Introduction to Confidence

Confidence is all about having a belief in yourself and on your ability to succeed. According to Wikipedia,

“The word confidence comes from a Latin word ‘fidere’ which means “to trust”; therefore, having self-confidence is having trust in oneself.”

It is common for people to have mixed levels of confidence according to the situation that they find themselves in. For example a high paying senior executive may be very confident in her career but in case of dealing with family she faces difficulty.This is how confidence differs from situation to situation.

Introduction to Knowledge

Knowledge is the fact of knowing something. It is the information, understanding and skills that you have gained through learning or experience. Knowledge comes from learning, experimenting, coding information, analyzing and then retaining the information. 

An example of knowledge is having the ability to find a location. And remembering details about an event.

GD points over Confidence vs Knowledge

• When we have knowledge, we feel confident. More knowledge often increases our confidence level.
• Knowledge is essential to understand and solve problems. Confidence is necessary to take opportunities and to put the knowledge in use. So, both knowledge and confidence are important to achieve success.
• Similarly, confidence without knowledge is not helpful in many circumstances. And sometimes, overconfidence without having the appropriate knowledge results in negative consequences.
• Knowledge alone may not give us success. Even if we have expertise, lack of confidence results in not utilising the knowledge, and hence wastage of resources.
• Confidence alone is not sufficient to maintain success. To sustain success in any field, one must work hard to gain and update the required knowledge.
• But in some situations, confidence saves us even if we have no knowledge. For example, in group discussions, if we are confident enough we can understand what other participants are saying and we can manage to form new related points. If we are not confident enough and if we feel panicked, we cannot do so.
• Sometimes more knowledge creates confusion and self-doubt. At that point, confidence helps in taking risks and in trying new things.
• Most of the successful people are confident people or at least they fake confidence to overcome self-doubt. They work hard to increase their knowledge to maintain the level of confidence.

Conclusion

Both confidence and knowledge are essential to make a path to success. They both go hand in hand in every situation. Deprivation of any of them can lead to failure or demotion.