What is the difference between cocky and confident

Self-esteem is the hard woody center of the tree — the core — that grows and expands year after year. In dry years the growth is minimal, but when conditions are favorable, the core grows a thick new ring of hard fiber.

Self-confidence, on the other hand, is the bark of the tree — the outer layer that is affected by environment and situations — the sun, wind, birds and kids with pocketknives. Our self-esteem is a long term process that is fed by training, love and overcoming difficulty. People who are cocky are, usually, struggling with low self-esteem and are using that behavior to mask their vulnerable inner experience.

Praise alone, or honor without effort, does not build personal self-esteem; it requires achievement through trial and effort. It is the conviction that one is competent to live and worthy of living. Competence, in turn, grows from training and learning, and practice and grit.

Cockiness, on the other hand, is a protective strategy aimed at hiding insecurity and fear. Cockiness is an aggressive masking weakness.

Four dimensions of behavior that highlight the differences between a self-confident person and cocky one:. A self-confident person has the personal strength to share work, share praise, and give up some control for the greater good. Attention A self-confident person listens attentively; paraphrases, asks open ended questions, and clarifies for understanding. A cocky person listens only for material that interest them; returning the focus to them, interjecting, and matching ideas and content.

Accountability A self-confident person is willing to take responsibility for their life and actions. A cocky person seeks to blame other and situations for their failures of mistakes. It seems they feel better when they tear others down. On the contrary, confident people are high-minded, because they can feel good without having a desire to offend others.

Arrogant and confident people treat others differently. An arrogant person thinks they are better than others, while a confident person knows they are just as good as others. Confident people will rarely be found lecturing or preaching to others or how they are wrong. Furthermore, they usually show respect while listening to somebody.

Arrogant people have difficulty listening to others. They often exude negative energy and blame others if things do not work out as expected.

Confident people always feel comfortable, because they have the right conception of perfection. It seems impossible to bring them down because they are aware of their weaknesses and know how to deal with them. Meanwhile, arrogant people brush their own shortcomings aside. By virtue of their obstinacy, they cannot admit their mistakes. Relationships with arrogant people can be a great source of potential pain.

Such people live in their own world of self-importance and pride, and nothing affects them. These are the folks who survive disasters with a strong and giving spirit. Their sense of self remains constant even if they must physically rebuild. Arrogant people are more often emotionally devastated by material losses and may struggle harder to define their core values in the face of adversity. That person who insists on holding court in any gathering is probably a frightened jester rather than a monarch.

Arrogant people need to validate their belief of being better than others and are constantly looking for opportunities to sell themselves. If you like yourself as you are, you free up energy to be genuinely interested in other people.

You engage in active listening and ask sincere questions. In turn, people will respond positively to your attentiveness. Ambition is not a crime. Confident people relish achievement and contributing their talents to the world. Cocky people need to believe that they are on top even if reality says otherwise. This can lead to unnecessarily manipulative or callous behavior as they focus on defending a power base at all costs. As a self-confident person, you accept that you are just a human being.

You are intrinsically no better or worse than anyone else. In addition to your successes, you have flaws, failures and really bad hair days or even years. You treat yourself with compassion while taking responsibility for your choices, and you learn from misfortune and mistakes. They tend to go to extremes of either deflecting blame onto others or condemning themselves for being only human. If you wonder about your own cocky moments, you are probably in the ballpark of self-confidence.