Competence and confidence are essential for both growth and well-being. They’re also helpful, even necessary, for doing good work in any type of job—healthcare, office work, food service, sports, entertainment, etc. And they both feed each other, in what could be called the competence-confidence loop.

Competence vs. Confidence: Definitions  

Competence and confidence are two different things. Though they interrelate, you can have one without the other.

Keep in mind that both are skills that can be learned, not traits that you either have or you don’t. For more on that topic, see Traits vs. Skills.

Competence at an Activity

Competence, also known as self-efficacy, is mastery of a particular activity—like helping an emergency patient, performing surgery, writing software code, giving a presentation, balancing a tray of food while walking, kicking a ball just where it needs to go, or singing a song like no one else sings it.

Your sense of competence is influenced by several factors: your history of successes and failures, seeing others succeed at a similar thing, self-talk, visualization, emotional states, and moods. The journey to competence may be made easier by natural talent; however, self-discipline plays a bigger role. 

Once you have competence about a skill, you have confidence about that specific skill, and that may not naturally transfer to confidence in other skills, or in yourself in general.

Confidence in Yourself

Confidence is much broader than competence. It is, essentially, self-belief—the conviction that you can do any activity you put your mind to, even if it means you have to learn competence at a new skill. Confidence also includes courage, optimism, integrity, and determination. To learn more, see The Five Elements of Self-Confidence on my blog.

Wise confidence includes awareness of both your strengths and your weaknesses, plus awareness of the realities of the journey ahead of you. 

Thus, true confidence is integrity, not arrogance. It is showing up as one, as a fully integrated, energized, and empowered individual. It is being on your own side, again and again, with unwavering faith in yourself no matter what life throws at you. You know you can achieve what you aspire, and you take bold steps to do it.

Just as you can learn competence at a specific task or activity, you can learn confidence, too. It takes work, for sure, but it’s worth it. 

The Symbiotic Relationship Between Competence and Confidence

Your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

—Michelle Obama, former First Lady of the United States of America

Despite competence and confidence being two different things, cultivating one usually helps the other.

Developing competence may be easy or difficult, depending on the task, your strengths, and your weaknesses. If it’s easy for you, then you may gain a little confidence in yourself, growing a bit in your self-belief. If it’s hard, challenging your body, heart, mind, and/or your spirit, your confidence will grow even more!

When you have more confidence to start with, you tend to go deeper in your journey of learning, put in more effort, and persevere more—thereby developing more competence. Then you feel more confident about that activity, and you can extrapolate it into other areas of your life.

The Confidence-Competence Loop

Having confidence in yourself makes you more willing to learn new things and start meaningful projects. When you do so, and persevere with self-discipline through the challenges, you eventually develop competence in that skill or area of life. This new competence re-affirms your self-confidence

This confidence-competence loop is a virtuous cycle, and you can start it either by focusing on confidence, or by focusing on competence. 

What if you feel like you don’t have much of either one? Keep reading! You might be inspired by the stories below and by the practical tips I offer. 

Also, remember it’s okay to start humbly and to build yourself up slowly and steadily: Take Baby Steps. They add up!

Stories of Triumph: Competence and Confidence in Action

Here are some case studies to illustrate the points above.

Healthcare Case Study: A Nurse’s Journey to Confidence

The healthcare field is a perfect example of where competence, in the form of book learning and certifications, doesn’t initially lead to confidence. Consider this story.

A recent graduate of nursing school, Janet felt overwhelmed when she first stepped into the emergency department of a hospital, with its beeping equipment and busy nurses barking orders. In her first few weeks, she struggled to know what to do in the apparent chaos.

The quiet self-belief she’d felt in nursing school was slipping away. On a particularly chaotic night, when a critical alert sounded, her confidence evaporated, and she froze in fear. Her mind was a blank, as if knew nothing and was completely unprepared.

A voice of calm authority came from Mariah, the seasoned nurse on duty, showing her how to stabilize the patient. They worked together, step by step.

Janet’s textbook knowledge, now directly relevant, came flooding back, and she responded with focused competence. As the patient’s vital signs improved, Sarah felt a flicker of confidence bloom inside her—she knew she would do better from now on.

All the knowledge, competence, and training in the world is worthless if your higher mind is offline, and you are paralyzed with fear or self-doubt. This is the value of the training of confidence, especially when informed by mindfulness principles.

Janet had a mentor to help, and that can make all the difference. We can’t see our blind spots—that’s why they are called blind spots—and in a moment of pressure we need someone else who is grounded in their higher mind to help us see.

If you would like mentorship to develop the higher mind, equanimity, and unshakable self-belief, you can reach out to one of our mentors for self-confidence coaching. If you prefer the DYI approach, then get the Wise Confidence book and follow the guided meditations in the Higher Mind app. 

My Story: I Shouldn’t Be Confident, But I Am

I grew up in an environment where I was repeatedly criticized rather than nurtured in self-belief. That said, we were taken to classes we were interested in, like piano, English, swimming, and Karate. That helped me develop some competence at a variety of skills.

Being a shy and skinny kid, I was a target for bullying at school. That was the hand of cards I was dealt. 

Emotionally I was on my own. Self-confidence was not given—it had to be won.

Fortunately, I realized this fact and believed I could win. I don’t know how or why, but when I was about nine years old, something in me woke up, and I had a strong sense I was not who the world said I was. I knew I was strong and valuable.

Rather than expecting someone else to take care of me, I saw I had to take care of myself. I had a sense of commitment to myself, from then on: I chose to be on my own side, always, taking care of myself no matter what.

I chose to cultivate self-confidence no matter what, and that was key for me to feel good about myself, and to develop competence in several areas later on in life. Further developing competency in other skills then served as a positive feedback loop for my self-confidence.

I know many people have had it much worse. This is just my story of how confidence is a choice, and how our past doesn’t need to determine our future.

Practical Tips for Taking Advantage of the Confidence-Competence Loop

The POWER of Visualization

One of the most effective ways for you to build confidence about your competence—at a particular skill or for overcoming an obstacle—is for you to imagine yourself doing it successfully. 

Here, we are imagining the process itself, not the end result. You are teaching your brain to think, feel, and behave in a very particular way—an effective and self-confident way. This builds confidence, which makes you perform better at that activity (competence), makes it more likely for you to succeed, and leads to renewed confidence. 

I’ve created a visualization protocol that can be used exactly for this purpose. It’s called the POWER Visualization—short for Preparation, Obstacle, Willpower, Energy, Result. See the step-by-step guide here: POWER Visualization.

Practical Tips for Cultivating Competence and Confidence

Here are other options for developing competence and confidence.

To cultivate competence, practice learning a new skill or ability. 

• Choose the new skill or activity mindfully, so you can commit to the learning. You can choose something easy, for quick wins, or something difficult but meaningful, so that the reward is greater at the end.
• Discover the best way to get started with the learning process, with a method that is step-by-step and beginner-friendly. 
• Apply self-discipline so you consistently take those steps, keeping at it even when you’re bored or frustrated.
• Eventually, you will grow in competence at—and confidence about—that skill or ability. 

Cultivating confidence is a broader effort that involves creating a new self-image, learning certain tools for managing your mind and emotions, and finally taking confident action in your life.

• Begin by discovering your core strengths and learning how to lean on them for confidence in any area of your life.
• Then create your aspirational identity, which is the new version of yourself. Conceive of your better self as fully confident, courageous, and capable. Learn the steps in this article: Finding Your Aspiration.
• Take action, multiple times daily, to shift away from your conditioned self and into your aspirational self. Use the four core tools of mindset, witnessing, imagination, and embodiment to help in this process.

Like this, little by little, you learn how to embody your better self and to operate in life from that new identity. The day will come when your new identity will feel absolutely natural, and the old one a needless limitation. 

Conclusion

Competence is your knowledge or ability to do a specific task, skill, or activity.

Confidence is your general perception of your abilities, together with your tendency to believe in your capacity, skills, judgments, and likelihood of success.

Together, they support each other in a feedback loop: as you gain new competence, you grow in confidence, and your confidence will drive your competence to new levels.

Do you want to put the confidence-competence loop to work for you? You can! 

Focus on one way you want to grow in your journey of confidence—you don’t have to work on everything at once, and it’s best not to. Then choose one skill for competence and start building a habit around it. 

For a deeper dive into these concepts, see my book, Wise Confidence.