Is confidence an emotion? (Understanding confidence)
Confidence is the self-assurance that you can handle a particular challenge. It’s the belief in yourself and your abilities.
In other words, confidence is not an emotion, it’s a feeling of self-assurance that someone has when they’re able to handle a particular task. This feeling isn’t always positive; it can be negative as well (e.g., “I’m good enough” or “I made a mistake but I know I’ll get over it”).
What emotion is associated with confidence then?
Sometimes, a feeling of confidence can be confused with a feeling of hope. Hope is the positive expectation that things will go well. Confidence is not the same as optimism, which is the positive expectation that things will turn out well in the future. Confidence is more about your ability to handle a situation.
If you’re optimistic about something, then you’re generally going to feel confident because you’ll believe that your abilities can help you achieve your goals. If you’re confident about something, then you’re generally going to feel that you can take care of yourself and handle whatever situation you find yourself in.
So what exactly is confidence then?
Confidence is related to many things including self-esteem, self-worth, and pride. A person who has confidence in their own abilities can usually handle difficult situations. Confidence is also related to the positive emotions of joy and enthusiasm.
Being confident in one’s abilities can lead you to do things you wouldn’t do if you weren’t confident (e.g., try risky behaviors or make mistakes). This has obvious benefits.
Confidence protects you from worrying too much about things you can’t change (e.g., what other people are thinking, or worrying that you’re doing something wrong). It can also protect you from people who may be trying to “intimidate” you by criticizing your performance.
In extreme cases of confidence, a person may not be able to back down from a challenge in the face of criticism and failure; or a person might not need other people’s approval or support.
What are 7 benefits of having confidence?
1. Confidence makes you feel more comfortable around other people.
This is a key skill to life in general. So the more confident you feel, the easier it should be to meet new people and make new friends.
2. Confidence can help you to take on difficult tasks.
This is especially important for things like work, school projects, or other long-term goals that might seem overwhelming. You may feel less worried about tackling something difficult if you have confidence in your ability to do it well.
3. Confidence helps you to have more discipline.
Discipline is a key to success as it’s a key to avoiding distractions and temptations. Confidence is an important part of discipline because it helps you to resist distractions and get stuff done.
4. Confidence makes you feel happier.
Confident people tend to be happier, so the more confident you are, the better you should feel during any given day.
5. Confidence makes your life easier by keeping away stress and worry.
Having confidence in yourself helps you to avoid worrying about things that are out of your control (e.g. what other people think, or not being successful).
6. Confidence makes you more attractive to other people.
Confident people know that they have a lot to offer to others, so they are attracted by others who are confident as well. Being confident is an attractive quality that makes someone more likely to date or even marry someone else. They will be attracted by your confidence, and they will be attracted by your maturity (e.g., not being easily embarrassed or regretful).
7. Confidence can help you to achieve your goals.
Having confidence in what you want to do helps you to make progress towards your goals and feel like you’re getting somewhere rather than stuck.
If confidence is a skill can you learn it?
If you want to be confident, you have to be willing to put in the work. There aren’t any shortcuts. The following are some of the most effective ways that people learn to become more confident:
1. Know your strengths and weaknesses.
This is how it starts: you figure out your biggest strengths and weaknesses, and then you focus on improving your weaknesses so that they are “good enough.”
Focus on your strengths as this will help you avoid major mistakes and will help you avoid overconfidence.
2. Do things that make you feel bad (e.g., public speaking, putting on a costume) first.
When you do this enough, it pushes you to improve; but when you do it too much, it can make you feel bad about yourself and cause negative emotions that could interfere with your confidence.
3. Get to know the “safety zones” of your life (e.g., work, school).
This is your comfort zone and escaping these can be helpful when you feel threatened by new situations. These are the areas where you feel most confident.
4. Be comfortable with being alone.
This can help you to take risks; it’s a key skill needed for confidence. You have to be okay with being on your own from time to time, no matter how bad it may feel at first.
5. Be wary of “fake confidence”.
This is to be avoided as it can lead to the problems listed above. Be wary of someone who is always giving you compliments and comes off as very confident, but who also makes a lot of mistakes or lacks discipline. This person might be extremely popular, but they will give you bad advice that could harm you in the long run (e.g., attempting risky behaviors without adequate preparation).
What is self-esteem and how does it relate to confidence?
Self-esteem is a combination of your self-image and feelings about yourself. It’s a sense of how you think you are – both strengths and weaknesses – as well as feeling good about yourself. For example, if a person has very high self-esteem then they can easily accept compliments from others (e.g., “I’m great at receiving praise”). However, self-esteem is not something that can be easily measured or determined.
Self-esteem and confidence are related but they are not the same thing. If you have confidence in yourself then you’re more likely to have self-esteem but that’s not always the case. For example, someone with low self-esteem could still have a lot of confidence in their ability to handle a particular task (e.g., “I know I can do this”).
Confidence is part of self-esteem as it’s about how you feel about yourself. Other parts of self-esteem include your self-image (e.g., your body image) and feelings about yourself (e.g., feelings of pride or guilt).
What is optimism and how does it relate to confidence?
Optimism is when we believe that something good will happen to us at some point in the future. For example, optimism can be related to a person who believes that something good will happen to them in the future after they’ve achieved something.
Optimism is not the same as confidence. Someone who has confidence in their abilities won’t think that something good will happen to them and they won’t have an optimistic expectation about the future (e.g., “I’ll be up on stage tomorrow”).
How do you stop being insecure?
The best way to develop more confidence is to stop doing things that make you feel insecure. Do NOT start acting more confident before you are actually feeling confident.
For example, if you walk on stage and start speaking about a topic that you’re not sure about then start by saying this: “Here’s what I don’t know right now.” Then, get feedback from others about what they think and give them a chance to correct your flaws. This is a simple example that some people don’t do, but it’s important to do if you’re willing to try new things.
If you want to be more confident then you need to be willing to do the hard work. Practice acting confident like you would with any other skill (e.g., learning how to play basketball). The more confidence-building activities that you do, the better you will feel about yourself and the better you will start looking to others. Only then will your confidence increase.
What’s the difference between confidence and courage?
Courage is more about skill than confidence. For example, you might be confident in your ability to speak a certain language (e.g., Spanish) but still not have the courage to actually speak it when you’re in a particular situation (e.g., Spanish-speaking country). These are two different things that affect one another.
What’s the difference between confidence and arrogance?
Arrogance is a strong belief that your opinion or skills are the correct ones. This prevalence of arrogance has been shown to cause unhealthy stress in people, which could lead to health problems. For example, you could easily develop an arrogant attitude and put down your peers (as well as other people) if you believe that they think poorly about you.
There are many different kinds of confidence and not all of them go hand-in-hand with arrogance. There are many interpersonal stakes where you’d want to be confident without seeming arrogant.
Similarly, someone who is overly arrogant may not have the skills to back up their overconfidence. This can cause other people to become insecure as they don’t trust the person who is acting overly confident. It’s also common for an arrogant person to come off as being overconfident when they really don’t know what they’re doing.
Conclusion
We hope this article (and the additional resources we’ve included) have provided you with enough information to start developing confidence. You’ll find that confidence is a natural outcome of your efforts to apply the confidence-building strategies above. It will take time, but it’s definitely worth it! If we learned anything from our work on self-esteem and self-confidence, then this is it: there is nothing you can’t do when you believe in yourself!
We have created a guide that will help you learn self-confidence and put you on the track to becoming a confident person. If you’re interested in learning more and building your confidence then check out our free guide on this topic (and other related topics). In there, we will teach you how to develop self-esteem and how to practice the fundamentals of becoming more confident.
