How do you know if you have confidence or courage? These two words are usually used in place of each other. The truth is that confidence is different from courage. They have slight differences that make them indispensable tools when we find ourselves facing
challenges.
What is Confidence?
While there are many ideas on what confidence is, we can all agree that confidence is a foundation of belief that makes an individual bold and stead fast in the face of obstacles. The key difference between these two qualities is in the power they are based on.
Confidence gets its strength from experience. When you you’ve faced the dragon before, it’s natural to know what it takes to defeat it. It’s also easy for you to face the dragon. This is because you know what to expect and you know that you can handle the challenge.
What Is Courage?
What happens when you’ve never fought a dragon before? What happens when you’ve never stood in front of a crowd to give a presentation? You don’t have the experience so you can’t have confidence. What do you need? Enter courage.
Courage is needed when you have never been here before. This is the basic difference that sets these two resources apart. Where as confidence was based on experience, courage is based on a decision. Courage is commonly seen as existing without any fears. It’s not the absence of fear but the mastery of fear.
Final Thoughts
1 Courage is Easier To Jump start – Like we discovered, you need experience to have confidence but courage only takes you making a decision to disobey your fears. That’s It!
2 Exercise Your Courage Muscles – You should put yourself in place to use courage over confidence. It’s easy to stay in your comfort zone. It’s never easy to start something new without proof of victory. If you never have a need for courage in your life, are you really pushing the boundaries and staying on the cutting edge of your potential?
As Joshua, the Biblical Hero heard the people say, “Only be strong and VERY courageous.”
