“We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.“
Brené Brown
Courage is the willingness to take bold action despite feelings of fear or uncertainty. It involves stepping outside of one’s comfort zone, taking risks, and confronting obstacles head-on. You may feel afraid, but you do it anyway.
Competence is having the necessary skills, knowledge, and abilities to perform a task or achieve a goal. You build competence by being courageous, repeatedly.
- Competence forms the foundation of confidence because when individuals are proficient in what they do, they are more likely to evaluate themselves as confident in their abilities.
- This is done through behavioral practice.
Confidence is an internal belief or evaluation that one can handle a situation, often based on a perceived sense of competence; a self-trust grounded in one’s abilities or judgment. It is more of an evaluation than a feeling. Confidence feels like calm, content, excitement, or energized readiness, and it ranges in arousal. Confidence is also a behavioral skill that can be built through skills training—like assertive communication, task initiation and feedback, or practicing accurate self-appraisal—until they become habitual and influence self-perception. It can also be performative: people may display confidence behaviorally (e.g., posture, tone, dress) without genuinely possessing it. Confidence signals capability to others, whether or not it reflects actual competence. So, there is an attitude to confidence, though it may not always be accurate.
Confidence without competence can be misleading. Psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger found that people with low ability often overestimate their competence—a bias now known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is often illustrated by a graph showing confidence versus competence.
In the early stages of learning, people often feel highly confident despite having little actual skill—this peak is humorously called “Mount Stupid.” As they gain some real experience, they begin to realize just how much they don’t know. Their initial illusion of mastery shatters, causing a steep drop in confidence into what’s called the “Valley of Despair.” Here, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, discouraged, and even question your abilities entirely.
But if you persevere through this valley—continuing to learn, practice, and seek feedback—your competence steadily grows. With real skill comes a gradual, lasting rise in confidence—one that is based on evidence, not illusion.
This is why true confidence must be earned through courage, honest self-reflection, and disciplined effort. Confidence is reliable when it’s grounded in actual skill. Without competence, confidence may feel good but lead to poor decisions or risky behavior.
“The trouble with ignorance is that it feels so much like expertise.”
David Dunning
The Dunning-Kruger effect is also a cognitive bias when someone overestimates their own competence while lacking appropriate knowledge and skill.