply an expectation of a particular outcome.

"I'm confident that you'll do very well in your studies," means I believe you have the ability to complete your studies with great results. In this particular case confidence could be partly a result of experience, many hours of previous study, but it could also be a result of pure determination. That is, even if you haven't studied much before, I can tell you're extremely determined to do so now, and do well. You've chosen to do well, but that's not confidence, that's motivation and determination.

So self-confidence is self-assurance, and a belief in your own abilities. And those who are highly confident believe in their abilities despite their chances of failure, as you implied, Victor. Being completely confident means being certain you can handle any outcome, of any situation, despite lack of experience and fear of failure.

[Shaden]

I prefer not to trouble myself with such semantics. It's all a bit padantic. Personal Development isn't centralised on linguistics but results. When I say, doing this will increase my confidence and self-esteem, I'm basically saying "yay for results!!!".

[Mark Lapierre]

Effective communication and greater understanding is part of personal development

[Shaden]

Effective communication and greater understanding is part of personal development

True but language is a constantly evolving beast. The little details will have transformed dramatically in the next two decades too mean something completely different in general. I value emotive communication over linguistic communication. In other words intuition over logic. Of course I value them both very much, but intuition is universal, while logic is constantly evolving.

[nvictor]

determination: well that's another thing to deal with

[Colm OReilly]

There's a problem with a lot of things in that they're not defined properly. Since they're fuzzy, people find it hard to aim for them.

Terms like success, happiness, confidence, etc.

For my part, I spent a lot of time looking at what confidence was (I still spend an enormous amount of time researching and developing this idea) but I couldn't find any one clear component. In fact, when I looked at all the confidence issues my friends and clients have they usually were lacking in one of these components.

Some are more important (say acceptance) than others at a time depending on where you're at in your life.

Shaden, I believe dfinitions are important, not so much in and of themselves, but so you can have a clearer target to aim for.

Lots of love,
Colm