Self-confidence is an individual’s capacity to trust in their own abilities, worth, judgements and power.
Someone with self-confidence believes in their own ability to successfully face daily challenges or demands, regardless of what may come up. They may be composed and self-aware. They will also have personal ideals and plans for our life, safe in the knowledge that they are able to achieve what they want.
What is Low Self-Confidence?
A lack of self-confidence may be a crippling trait that holds us back from achieving our goals. We may believe we don’t have the confidence to get what we want in life or to go after the things we desire.
You may be unhappy in your personal relationship, feel stuck in a job you don’t enjoy or are unable to make a significant change to your life. There may be things you want to do but something stops you. You may feel a struggle between what you want to do and the ability to do it.
Low self-confidence can impact on different areas of our life. Our love life, work life and our health can be affected to varying degrees.
Someone with low self-confidence may struggle with being assertive or social anxiety. They may also struggle with interpersonal skills and communicating with others. Things could result in a vicious circle. A lack of self-confidence in social situations could lead to awkward encounters or missed moments. This may then in turn result in a feeling of inferiority and failure. Someone’s drive to succeed may take a knock, their direction in life may become vague or feel untenable. Feelings of despair, anger and resentment may surface.
Sign of low self-confidence
If you are lacking in self-confidence you may be experiencing the following;
- Believing you are unsuccessful
- Struggling with motivation or determination
- Social anxiety and an avoidance of social situations
- Low self-worth
- Destructive or unhealthy personal relationships
- A feeling of “I’m Not OK, You Are OK”
Self-Confidence vs. Self-Esteem
Self-confidence and self-esteem are often used interchangeably. There is however, a difference between the two. Where self-confidence is used more in terms of how we feel about our abilities to do certain things in certain situations, self-esteem relates to our overall feelings about ourselves.
As an example, we may be able to give a presentation in front of a room full of people showing healthy self-confidence, but we may not feel our public speaking is actually any good. Our perception of ourselves in this situation shows low self-esteem but high self-confidence. The difference is highlighted via our feelings of self-worth. If we know we can get the job done, we have self-confidence but if we don’t value ourselves when we’re doing it, we have low self-esteem.
In terms of therapy it may be useful to explore what areas and feelings you have about yourself, your value and your abilities to better understand what is going on for you.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. Samuel Johnson
Working to Develop Greater Self-Confidence
Self-confidence may be on a spectrum and there may be certain situations in which we feel very confident and others not. We may notice the discrepancy and have a desire to be as confident on all areas of our life as we can.
Working to develop greater self-confidence can be beneficial in multiple areas of our life. We can reduce challenges in certain areas as our ability to overcome adversity increases and our general mental health is healthier and stronger.
The good news is that self-confidence can be learned and built on. Therapy to increase self-confidence will focus on supporting you to identify self-limiting beliefs and to recognise how they are holding you back. With understanding and a nurturing environment offering freedom to explore what’s going on for you, therapy can provide you with the stepping stones to help you move forward. We will work at your pace, setting realistic and obtainable goals that work for you.
If you would like to know more about how therapy can help you with low self-confidence, get in touch with Alana.
