Episode 32: Differentiating self confidence and self esteem

Letters to my kids: A suicide survivor's lessons and advice for life

Episode 32: Differentiating self confidence and self esteem

Music: “Just A Blip” by Andy G. Cohen From the Free Music Archive Released under a Creative Commons Attribution International License

Differentiating self confidence and self esteem

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201510/self-confidence-versus-self-esteem https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/buildingselfesteem/2012/05/the-difference-between-self-esteem-and-self-confidence

-The terms self-esteem and self-confidence are often used interchangeably when referring to how you feel about yourself. Although they are very similar, they are two different concepts. It is important to understand their roles when looking to improve your overall sense of self.

-Self-esteem refers to how you feel about yourself overall; how much esteem, positive regard or self-love you have. Self-esteem develops from experiences and situations that have shaped how you view yourself today.

-Self-confidence is how you feel about your abilities and can vary from situation to situation. I may have healthy self-esteem, but low confidence about situations involving languages because it's not my area of expertise.

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation." Arthur Ashe

- Self-esteem and self-confidence seem like pretty much the same thing, but they're not. For example, maybe you can easily get in front of a crowd, give a speech, and command a room, which shows self-confidence, but at the same time, you feel like crap about your own public speaking, which is a lack of self-esteem.

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." Vincent Van Gogh

- "Confidence" comes from the Latin fidere, "to trust." To be self-confident is to trust in oneself, and, in particular, in one’s ability or aptitude to engage successfully or at least adequately with the world. Just as self-confidence leads to successful experience, so successful experience leads to self-confidence. Although any successful experience contributes to our overall confidence, it is, of course, possible to be highly confident in one area, such as cooking or dancing, but very insecure in another, such as mathematics or public speaking.

"The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable." Paul Tillich

- Self-confidence and self-esteem do not always go hand in hand. In particular, it is possible to be highly self-confident and yet to have profoundly low self-esteem, as is the case, for example, with many performers and celebrities, who can perform before an audience of thousands but then damage and even kill themselves with drugs.

"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." Sir Edmund Hillary

- "Esteem" is derived from the Latin aestimare, meaning "to appraise, value, rate, weigh, estimate," and self-esteem is our cognitive and, above all, emotional appraisal of our own worth. More than that, it is the matrix through which we think, feel, and act, and reflects and determines our relation to ourselves, to others, and to the world.

"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance." Oscar Wilde

"Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing."- Theodore Roosevelt

- Think of qualities others say you excel in. Even if you believe them slightly, this is a step in the right direction. The more we recognize our challenges with self-confidence and self-esteem, the more aware we become of improvements that can be made. This is when positive changes occur.

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. "- Ralph Waldo Emerson