January 6, 2008
-
Confidence and Insecurity
Being confident is not at all related to insecurity. It’s a mistake to think that insecurity means a lack of confidence or that because you are confident that you are secure. These two concepts just aren’t connected in such a simple way.
The difference is that Confidence is outwardly directed whereas Insecurity is inwardly directed. Confidence is what we project to others based on, ordinarily, our rational beliefs about our capacities or skills. If I am confident that I am an awesome programmer, than you will notice it by the way in which I carry myself when engaging in programming tasks. I will act as if I know what I am doing. I will talk comfortably about programming as if it is easy and normal for me to speak in this way about programming.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t be insecure about it too.
Insecurity is about how you imagine or fear that others perceive you. Even if I think myself an awesome programmer I could always feel this deep seated fear that everyone I interact with is laughing at what they see as my piss poor programming skills. I might wonder and doubt that I am capable of convincing people that I am actually good at what I do. And I might even fear that the perspectives of others is in fact the real truth and that I am simply mistaken about my rational assessment of my skills.
The opposite scenario can also hold. I could have no confidence in my ability say to be a good writer, but I might be ok with that. It might not bother me at all what others are thinking about my writing and I may spend not a lick of energy worrying about whether I can convince anyone that my writing is worthy of their respect. In such a situation I’m secure in my knowledge of my writing skills being exactly what they are. I’m just not confident in them. I wouldn’t put them up to any test or anything because I’d really believe that they just aren’t good enough to succeed. It doesn’t bother me. That’s just my rational judgment.
You’ll meet lots of people who are overwhelmingly confident outwardly but really deeply insecure in all walks of life. You’ll also meet people who lack confidence in their ability but are not all insecure about it.
This is just the way of the world I guess.
Comments (2)
I thought that confidence and insecurity were two sides of the same coin. Or are you saying that there isn’t an inverse correlation between the two?
Yes. I think most people think that they are related and I used to think so too. I am arguing here that I think they are not. I could be wrong, but right now I am thinking that confidence and insecurity vary independently.