Have you ever considered the difference between self confidence and self esteem? Take a moment to reflect on it now. Many people use the terms interchangeably but I believe not knowing this difference is keeping us from making progress in our career and life in general.  

Confidence is about trusting our innate qualities like intelligence, talents and physical beauty. It’s our belief that we can evaluate and deal with things and handle our abilities in a self assured way.  It’s the side of you that you show to the outside world, even if it’s a mask you’re wearing as you’re actually pretty terrified. You can fake confidence and often people won’t be able to tell.

Self esteem however is different. Esteem is the lens through which we view ourselves, our self image if you like. It’s the value you place on yourself as a person and your recognition of your skills, qualities and achievements and acceptance of your flaws and weaknesses.  We need to be able to value ourselves and in turn allow others to value us too. 

You are inside your head 24/7. You can’t fake high self esteem as it’s at the very core of you and sets the tone for your whole life. If your self esteem is low is has a negative impact on everything, puts limits on your hopes and dreams and makes your head a very miserable place to be.

People with low self esteem often struggle with self doubt, anxiety, poor personal boundaries, lack of self worth and negative self talk. 

We all need self esteem to function but often we maintain it at this low level by constantly telling ourselves how rubbish and incapable we are. We then feel bad about ourselves and often seek external validation and praise from others that we’re good enough or doing a good job.  

The more we don’t feel good enough the more we tell ourselves that we’re not good enough. 

To ensure you are able to build and maintain your self esteem at a healthy level you need to look inside yourself rather than outside. 

Think of your self esteem like a mobile phone battery. It’s much easier to take the charger wherever you go so you know you’ll be able to keep it functioning than to just keep our fingers crossed that the battery lasts or that a friend or colleague will have one they are prepared to lend you.

A wonderful consequence of high self esteem is our self confidence improves, our fear of judgement and criticism reduces and we feel more resilient and in control of our lives. 

3 quick tips to help you boost your self esteem everyday: 

• Think of 5 things that you are proud of about yourself and really let yourself feel it

• Challenge any negative self talk 

• Focus on the effort you are putting in rather than the end result

During my 8 week 1:1 Midwife Sparkle Method Programme I help you understand about what motivates you, how low self esteem is formed and maintained and how to improve it to ensure it is ever replenishing! I show you how to keep your battery full of charge and how to show others how to keep theirs charged up too.