Self-Confidence
Self-confidence is about trusting in your abilities and your value to others. You need self-confidence to think independently and to stand firm in the face of social pressure, ego, inertia, or emotion. You need it to understand that not all results are immediate, and to focus on doing what it takes to earn them eventually.
Self-confidence empowers resilience in the aftermath of negative feedback, and adaptability in the face of changing circumstances. You know what your abilities are and how they add value, whether other people appreciate them or not. If you've forged a healthy sense of self-confidence, it will see you through whatever emerging challenges and difficulties come your way.
Confidence vs. Ego
Self-confidence is what empowers you to execute difficult decisions and develop self-knowledge. While the ego tries to prevent you from acknowledging any deficiencies you may have, self-confidence gives you the strength to acknowledge those deficiencies. This is how you learn humility.
Confidence without humility is generally the same thing as overconfidence---a weakness, not a strength. Confident people have the strength to admit weaknesses and vulnerabilities, to acknowledge that other people might be better at something than they are, and to ask when they need help.
Confident people stay focused on completing the task at hand, even if it involves relying on the help of others to do so. Every successful task only further serves to deepen your trust in yourself, and that's how confidence is earned.
Confidence also Comes from How You Talk to Yourself
More dreams die from a lack of confidence than a lack of competence. But while confidence is often a byproduct of our accomplishments, it also comes from how you talk to yourself.
That little voice in your head may whisper its doubts, but it should also remind you of the many hardships and challenges you've overcome in the past and the fact that you persevered.
Maybe your relationship ended or your business failed or you were scared the first time you put on skis---whatever it was, you overcame it, moved past it, and you're stronger as a result.
It's important to talk to yourself about the adversity you've faced, because past hardship is where you get the confidence to face future hardship.
People who are confident aren't afraid of facing reality because they know they can handle it. Confident people don't care what other people think about them, aren't afraid of standing out, and are willing to risk looking like an idiot while they try something new. They've been beaten down and rebuilt themselves enough times to know that they can do it again if they have to. Crucially, they also know that to outperform the crowd, you have to do things differently sometimes, and that hecklers and naysayers inevitably tend to follow. They take their feedback from reality, not popular opinion.
Confidence and Honesty
Self-confidence is also the strength to accept hard truths. We all have to deal with the world as it is, not as we want it to be. The quicker you stop denying inconvenient truths and start responding to difficult realities, the better.
We all have something that we're denying right now because accepting it is hard, and we want to avoid the pain.
The quicker you accept reality, though, the quicker you can deal with the implications, and the sooner you do that, the easier those implications are to manage. Most of the time, needing to wait for the right moment to do a hard thing is just an excuse: a way to rationalize putting off what needs to be done. There is no perfect moment. There's only the desire to continue waiting for one.
People with self-confidence are honest about their own motivations, actions, and results. They recognize when the voice in their head might be ignoring reality. They also listen to the feedback the world gives them, instead of shopping around for other opinions.
The people who frequently find themselves on the "wrong side of right" are people who can't zoom in and out and see the problem from multiple angles. When you can't see a problem from multiple points of view, you have blind spots.
Admitting you're wrong isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. Admitting that someone has a better explanation than you shows that you're adaptable.
The Wrong Side of Right
Self-confidence is the strength to focus on what's right instead of who's right. It's the strength to face reality. It's the strength to admit mistakes, and the strength to change your mind. Self-confidence is what it takes to be on the right side of right.
Outcome over ego.