What is confidence?

What is confidence? Is it the feeling of being better than others? Is it not being easily influenced by others? Is it not caring about what others think about you? Understanding what is confidence is important because naturally to gain something confidence, we must first understand what it is.

According to www.dictionary.com, confidence is ‘the belief in oneself and one's powers or abilities.’

That is what confidence is, the belief that you are capable of doing something. When you have confidence you believe that you have the ability to perform something successfully.

Let's go deeper

Now let’s go a little deeper into it. If having confidence means having the belief that you have the capability to succeed at something, what does having belief mean? Belief is basically a strong feeling of certainty you have about something. So having belief in your ability to succeed means you feel quite certain that you can achieve success.

Let's put it all together. what is confidence? To have confidence ultimately means that you have a feeling of certainty that you have the ability to succeed and can succeed in what you are attempting. Now note that it states that you ‘have a feeling of certainty’ rather than ‘have certainty’.

The reason I wanted to point this out is for it to be a reminder that there is no mention that having confidence is being absolutely certain of something. There are many people out there that equate having self confidence to having absolute certainty. Well it’s no wonder why they always claim that they have no confidence, it’s because all the while they have been seeking for absolute certainty which doesn’t really exist.

From this we can understand that confidence is actually all about perception. Confidence is not based solely on actual facts, rather it is based more on opinion. Some people need more references(indicators of obtaining succeed) for them to have a feeling of certainty about achieving success, while others may feel certain of success despite having very little, if any references to back them up. The things that make one person feel confident may not make another feel the same way.

In a nutshell

In a nutshell, the difference between a person who has confidence and a person who doesn’t have confidence may only boil down to their individual perception. 2 persons may have the same level of skill, experience, knowledge, ability, training etc but one may feel more confident than the other because she perceives that her current level of ability is sufficient to achieve success while the other person believes it isn’t sufficient.

Both will never know for sure whether their current capabilities are adequate until they actually attempt it for real. So by taking this into account for our daily lives, prepare as much as you can, but to a certain extent, never let the perception of your confidence level stop you from attempting anything.

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