How do you know if you're confident?

LegacyUser

This may seem silly but I don't know if I am confident or not. Does thinking you are, make you be? I think I am most of the time, in that I am happy being myself and think I look ok without being cocky about it. I don't know if I dress to project this, I just wear what I feel comfortable in.
I don't know if I come across that way to others though. I am not sure if people even describe me as confident. So I am not sure if that is what it is, how others see you or you see yourself?

Out Of The Night

howdoyou? wrote: »

This may seem silly but I don't know if I am confident or not. Does thinking you are, make you be? I think I am most of the time, in that I am happy being myself and think I look ok without being cocky about it. I don't know if I dress to project this, I just wear what I feel comfortable in.
I don't know if I come across that way to others though. I am not sure if people even describe me as confident. So I am not sure if that is what it is, how others see you or you see yourself?

Hmm interesting. I know for me it's how I feel about myself inside. I am confident in my appearance, intellect, capabilities and social skills. I can worry what the people I care about think of me. 'Worry' maybe isn't the right word. I know who I am and I like me. It's ok to not be liked by everybody. Yet it bothers me if those in my life perceive me to be something I know I am not. OP I think it boils down to how you see yourself.

P. Breathnach

You know if you don't feel a need to ask such a question.

wylo

A great way of measuring confidence:

The less acting you have to do in front of anybody, the more confident you are.

If you truly feel that you never have to put on even a small bit of a show even in what would seem like scary situations for alot of people ,or that you never review a situation in your head to make sure you said "the right thing", or that you never worry that you might say "the wrong thing", and that you truly lose yourself and dont analyze the situation whatsoever, while at the same time not looking for any attention whatsoever, or if you can take both take the piss out of yourself but also say something good about yourself without caring how you come across then you are very confident.

ps not caring, for the most part, about how you come across to others is confidence, wanting to be seen as confident is not confidence.
A truly truly confident person is barely aware how confident they are., because they dont think of themselves as much as non confident people do.

The reason Im going into such detail is because I love that subject and have been at both ends of the spectrum.

BBDBB

See if this helps. I think what you are describing is the main difference between Self belief and Confidence. They are not the same thing and you can be one without the other.

Self belief is how you feel about yourself, how comfortable you are with your own decisions about the way you interact with the world and other people, how much you need to be validated by the approval of other people. Do you dwell on the comments of others, wonder what they really meant by that comment etc It can be very deep rooted and go back to your childhood, the way you were brought up and educated, significant turning points in your life feature strongly about how you see yourself

Confidence is that which you show the world. On occasion, but not all the time this can be the mask we put on in our interactions with people. We use it to create and maintain impressions we create in others about us and to maintain relationships even though inside we might privately feel something different. We might use that confidence to maintain a role at work or in society or amongst family and friends

I can think of examples of people who have little of either, lots of both or a mix of them, one but not the other. Ask yourself how you would rate yourself in both of them given your question. If that honest answer is unsatisfying to you then you might start to consider what you want/can do about moving them up or down accordingly

hope it helps

Hope it helps

leeroybrown

Someone genuinely "confident" wouldn't need to ask this question.