Is it possible to have confidence without self-esteem?

[theSpeculator]

Here at SoSuave.com we all have heard each other talk about confidence and self-esteem countless times as it they were the same. But are they really the same? We talk about confidence all the time, but do we have a clear understanding of what it is? My teacher simply stated that confidence is believing that you can do something. That seem like an easy definition. Go to dictionary.com and "confidence is a firm belief in one's powers, abilities, or capacities." Go deeper and confidence is "a feeling of assurance, especially of self-assurance." So confidence is just really an emotional state. So what about self-esteem? Is it an emotional state like confidence?

In Nathaniel Branden's "The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem" he describes self-esteem composing of two components.

One is a sense of basic confidence in the face of life's challenges: self-efficacy. The other is a sense of being worthy of happiness: self-repect.

Self-efficacy means confidence in the functioning of my mins, in my ability to think, understand, learn, choose, and make decisions; confidence in my ability to understand, learn, choose, and make decisions; confidence in my ability to understand the facts of reality that fall within the sphere of my interests and needs; self-trust; self-reliance.

Self-respect means assurance of my value; an affirmative attitude toward my right to live and to be happy; comfort in appropriately asserting my thoughts, wants, and needs; the feeling that joy fulfillment are my natural birthright.

The experience of self-efficacy generates the sense of control over one's life that we associate with psychological well-being, the sense of being at the vital center of one's existence--as contrasted with being a passive spectator and a victim of events.

The experience of self-respect makes possible a benevolent, non-neurotic sense of community with other individuals, the fellowship of independence and mutual regard--as contrasted with either allienated estrangement from the human race, on the one hand, or mindless submergence into the tribe, on the other.

To sum up in a formal definition: Self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and as worthy of happiness.

I strongly recommend picking up Nathaniel Branden's book to get a clearer understanding of what self-esteem is and learn how to raise it. You can go here to get an overview of the six pillars that supports self-esteem. You can go here to read more great quotes from his book.

So we know now that confidence is an emotional state. While self-esteem is how we see ourselves. Confidence is what we are feeling. Self-esteem is what we think and feel about ourselves. Which do you think is more important? When we talk about raising our confidence, isn't what we mean is how to raise our self-esteem. We all try reading those many posts that gets us pumping in hope to raise our confidence. Or we try picking up new hobbies like sports or weightlifting or dancing. But eventually it wears off. Why? Because we did not possess the self-esteem. We can do things that trick ourselves into feeling confidence. We can try to act confident. But when we have a negative image of ourselves, the confidence eventually fades because our outer self is contradicting our inner self. Self-esteem is needed to support confidence. Thinking it like that, yeah we can raise our confidence level but without the self-esteem it is unstable. But if we work on raising our self-esteem then confidence will emerge as a byproduct.

 

[Duke]

Nice post.

However, self-esteem, in my experience, can be garnered by taking action.

Self esteem is what we think about ourselves right?

I used some confidence I got from reading this site to get intimate with girls.

This affected what I thought about myself. After I got my first kiss, I began to think about myself, "I am attractive to girls. They want me to touch them."

Same with bodybuilding. After I got a nice body, I thought about myself "I have lots of discipline. I have a strong will. I can do anything i set my mind to."

So if confidence spurs action, positive results from that action can lead to self-esteem.

 

[jd782]

In my opinion, low self esteem can lead to insecurities. Its like that guy who gets hot girls, but gets upset if some guy looks at her. Afraid he will lose her. They are confident enough to get the girls but cant handle outside competition without getting all crazy. I guess you can call it a frat boy type of mentality. But then again, I could be wrong.

 

[SELF-MASTERY]

I was always taught that self-esteem is a person's perceived worth to society.

And esteem is how society actually rates a person's worth.

One can have low self-esteem, but be worth a million to those around them or the other way around.

Confidence is fleeing and situational.