Confidence Isn't Enough. Here's Why.

Can self-esteem actually be rebuilt?

In this episode, we explore the difference between self-esteem and confidence, two concepts that are often used interchangeably but mean very different things.

Confidence is often tied to what you do. Self-esteem is about how you see yourself, even when life doesn't go as planned.

We'll discuss:

• What self-esteem really is
• Why it becomes damaged over time
• The difference between confidence and self-worth
• How comparison and self-doubt affect the way we see ourselves
• Practical ways to build lasting self-esteem without relying on external validation

If you've ever struggled with feeling "not enough," constantly compared yourself to others, or found yourself chasing confidence without understanding what's underneath it, this conversation is for you.

Subscribe for more conversations on mental health, relationships, personal growth, and emotional well-being.

And to learn more: https://gowinwithin.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Self-esteem is not something you're born with or without. It's built. And that means it can also be rebuilt. Today we're going to dive into something that sits at the core of how you think, how you feel, how you move through the world, self-esteem. How to build confidence in a way that's real, in a way that's stable, and not depend on a constant external validation. This isn't going to be about fake positivity or telling yourself you're amazing when you don't believe it at all. We're going to talk about what self-esteem actually is, why it gets damaged, and how to rebuild it. How to rebuild it in a way that it lasts, how to rebuild it in a way that is realistic, how to rebuild it in a way that it works for you. So whether you're whether whether you've been struggling with self-doubt, comparing yourself to other people, or just feeling like you're not enough. This episode, this moment, this is for you. Self-esteem is not the same as confidence. It's not. It is not the same. People use these words interchangeably, but they're actually very, very, very different. Confidence is usually tied to performance as well as experiences. Self-esteem, on the other hand, is deeper. It's much deeper. It's your overall sense of worth. It's answers, it's it's it answers the question, right? How do I feel about myself as a person? Ooh, it just got deep. Let me say it again. How do you feel about yourself as a person? You can be confident in what you do, but still have low f low self-esteem about who you are. And when self-esteem is low, it tends to show up in subtle but powerful ways. You start to second guess yourself constantly, constantly second-guessing yourself. You assume, watch this, you assume that other people are judging you all the time, right? I'm talking about low self-esteem that shows up in subtle ways. You struggle to accept compliments. Does this sound familiar? You compare yourself to others and come up short, right? When you compare yourself, you're constantly comparing yourself in a way that you come up short. You tolerate things you shouldn't, relationships, environments, treatment, because part of you don't believe that you deserve anything better. If any of that resonates with you, you ain't by yourself. This is incredibly common, unfortunately. Now, here's the important part self-esteem is not something you're born with or without, it's built, and that means it can also be rebuilt. Where low self-esteem comes from. Now, the question of the hour: where does low self-esteem come from? Let's talk about where it all starts. It doesn't just appear out of nowhere, right? Don't just fall out of the sky. For most people, it's developed over time through repeated experiences. Maybe you grew up in an environment where love or approval felt conditional. Maybe you were criticized a lot as a kid or compared to others. Maybe you experienced bullying. Maybe you experienced being rejected over and over and over again, or even failure in ways that stuck with you beyond the time frame of it sticking with you should have been. Or maybe, maybe one, maybe, maybe no one, maybe no one explicitly told you that you weren't good enough, but no one told you that you were actually good enough either. Over time, your brain starts to form beliefs. Beliefs such as I'm not smart enough, I'm not attractive enough, I'm not interesting enough, I'm not worthy. And once those beliefs start to form, your brain starts to look for evidence to confirm what you're thinking about yourself. That's how the cycle starts, and that's how the cycle continues. You filter your experiences through the beliefs that you have. If someone compliments you, you dismiss it. Why? Because internal, your internal belief, you don't believe. You don't believe, you believe you're unworthy, so you dismiss anything that goes against the idea that you're unworthy. If someone goes, if something goes wrong, if something goes wrong, you see it as proof. See, I told you I wasn't good enough. Or see, I told you this was gonna happen to me. If you succeed, well, we minimize that, especially if you don't believe in yourself. Your brain isn't trying to hurt you, it's trying to be consistent, it's trying to be consistent with what it already believes. That's how humans are wired. But here's the key: just because a belief feels true, listen, it don't mean it's true. Just because Santa Claus seems to be real, it doesn't mean that it's that's another conversation for another day. Rebuilding self-esteem, the real goal. Watch this. How do we start rebuilding self-esteem? How do we start to do that? We don't do it by jumping straight to I love myself. That's too big of a leap for most people. Instead, we focus on building something more realistic and sustainable, self-trust and self-respect. Confidence grows from these things. Let's break it down into a few core shifts. Shift number one, changing your inner voice. This is one of the most powerful places to start. Hence, when within, right? Most people with low self-esteem have an inner voice that is harsh, that's criticizing them constantly, um, constantly, relentlessly, nonstop, criticizing. And the tricky part is it often sounds normal. You might not even notice it. It's so familiar that you don't even notice it. So I want you to start paying attention. Notice how you speak to yourself when you make a mistake. Notice what you say in your head when you look in the mirror. Notice the tone. Now imagine, imagine speaking to a close friend in the same way that you speak to yourself. You probably, if you were dealing with low self-esteem, you probably wouldn't not use the same tone, you probably would not use the same words, you probably would have a completely different outlook on the situation. So why is it acceptable to speak to yourself in that way? And you wouldn't speak to a friend in that way. This isn't about forcing positive affirmations. That's that's a thing, but this isn't what this is about, it's about shifting from criticism to neutral. Instead of I'm so stupid, try, that didn't go the way that I wanted it to. Instead of I'm always messing up something, try, I made a mistake and I can learn from it. That shift alone starts to change how your brain processes the experience. Shift number two, listen, stop outsourcing your worth. A lot of people build their self-esteem on external validation, likes, praise, achievements, approval. And those things feel good, but they're unstable because they're not fully in your control. You can't control whether you get those things or not. If your self-work depends on other people's responses, it will always, always fail. Unless you pay for the likes and the followers and stuff like that. But even then, it's not gonna last. So the goal is to start bringing that source of validation to inward within. Ask yourself, what do I think about this? Not what will they think? Think about it. What do I think about this? Not what do they think about this? Start forming your own opinions about yourself, start recognizing your own efforts, not just your outcomes, because effort is something you can control. As coach would always say, you can control how hard you run through that line, right? And when you start valuing your effort, your self-esteem becomes more stable. Shift number three, building self-trust through small promises. Not from thinking differently, but from acting differently. So start small, very small, very small. If you say you're going to wake up at a certain time, do it. If you say that you're going to go for a 10-minute walk, do it. If you say you're going to drink more water, do it. These seem simple, but they matter. It builds trust with self over time. Because here's the thing: your brain is always tracking. Can I rely on myself? And confidence is built on the answer to that question. Shift number four, breaking the compromising cycle. Shift number four, breaking the comparison cycle. Comparison is one of the fastest ways to destroy your self-esteem, especially now with social media constantly showing you other people's highlight reel. You're comparing yourself, your full reality, your full everyday 24 hours to somebody else's five seconds of fame, five seconds of their life highlight reel, right? And your brain treats that comparison as if as if it's fair. It's not fair. It's not fair. You can edit a video and make it look golden. But if you not like don't edit the video, the video probably looks trash. You can tweak a picture and the video looks, I mean the picture looks golden, but you can not edit that picture and it looks looks horrible, right? I'm just I'm not saying you look horrible or you're a horrible person. I'm just saying you can manipulate something online to look a certain way. So instead of trying to um, instead of falling into the traps of comparison yourself, which is unrealistic, start changing how you respond to those things. When you notice yourself comparing, pause and ask yourself this what am I actually feeling right now? Is this insecurity? Is this envy? Is this fear? Then ask yourself, what does this point, what does this point to that I value the most, right? What I'm comparing to myself comparing myself to. What does it have to do with what I value as a person? Because comparison often reveals what matters to you the most. And once you know that you can focus on your own path instead of somebody else's. You will have days where your self-esteem feels low all over again, feels as if you make no progress at all. That does not mean that you failed. It means that you are human. Progress in this area is not linear, it's not a straight line, right? It's not. What matters is how you respond in those moments. Do you fall back into old patterns of self-criticism? Or do you recognize what's happening and respond differently? It's important understanding that if you respond the same way, you're gonna get the same result. But if you respond differently, you get a different result. Even catching yourself, just to simply calling yourself out on it, right? That's progress. Let me give you a simple daily practice that will help you build self-esteem. So before we wrap this up, I want, I want, I want to give you, I want to give you this. It's a simple, it's a simple exercise. At the end of each day, right? I just want you to do three things. I want you to write three things down for me, right? First thing I want you to want write down one thing that you did well, one thing that you know, like, hey, look, I did this very well, okay. Then I want you to write down one thing that you showed effort in. Then I want you to write down one thing that you handled better than you would have in handled it in the past, right? This isn't about perfection. It's not, it's about training your brain to notice yourself in a different way. Because right now, your brain is likely wired to focus on what's wrong, right? We're we're just rebalancing it. That's what we're doing. We're balancing your brain. The ultimate goal is to form a new relationship with yourself. So let's bring this, let's bring this all together. Self-esteem isn't about becoming a completely different person, right? If you do that, great, kudos to you. It's about changing your relationship with yourself. Simple as that. It's about moving from a constant self-criticism to something that's more grounded, more realistic, more supportive. You don't need to believe you don't need to believe that you know that you're amazing all the time. You don't have to believe that all the time. You just need to stop believing that you're not enough. And that shift over time change everything. Change everything. Now you can take that to the bank. Shift number five, learning to tolerate discomfort. Building confidence requires doing things that feel uncomfortable. There's no way around it. If you wait until you feel confident before you act, you'll stay stuck. Confidence comes from after the action, not before it. So the goal isn't to eliminate discomfort, it's to increase your tolerance of it. That may look like speaking up when you'd rather stay quiet. It looks like setting a boundary, even though it feels awkward. Trying something new where you might not be good at it at all. Or watch this, you may not be good at it yet. Every time you do that, you send a message to yourself, I can handle this. And that message builds confidence over time. Yo, thank you guys for spending this time with me. If this episode has resonated with you, I want you to take one small thing, one small thing away, and I want you to apply it today. Listen, apply knowledge is everything. Knowledge is just knowledge. If you if you if you apply, it becomes powerful, right? So today start applying. Apply this today. Not all of it, just one thing, just a little bit. That's how change actually happens. Until next time. I'll see you next time.