False self-confidence: the heavy mask of self-deception

In today's article I will expose the concept of false self-confidence.

It is common to talk about the importance of self-esteem. Feeling good about yourself is essential for ourselves and for relating to others. However, psychologists and coaches also refer to the self-confidence (self-efficacy), aware of the relationship it has with self-esteem.

False self-confidence: the difference between self-esteem and self-confidence

To better understand the difference between self-confidence and self-esteem, first I will talk about self-concept or self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is what the person believes or thinks about himself.

Most experts interpret the self-concept as an integrated set of factors of the self, basically three: cognitive (thoughts), affective (feelings) and conative (behaviors), which if identified individually could be classified as follows: the first factor, selfconcept Properly said; the second factor as self-esteem; and the third as self-efficacy or self-confidence. Before talking about false self-confidence, we will focus on the self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is the appreciation of one's abilities and focuses on the beliefs of having the ability and the ability to succeed in a given context. While self-esteem is the general feeling of how valuable one is as a whole and refers to the appreciation of oneself.

People with a high level of self-confidence high standards of success are often set. They may not always achieve their goals or perhaps their self-esteem is not so high, but they never give up, they always continue to trust themselves and their abilities. This confidence in your own ability allows you not to collapse in the face of failure and to move forward in the fulfillment of your own goals and objectives.

Although not all researchers agree, there is some consensus that self-confidence is the same as self-efficacy. Albert bandura, a professor of the Stanford University, he was the first psychologist to talk about self-efficacy in the 1970s. For Bandura, self-confidence is "the conviction that a person has that he can successfully execute the behavior required to produce a certain result."

The importance of being realistic

Therefore, self-confidence has to do with the realistic expectation of what one can truly do to achieve a certain goal. It is an internal state that implies a real knowledge of the difficulties to be overcome, of the own resources to do it and, from here, the real possibilities that one has of achieving success in some aspect of their lifetime.

The most important factor in self-confidence is not blindly believing that you will achieve all your goals and that you will never make mistakes, but rather that the person has the conviction, objectively supported, that they have sufficient resources to be able to overcome adversity and wake up after the mistakes that can inevitably be made. It is important to form true self-confidence and not fall into the error of false self-confidence.

False self-confidence: what is it?

As I have pointed out, self-confidence is an internal state characterized by a realistic conviction that one is effective at doing facing the demands of life, and they are not just simple verbal manifestations that one is going to get everything that is proposes. It is not about appearing optimistic all the time, without valuing, in any case, the real possibilities that one has and the accessibility to certain external factors that will be present.

I already commented in the article "Personal Development: 5 reasons for self-reflection"the importance of an objective analysis of the situation and of not being carried away by" hunches "without any kind of control. When one adopts an attitude of "doors out" that does not reflect the distrust and concern that, in many cases, is experiences, making unsubstantiated triumphalist and optimistic manifestations, is what is known as false self-confidence. This behavior, probably gratifying at the time of carrying it out, encourages the feel good thinking like this, but this behavior can lead, however, to I arrived at confuse reality with fantasy.

The false self-confidence helps to produce a self-deception that allows the person to escape from the true internal state of self-confidence that in many cases is behind the “mask”. This form of avoidance, false self-confidence, can have serious consequences for self-confidence, since it will become weaker and weaker, and increasingly away from reality.