To paraphrase Dr “Bones” McCoy from Star Trek, “Damn it man I’m a coach not a psychology Professor“.

That’s probably why I often use the terms “self-esteem” and “self-confidence” interchangeably.  I don’t know any better.

Some folks come to me and talk about building their self-confidence, others come to me wanting to build self-esteem.  To me, the end result is the same.  And the dictionary kinda, sorta agrees with me.

self-es·teem
–noun
1. a realistic respect for or favorable impression of oneself;

self-con·fi·dence
–noun
1. realistic confidence in one’s own judgment, ability, power,etc.

See how close they are?  They’re really close.  If being close were people, they’d be China.

Building self-esteem is a process of valuing yourself; it’s building enough belief in your own worth that it enables rather than disables.  Building confidence is a process of recognizing, applying and trusting capability; it’s building enough belief in your ability that it enables rather than disables.

One is about respecting who you are, the other is about trusting who you are.  For me, that’s an incredibly powerful combination and it’s at the heart of what I do.

Respecting yourself starts on the inside.  You have to honestly open up your beliefs and face the truth of how you think about yourself.  You have to put aside the self-doubts and the self-criticism to look for the truth of who you are and see the golden threads that are woven through you; the foundations, cornerstones and building blocks that make you utterly unique and whole.  A lot of people get stuck here because they’re not used to a. being so honest about themselves and b. diving into their own worth.

A lot of people feel icky doing this and it’s here where it gets scary, because things start changing.  And it’s here that trust becomes an important part of the process.

Trusting yourself starts with a leap of faith.  Trust demands that you allow yourself to be scared and take a conscious step into the unknown.  That leap of faith becomes easier if you’re stepping towards something that matters, and it becomes more graceful if you do it with a dose of self-respect.

See how this all starts weaving together?  Self-esteem, self-confidence, respect and trust – all growing and all working together.

A current client of mine is a great example of this.  She came to me with zilch self-respect and no self-trust.  So we made a start.  Step by step and bit by bit we worked on her views about herself and her ability to trust her decisions.  We saw the fear when it appeared and we dealt with the compelling urge to back away from change.  With each step forwards she saw that she could make change happen and she could feel differently about what she was doing.  In turn, that provided momentum that opened up another layer of insight and took us another important step forwards.

We’re half way through and still have a lot to do, but I know she’s building something that will last.

To be honest, I’ve never really thought about the difference between self-esteem and self-confidence until I started writing this post.  To me, it doesn’t really matter, which is why I don’t worry about whether I call it self-esteem one day and self-confidence the next.  Psychologist’s would probably laugh and point at my naivety, but for me it’s all part of the same process.

Just forget about the words you or I use.  Forget about labelling it or defining it.  Focus on what it means to you, how you experience it and how it feels.  Then make a start.