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.
Differentiating 'esteem' and 'confidence'
Self esteem is how we hold ourselves up – our feelings of personal value.
Self confidence is how we express ourselves out – our presentation in success and failure.
Self esteem helps us exist despite external things we cannot control, while self confidence helps us interact with external things in attempts to exert control.
How much is too much?
Extreme highs or lows in esteem and confidence harm us, and those around us.
Too much
Too much self esteem leads to ignorance: we warp our perspective with self importance, act with pride, ignore lessons, and disregard other people, all perhaps unkindly.
We expose ourselves dangerously to hubris and so we dispute feedback the world gives us, digging ourselves bigger and bigger holes to fall into.
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 much self confidence brings trouble: we get ourselves into mischief by pushing too far, ignoring evidence and warnings about our actions, and dominating other people, probably unwelcomely.
We are boorish and tiresome to be around, we exclude people with our over-expansion socially, emotionally, and physical ly, and we crash into events rather than absorbing them.
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.
In both cases there is simply too much ‘self’ and that is unattractive, unpleasant to be around, and increasingly isolating.
Too little
Too little self esteem means unhappiness: living by guilt or blame, being passive in the face of attack, feeling victimised or 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.
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.
Self Esteem with her backing singers (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.
