“Impatient parents, critical siblings, and inept teachers all can turn the impressionable and moldable young child into someone lacking the basic tools for confidence. Yet this doesn’t condemn us. It just means we have to develop the required attributes for confidence as adults.”
– Robert Kelsey, What’s Stopping You Being More Confident? (Capstone 2012)
In last week’s blog post, we looked at the key differences between false confidence and authentic self-confidence. Before you can work towards truly improving your self-confidence, it’s important to understand the distinction between these two. This week we’ll be taking a look at the building blocks of self-confidence to start you on the road towards building your authentic confidence.
The Building Blocks of Self-Confidence
Two main qualities contribute to real self-confidence: self-efficacy and self-esteem.
- We gain a sense of self-efficacy when we see ourselves mastering skills and achieving goals that matter. This is the confidence that, if we learn and work hard in a particular area, we’ll succeed; and it’s this type of confidence that leads people to accept difficult challenges, and persist in the face of setbacks.
- This overlaps with the idea of self-esteem, which is a more general sense that we can cope with what’s going on in our lives, and that we have a right to be happy.
The Confidence-Achievement Link
“If you want confidence, get out there and do something. Achieve. Because nothing can replace the confidence of achievement. When it comes to confidence, achievement is gold, silver, and bronze all rolled into one.”
– Robert Kelsey, What’s Stopping You Being More Confident? (Capstone 2012)
Some people believe that self-confidence can be built with affirmations and positive thinking. There’s some truth in this, but it’s just as important to build self-confidence by setting and achieving goals – thereby building competence. Without this underlying competence, you don’t have self-confidence: you have shallow over-confidence, with all of the issues, upset, and failure that this brings.
What’s stopping you? Get out there are start working towards developing your authentic self-confidence!
As always, I would love to hear from you. I can be reached here or on Linkedin.
