In a recent interview I mentioned that self esteem is more valuable than self confidence. This initiated some discussion about how and why, so here is more detail on that thought.
The difference
Self esteem is literally how much we esteem ourselves - our feelings of personal value. Self confidence is how we express ourselves – our expectations of success and failure.
Understood this way we can see that self esteem helps us exist beyond (and without) external things, which we cannot control, while self confidence helps us to do things in the world in the ways we can control.
It's possible to have too much of either, or both. As with physical things, psychological things can exist well up to a point, beyond which they fail or harm us.
They are often linked, but move independently and extreme highs or lows in either are barriers to being good to ourselves and to others.
Too much
Too much self esteem means ignorance: our perspective is warped with self regard, we act with pride, ignore lessons, and disregard other people, perhaps unkindly. We expose ourselves dangerously to hubris and contempt of others so we dispute the feedback the world gives us, and persist in digging ourselves bigger holes to fall into and get trapped.
Too much self confidence means trouble: we get ourselves into mischief by pushing too far, we ignore evidence and warnings about our actions, and dominate other people, perhaps unthinkingly. We are borish and tiresome to be around, we exclude people with our over-expansion into social, emotional, and physical spaces, and we crash into events rather than welcoming them into our worlds.
In both cases there is simply too much ‘self’.
We become unattractive, unpleasant to be around and so increasingly isolated.
When excessively self confident we take extended and unappraised risks and become ill judged. We make ourselves both vulnerable and fragile by overriding evidence, experience and warnings. We create ever larger risks and failures that undermine our sense of personal value.
When excessively self esteemed we rest in ivory towers and think we know everything useful there is to know about a context, subject, or person and so become ever more uninformed. We cease to interact out of self interest as blind recluses, lacking introspection and resting on presumption.
Too little
Too little self esteem means unhappiness: living by excuses, acting passively, feeling victimised and weak, and submitting to other people, perhaps unwisely.
Too little self confidence means anxiety: living by avoidance, hesitation, self-recrimination, and feeling paralysed by the world and other people.
As psychological things, we have to think both of them into clarity and, sometimes, even into existence. We can lose them if we don't cherish them, but can also regain them even if abandoned.
They can be constant but just as easily vary over time and by context. Self esteem is perhaps more consistent and self confidence is more contextual, but this might simply be how we choose to experience them.
Singer Self Esteem (Picture: Jamie MacMillan for NME)
The relative value
Self esteem's "why" is more powerful than self confidence's "how". Experience shows this is true. Winning confidently leaves us empty if we feel worthless, while losing uncertainly can be a triumphant lesson if we are feeling self assured.
How does this work?
Self Esteem as personal value
Self esteem is our value outside of success or failure and provides us with psychological defence. By separating our intrinsic value from our triumphs and missteps, and from the support, collaboration, competition, aggression and unkindness of others, self esteem rides the waves of the world.
This enables self reflection instead of defensiveness. From this we learn from criticism rather than feeling distress. We avoid bitterness and regret, and respond to concern with grace and compassion. Importantly it gives us power to speak honestly with ourselves, so we can forgive, praise and support ourselves in the world.
Self Confidence as personal expectation
Self confidence defines our capacity for risk by defining our expectations to achieve success and survive failure.
It supports clarity and calmness in dangerous situations, supporting certainty and encouraging learning through experience.
When we succeed with self confidence we allow ourselves to feel justified, entitled and rewarded. And when we fail with self confidence we feel encouraged by what and how we've learned, becoming stronger and more complete in the process.
Interactions
When too much self esteem is paired with too little self confidence we are stubbornly indecisive. We value ourselves rather highly but lack the power to put that value into the world.
Inversely, when too little self esteem is paired with too much self confidence we are aggressive and unsatisfiable. We forthrightly head into the world, but do not really value what we might achieve there.
When both are too much we are simply unruly and overbearing. When both are too little we are cowed to inactivity by uncertainty.
Bringing them into balance is certainly helpful, but perhaps not necessary for feeling good and doing good.
We are capable of surprising fortitude and inner strength when we feel we have some value in the world, even when we lack the courage to take on its adventures.
Strong self esteem compensates, in terms of our net feelings, for a lack of self confidence.
Equally, a debilitating discouragement can overtake everything when you feel you have no value, even if you achieve the greatest possible outcomes.
Strong self confidence does not compensate for a lack of self esteem.
So:
we can use self esteem to bring courage and improve self confidence
but
we can also use self confidence to allow cowardice to trade on low self esteem.
Balance
Self confidence helps protect us from risk and encourages us to take risk, and self esteem helps protect us from unfairness and enables us to contiue despite it.
Fostering them both helps us contribute to the world and to ourselves.
The world is full of risks, but it’s life's unfairness (which is really pure dumb randomness) that most tests our mettle. In a universe we can’t control the skill to integrate with randomness is our most powerful.
And this is why I place more value on self esteem than self confidence.
