Confidence vs Overconfidence
We know that confidence is a trait that helps us in testing and trying conditions. We can overcome a situation easily when we feel the confidence in our abilities or feel that we will succeed as we have the potential to overcome all odds. There is confidence in self, and there is also confidence in the ability of others. However, there is also a word called overconfidence that confuses many people. This is because of the overlapping of many characteristics in a confident and an overconfident individual. However, there are many differences between confidence and overconfidence, to make overconfidence harmful for us. Let us take a closer look.
Confidence
Confidence is faith in one’s or other’s ability to do a job. When one feels he is ready to take on a job, he is self confident. On the other hand, when a teacher or a coach has confidence in the ability of his pupil or disciple, it is just confidence.
Confidence is a personality trait irrespective of having received a formal or informal training in a field. Confidence has limited and not unlimited faith in one’s ability.
Overconfidence
Over estimating one’s abilities or having excessive belief in abilities is called overconfidence. Believing that only he can do the job is overconfidence. Overconfidence does not take competition into account and is not ready to accept criticism for failure. Overconfidence also encourages people to take illogical risks thereby increasing chances of great loss or damage.
There is a very thin dividing line between confidence and overconfidence, but crossing over this dividing line can often be the difference between success and failure as many have found out in tough situations like a sporting event or a trying situation in business. The assessment of merit in one’s own or someone else’s abilities is what is called confidence. If we are confident about our ability and this assessment is correct, we are sure that the chosen course of action is the best and most effective in a given situation. But assessing our abilities wrongly in such a manner that we have excessive belief in our abilities without even giving a thought to failure is overconfidence.
There are people who are confident and attempt a given task and successfully complete it even though they may not have any innate abilities. This is where having confidence comes handy as it is self fulfilling. You do a job thinking you can do it even though you may not have the ability. But overconfidence is a situation where a person has excessive belief in his abilities. It is difficult to judge whether a person is self confident or has over confidence in his abilities. But when overconfidence creeps in, it sows the seeds of failure as it eats up the foundation of faith making a person have excessive belief in his abilities. When you think you can do a job, it is termed as confidence, but when you think that only you can do the job or only you can do it in the best possible manner, it is over confidence.
Confidence vs Overconfidence
• Confidence has limited faith in one’s abilities while overconfidence has excessive belief in one’s abilities
• Confidence is an essential ingredient in the success of most people but overconfidence leads to faulty assessments and ultimate failures
• Confidence encourages taking logical decisions while overconfidence encourages people to take illogical decisions far from reality
• One way of avoiding over confidence creeping in one’s behavior is to make a critical analysis of personality