I'm not great with confidence either, so I'm looking forward to seeing others' responses.
1) What do you think confidence is? I think you can use the word to apply to more than one thing. I suppose the first thing that comes to mind is a feeling of faith in your abilities. But I think people that you would describe as confident can differ in the quality that you are naming. For some, it's that it genuinely doesn't occur to them that things might go wrong, and that they 'feel good about themselves'. For others, they might feel nervous but have a kind of faith that they can handle things, which keeps them steady. Perhaps, broadly, it's the tendency to consider your influence over your life as greater than the world's influence over your life - to rate your ability to cope as greater than the world's ability to throw crap at you - in the same way that (studies show, yada yada) optimists attribute their successes to their own abilities and their failures to change, while pessimists attribute their successes to chance and their failures to a lack of ability.
2) Where does confidence come from? There are too many levels on which you can answer that question. You could answer it in terms of 'triggers' for a feeling of confidence - eg, someone pays you a compliment, and you then feel more confident, or you remember a past success, and then feel more confident. That is an answer for a temporary feeling of confidence. You could also answer it with regard to an ongoing personality trait of confidence, in which case the obvious answer is the cliched one - from 'within'. You could answer it psychoanalytically and say that it comes from childhood experiences which gave you consistent evidence for your ability to handle things. I guess what I'm saying is that I think it's a pretty meaningless question, because the terms used are too woolly.
3) Can you think of someone who is completely confident? I don't believe anyone is *completely* confident. I've met people who seemed incredibly, consistently confident, but even they tend to have one area that they feel insecure in.
4) How can you tell if someone is confident or not? That depends entirely what you mean by 'confident'. I'm not helping much, am I dad?
5) How do you feel when you talk to someone who is not at all confident? Awkward. Two socially unconfident people together is a bad combinaton.
6) Does a confident person always feel confident? Of course not. Honestly.
7) What is the difference between being confident and acting confident? It's very fuzzy and overlapping. Sometimes there's no practical difference. Sometimes there is a difference of feeling - *feeling* confident is qualitatively different from *acting* confident, though acting confident can lead to you feeling confident. Fake it till you make it, baby.
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1) What do you think confidence is?
I think you can use the word to apply to more than one thing. I suppose the first thing that comes to mind is a feeling of faith in your abilities. But I think people that you would describe as confident can differ in the quality that you are naming. For some, it's that it genuinely doesn't occur to them that things might go wrong, and that they 'feel good about themselves'. For others, they might feel nervous but have a kind of faith that they can handle things, which keeps them steady. Perhaps, broadly, it's the tendency to consider your influence over your life as greater than the world's influence over your life - to rate your ability to cope as greater than the world's ability to throw crap at you - in the same way that (studies show, yada yada) optimists attribute their successes to their own abilities and their failures to change, while pessimists attribute their successes to chance and their failures to a lack of ability.
2) Where does confidence come from?
There are too many levels on which you can answer that question. You could answer it in terms of 'triggers' for a feeling of confidence - eg, someone pays you a compliment, and you then feel more confident, or you remember a past success, and then feel more confident. That is an answer for a temporary feeling of confidence. You could also answer it with regard to an ongoing personality trait of confidence, in which case the obvious answer is the cliched one - from 'within'. You could answer it psychoanalytically and say that it comes from childhood experiences which gave you consistent evidence for your ability to handle things. I guess what I'm saying is that I think it's a pretty meaningless question, because the terms used are too woolly.
3) Can you think of someone who is completely confident?
I don't believe anyone is *completely* confident. I've met people who seemed incredibly, consistently confident, but even they tend to have one area that they feel insecure in.
4) How can you tell if someone is confident or not?
That depends entirely what you mean by 'confident'. I'm not helping much, am I dad?
5) How do you feel when you talk to someone who is not at all confident?
Awkward. Two socially unconfident people together is a bad combinaton.
6) Does a confident person always feel confident?
Of course not. Honestly.
7) What is the difference between being confident and acting confident?
It's very fuzzy and overlapping. Sometimes there's no practical difference. Sometimes there is a difference of feeling - *feeling* confident is qualitatively different from *acting* confident, though acting confident can lead to you feeling confident. Fake it till you make it, baby.