What is more important, building self esteem or confidence?

[kvnchrist]

I was listening to a radio program about how different social groups see in creating a more well-rounded individual and wanted to get you guys veiws of this. What is more important to becoming a member of society?

[HeyYou]

Don't the two go hand in hand?

[kvnchrist]

Self Esteem is, to me something more of a manner in which you see yourself. Confidence is something more attributable to experience.

 

I guess if people have praised you for being yourself you could have confidence in your self, but could that be true in reverse? If so, it would be more a leap of faith than anything else.

[HeyYou]

I've always had an overinflated opinion of myself. :)

[Morrovvind]

I can't speak for others, but I value self-esteem higher than confidence.

 

I'm not a confident person. I'm a tiny fragile bag of bones and organs (that can be killed by things I can't see), stuck on a rock hurtling through space towards who knows where, with little clue about why I'm here or what I'm supposed to be doing. But gosh darnit, I love myself.

[Beriallord]

They're both congruent. Someone with confidence also possesses self esteem. Someone who lacks confidence in general, also lacks self esteem.

 

Confidence is built by success, not failure. I guess each person has their own threshold for the amount of failures they can mentally endure before losing confidence in their abilities. I guess this is also a way of measuring someone's willpower. Thomas Edison failed thousands of times on making a light bulb, but continued to endure because he was confident he'd find a solution via process of trial and error.

Edited January 2, 2015 by Beriallord

[Daedthr]

What Berial said, self-esteem is simply confidence in oneself.

[Morrovvind]

They're both congruent. Someone with confidence also possesses self esteem. Someone who lacks confidence in general, also lacks self esteem.

 

Confidence is built by success, not failure. I guess each person has their own threshold for the amount of failures they can mentally endure before losing confidence in their abilities. I guess this is also a way of measuring someone's willpower. Thomas Edison failed thousands of times on making a light bulb, but continued to endure because he was confident he'd find a solution via process of trial and error.

 

I like to think that confidence is also built by failure. Failure is experience, which translates to knowledge you can pass on to other people. If you tried to invent a light bulb 1000 times but failed, you could have written down your failures to present to other people so that they may use your experience to further work on that project. Failure IS valuable depending on how you view it, even if it does not eventually lead to success.

 

I also believe that confidence and self-esteem CAN BE two entirely different facets of one's personality. Some people might inexorably despise themselves for their failures or lack of abilities which translates into a low self esteem, but other people may think highly of themselves despite their continuous failures and lack of confidence. It all depends on their frame of reference of what it means to be human, and if they can love themselves for that.

 

For instance, in a chess tournament of 10 people, since only one person can win, does that mean the 9 other people should hate themselves? They may not be confident in their chess-playing ability due to lack of success, but at least they had fun playing and contributed to the game as a whole.

[kvnchrist]

Confidence is created by trying, wither the attempt succeeds or not. Self Esteem can be fabricated out of delusion. All it takes is repetitive statements. Just look at north Korea's dictator. He hasn't done crap and thinks the world of himself.

[Lakan]

I really couldn't see a benefit to doing one without the other. It's almost like a body vs mind question, almost...