Hello  Roses,

I recently found out the difference between self belief and self confidence and how a lot of people get them mixed up. I thought I was lacking in self belief, but I’m actually lacking in self confidence. The difference being the belief in your own abilities. I think many of us think that we can’t do something, but often surprise ourselves when we do.

The classic one most of us have experienced is learning to drive. The very first time we sit in the driving seat and bunny hop down the road, I think we can all say we had a brief moment of “oh my God, I can’t do this”. You may have mistaken this feeling for a lack of self belief. However, it was most likely a lack in self confidence. These two ideologies are vastly different. If you were low in self belief, you wouldn’t have ever got back in the car to give it another go. You would have thought I can’t do it, and therefore I never will be able to do it. The difference in self confidence is that you did get back in that car because you knew you could learn. You could learn how to use the clutch and change the gears and put your indicator on all the while wondering where the hell the windscreen wipers are because you knew so many other people had learnt.

When it comes to business or ‘work’, unfortunately a lack of self belief is probably more common than when learning to drive. But I’m not so convinced it should be. It’s a well known fact that women do not put their hand up for opportunities such as promotions as much as men do (www.leanin.org). Why? Because men have more self confidence than women. Their thought process is “I’ll learn how to do it later”. Women on the other hand think through every scenario and come to the conclusion pretty early on that they don’t think they have what it takes (at the moment) but maybe in a year or two. This shows a lack of self belief – they don’t believe they can learn as quickly or as effectively as men.

I challenge you however, to think back at a situation that you thought you would never be able to achieve (other than learning to drive!) and where you surprised yourself at how quickly you picked it up and how well you did it. It could be something as little as getting a hole in one at mini golf having never picked up a golf club. It could be as big as hitting your KPI’s for the year when you thought they were ridiculously out of reach (that one goes out to my brother Dave!). All I’m trying to say is, you probably have bundles of self belief but are lacking in confidence. But that’s a great place to be. Imagine what can be achieved in this land of opportunity. The promotions, the achievements, the pride. So throw the doors wide open and dive head first into the challenges that arise – I’m sure you’ll end up surprising yourself like you have so many times before and increase your confidence on the way.

Have a great week guys,

Em x