What’s the difference between self-esteem and confidence? In this article, we’ll examine women and self-esteem and assess some of the ways in which high or low self-confidence can have a positive or negative impact on your life. Let’s find out how the differences between self-esteem and self-confidence can affect women!
Self-Esteem
While there is some overlap between self-confidence and self-esteem, they are actually two different constructs. Self-esteem refers to the individual’s subjective view of their worth. It’s all about knowing how you value and appreciate yourself. Also, your overall sense of self-esteem can change during your lifetime. It can evolve based on your interactions with others and life experiences.
Of course, you can have negative and positive evaluations of yourself. These evaluations can predict certain outcomes and affect your future. For example, they can impact your happiness, academic progress, career, and your relationships. You can think of self-esteem as your own inner critic, but this will depend entirely on the individual. Some people have a loud internal voice that helps them think positively and feel good. Others can lash out when they’re distressed and put themselves down.
Self-Confidence
Self-confidence is all about how you believe in yourself. It’s your own internal compass that tells you whether or not your abilities are strong enough depending on a specific circumstance or situation. Self-confidence can make you feel strong and competent. Building self-confidence can also help you to achieve your goals.
However, if you struggle with self-confidence, it can also make you feel less assured. If you have low self-confidence, you could experience communication difficulties, shyness, and problems in making decisions.
What’s more, self-confidence is also based on a positive and optimistic belief that you’ll be competent to achieve your goals in the future. It’s one of the most important constructs that makes us reach out for our dreams and believe in ourselves. While this is similar to self-esteem, it’s often categorized by our ability to achieve a goal compared to a specific task or challenge.
How Different Are the Effects of These Two?
While those two constructs are often put under one roof, they are substantially different. Self-confidence gives us a measure of how we believe in ourselves. Self-esteem helps us to relate our personality to the world to see how we can interact with it. In some instances, people can go down the wrong path if they look for self-esteem while comparing their achievements or abilities. So is it possible to have self-esteem without self-confidence and vice versa?
Well, these two constructs don’t always go hand in hand. For example, you can be confident in your skills, but you can lack self-esteem. A great example of this is an athlete who is incredibly self-confident in their physical abilities but doubts their worth in other areas of life. Some people don’t have the ability to build self-esteem and self-confidence at the same time. Others can use strong self-esteem or self-confidence to boost their low self-confidence or self-esteem.
How Does It Change People, Especially Women?
While men generally report higher levels of self-confidence, women have higher self-esteem. Regardless of the male and female confidence gap, you should know that being competent and performing well at your workplace is usually not enough to be successful. Women need to be confident in their abilities and know how to evaluate themselves to truly achieve their goals.
So what are the effects of self-confidence and self-esteem on women? Some women often believe that their performance is enough to help them prove themselves. But, they neglect various other essential actions. That could include believing in themselves, risking things out of curiosity, and getting out of their comfort zone. Those three factors may not be able to manifest themselves if you’re a woman who suffers from low self-confidence or self-esteem.
If you have low self-esteem, you might not be able to judge your abilities objectively. Plus, you might be overly critical of yourself. Moreover, you could believe that others are better than you or that you’re simply not deserving of success.
Conversely, with higher self-esteem, you’ll consider yourself as someone who deserves to have fun and be successful. That can transfer over to your self-confidence. For example, if you have higher levels of self-confidence, you’ll be able to assertively express your opinions and needs. You’ll also be confident in your decision-making abilities. And, you’ll know how to pick healthy or productive relationships while avoiding bad decisions. However, if you have low self-confidence, you might struggle to advance in your career or form meaningful relationships.
Misconceptions on Women With Self-Confidence and Self-Esteem
While both constructs can change you, it’s crucial to know that having low self-esteem or self-confidence will not doom you or change your identity as a woman. You can always work on those two constructs productively to prevent negative thoughts from interfering with your life.
Nevertheless, if you’re already a confident and successful woman, you’ll also face some struggles that could impact you negatively. Some of the biggest myths say that confident women don’t need anyone, don’t have weaknesses, or never feel fear.
All of that is simply untrue. Wanting to become a confident woman doesn’t mean you’ll become an emotionless woman who only focuses on her career. In fact, confident women are women who have managed to push past their fears and delve into the unknown. They are also individuals who take risks without feeling paralyzed by low self-esteem. Additionally, confident women need people in their lives, but they’ll be quite selective about their relationships. They will know exactly how to spot deceptive people from those who are trustworthy.
Plus, women with high self-esteem or confidence are not exempt from having weaknesses. The difference between confident and less confident women is that confident women try hard to be the best versions of themselves. They can objectively analyze their weaknesses and work out how to eliminate them. Finally, confident women with high-self esteem know that excuses are not good enough, and they don’t use them to prevent themselves from being successful.