What is self-esteem?
Self-esteem is how you judge yourself. We all do it, whether we like to admit it or not, and how we judge ourselves, how we think we measure up against other people or against our future/past selves really matters. Self-esteem is an inward facing measure of my own self, and how well I’m doing at life (whatever that may mean for you). Self-esteem is more about being rather than doing – it’s who I feel I am inside, rather than what actions I take ‘out there’.
What is confidence?
If Self-esteem is inward facing (how you feel about yourself) then confidence is outward facing (how you feel about the world and your ability to meet it with success). Confidence is more about your abilities than your worth. It’s more about what I do ‘out there’ rather than who I am inside.
How do they relate?
Although different things, self-esteem and confidence are two sides of the same coin, and how much of that coin we carry in our pocket determines how much currency we have in the world. The name we give that currency is Agency – my ability to be a free, autonomous agent in the world with high belief that I can establish goals and succeed in working toward them. High self-esteem and high confidence mean a higher sense of agency, and a feeling that life is spiralling upwards for us. When self-esteem or confidence drop, we start to feel less sure of ourselves. Worries and doubts creep in. We withdraw from relationships, from challenges, from growth opportunities as we either don’t believe we deserve them or don’t believe we’re capable of them. Life shrinks around us, opportunities disappear, and we can start to spiral downwards.
What do they feel like?
When both self-esteem and confidence are high, we feel a high sense of agency. We feel we deserve success, and are capable of achieving it. This can be true in relationships, careers, achievements, whatever “success” looks like to us. But when self-esteem or confidence are lacking, it can look and feel very different:
Higher self-esteem, lower confidence – this is when we pretend to ourselves, and to the world, that we are one thing, but deep down inside we don’t have faith in it. Our identity is built on shaky foundations, and any sense of self we build will feel unstable, and that it could collapse at any moment. This can manifest in positive or negative ways, depending on which Self we are operating from (more on this below). For some it is anxiety, or “imposter syndrome”. It can be the belief that “I know I’m better than this, but I don’t know how to get there.” Or it can manifest as ego-inflation or narcissism, a belief that “I don’t deserve criticism, and I’m not strong enough to take any”. There are any number of different ways high self-esteem but low confidence can affect us. Each of us is unique, and understanding our unique self-esteem/confidence relationship will be a unique undertaking.
Lower self-esteem, higher confidence – this is actually a pretty good place to be. It is known as the “zone of optimal growth” as although self-esteem is low (“I am not good enough”) you have the confidence that you can improve things! It is from here that counselling for self-esteem can help bring about change and transformation, and as long as the goals you set are genuinely yours, and not imposed upon you by anyone else, you can enjoy the upward spiral.
Low self-esteem, low confidence – you know you’re not meeting your values or goals, nor do you have any belief that things could get any better. This is depression, this is despair, and it’s a tough hole to climb out of. Therapy can help here by helping you to find the small things you can do today that would make your life 1% better tomorrow, and then motivating you to do them. No one’s life is a write-off, there are always things we can do to improve, and these improvements can stack, and compound over time. Counselling for low confidence can be the launch pad.
How did I get here? (The Three Selves)
We all carry three selves around with us, often without realising it. And each self has self-esteem and confidence tied to it. The goal of self-esteem and confidence counselling is to bring them all into awareness and alignment. Only when we know who we are, who we are pretending to be, and who we seek to become (and why) can we truly experience agency.
The Real Self – this is who I truly am, underneath the disguises I wear or various identities I carry. It’s who I know myself to be if I am unflinchingly honest with myself.
The False Self – this is who I present to the world. It may be my professional identity, my social self, or the role I was taught to play when young, and I may or may not know it’s not the whole or the real me. It can be a useful and essential tool as long as I remember it’s ultimately false.
The Ideal Self – this is the me I am always trying to become. It may be based on my own values, or someone else’s. Knowing which is key to knowing whether to chase it or not.
My Real Self doesn’t necessarily need to be close to my Ideal Self, but they need to be in alignment. I need to see how I can get from where I am today to where I want to be. If the path feels open to me then I have less need for a False Self. Nor do I need to do away with my False Self entirely, I just need to know when I am employing it so that I don’t completely rely on it or identify with it. When all three selves are authentic (coming from me, not from others), known to me (self-awareness), and appropriate (wearing the right hat at the right time) then I can expect to feel that self-esteem and confidence guide me and support me, rather than me being a slave to them.
How can counselling help?
There are many models of personality that offer to analyse you, to put you into a box or a type, and although they can be helpful in terms of self-awareness, they can only ever capture a two dimensional, fixed version of you, not the full dynamic complex human you are. In my Bournemouth practice I offer self-esteem and confidence counselling to help clients untangle the complex relationship they have between their three selves, and various states of agency. This often changes drastically in different situations. We can be confident with strangers but anxious with family, or have high professional self-esteem but low when it comes to personal achievements. Therapy treats you as an individual, uncovers your origin story and history, to help you understand what moves to make next in order to establish your goals and work towards them.
Ready for the next step?
Click the button below to get in touch. I offer a free, no obligation half hour consultation in my Bournemouth office or online across the UK, where we can discuss what you hope to get out of therapy, and ask me any questions.