The journey through higher education can challenge one’s own perception of their self-image. Evaluation from faculty of course work, clinical skills, and overall demeanor can increase anxiety and push one to strive for perfection.
Self-confidence can be described as believing in one’s own abilities in a realistic manner and one’s appreciation for their own qualities. It is feeling capable and competent in the work that one puts forth. Confidence can help decrease anxiety, stress, and self-doubt. Others can be more drawn to those who are self-confident. Confidence can be influenced by genetics, temperament, cultural backgrounds, early life experiences, or past trauma.
However, being overly self-confident in one’s abilities can lead to problems with studying for tests or completing a project on time. Sometimes too much confidence can come across to others as arrogant or narcissistic which means they feel a sense of superiority over others. On the other hand, lower confidence can lead to missed opportunities such as changing a career or finding a new romantic partnership. Some may experience higher levels of confidence in one area of their life versus another. Being confident in one’s own abilities is not all-encompassing. One may experience confidence in their cooking abilities while experience self-doubt with their painting abilities. Additionally, when learning a new skill, it will take time to build confidence. In these situations, it can be helpful to remind oneself it will take practice and mistakes will happen. In these moments it can be helpful to be kind to yourself and give yourself a pep talk!
Self-esteem is a term that sometimes is used interchangeably with confidence though they are different concepts. Self-esteem is the internal experience of a person’s feelings about the self. Self-confidence is a person’s perceptions of their abilities when interacting with the external world. One’s self-esteem may be higher or lower than one’s self-confidence. Self-confidence can help one to take risks to better circumstances and greater the likelihood of finding success. In doing so, this can help with overall satisfaction in one’s life and increase self-esteem.
Here are some helpful tips for building self-confidence. Through building self-confidence, one can decrease their anxiety, and experience less stress and self-doubt.
- Identify insecurities that you may have. Think about what situations, feelings, or other instances in which your insecurities pop up. Building this awareness can help you to manage your feelings by practicing coping skills and increase your ability to tolerate and push through the moment.
- Once you have built up your awareness, practice changing the negative self-talk that arises to supportive self-talk. For example, change the negative thought “I will never get this right,” to “This is my first time, it will come with practice”.
- Create a list of positive affirmations to reference when you notice that feeling of insecurity rising and give yourself a pep talk.
- Sometimes we need support with building our confidence as self-esteem. Counseling and mental health support can be beneficial for some individuals.