Self-confidence vs confidence

Did you know there is a difference between confidence and self-confidence?

It took me a while to understand the difference and truly understand that I didn't need to be competent or feel confident to be self-confident but once I did, I started to approach everything in my life differently, particularly my life with horses.

Self-confidence is a belief in our ability to learn, our ability to figure it out, our ability to recover when things don’t go smoothly. From a place of self-confidence, we gain competence and confidence in the skills and lessons we learn as we experience the highs and lows of any part of our life.  This is particularly true when horses are your sport or hobby because the challenges involve physical risk.

I’m sharing this concept with you because I think it is important to understand that there is a difference, that they can exist separately and together and that confusing them is not helpful.

When we think they are the same thing and then we don’t do something as well as we would like we beat ourselves up with negative self-judgement and criticism and that negatively impacts our self-confidence which has a negative effect on every other area of our life. In the short term it can feel easier and requires less effort but long term it can be devasting. (It is a negative cycle that creates a lot of unnecessary suffering) Humans tend to choose this model because of the “Motivational triad” in our DNA.  (That’s a blog for another day) When this cycle first begins it is difficult to recognise, it is not until we start to feel truly miserable that we wonder “what happened, I used to feel so confident”, like it was sudden, but in truth it was a slow downward spiral.

If instead we left out the negative self-talk and judgement, possibly even praised ourselves for giving it a go or gave ourselves credit for trying or for doing just a little bit better than last time, we would support our self-confidence and we are more likely to keep trying.  This attitude would then flow into all other areas of our lives, and we’d begin to feel better about ourselves and everything else we do.  Interestingly, this is often more uncomfortable in the short term but feels better long term, but it takes more effort and determination.

As an example, I can feel confident about my ability to write, I know how to write but that does not make me self-confident it just makes me confident and competent in my writing skills.  I can be self- confident in my ability to learn how to ride but not feel confident or competent in the skill of riding.  However, as time goes by and I practice those skills from a place of self-confidence, I become confident, and competent but I need to believe in myself, to have self-confidence to keep going.

The point I am trying to make is if you start from a place of self-confidence then the confidence and competence will happen organically.  It is important to note that just because you are self-confident in one area of your life it doesn’t automatically mean you are in all other areas, but it makes it more likely.

Self-confidence comes from how you think about yourself.  Do you show yourself compassion?  Do you give yourself the time it takes to learn something?  Do you allow yourself to fall, look silly or make mistakes and not criticise or judge yourself for any of it?  This is what we all when we all learnt how to walk, we simply believed we could (we are all born self-confident), and kept trying day after day until we did, and we became so competent and confident in our ability to walk now it requires little conscious effort or thought.

This is how you begin feeling confident, you start by believing it is possible for you to feel that way, that it is possible for you to become a skilled and competent horse owner, rider etc so you are self-confident in your ability to feel more confident.

On a side note, being self-confident does not necessarily feel like confidence, but that’s a blog for another day.

I hope you are enjoying your week :)

If you would like to start building self confidence and feeling more confident check out my Confidence+ package by clicking on the coaching link at the top of the page.