Short answer

Self-confidence is trust in what you can do. It varies from area to area and grows with experience. Self-esteem is the sense that you are good enough, however things turn out. The two are connected, but they are not the same thing — and they need different things to grow stronger.

The test below has twelve statements, six for each part. It is a reflection exercise, not a psychological test, and the result is not a diagnosis. Your answers stay in your browser.

The test

Answer according to how things usually are, not how you think they ought to be. It takes a couple of minutes. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent — the calculation happens in your own browser.

1.When I'm given a new task, I usually believe I'll manage it.
2.I feel I'm good enough even on days when I haven't achieved anything.
3.I dare to say what I think in a meeting or in a group.
4.When I make a mistake, it feels as if it says something about who I am.
5.I know what I'm good at.
6.I need praise or approval from others to feel I'm worth something.
7.If something fails, I'm happy to try again.
8.I can take criticism of something I've done without feeling that the whole of me has been judged a failure.
9.I take on challenges even when I'm not sure I'll succeed.
10.I often compare myself with others and conclude that I'm worse.
11.I trust my own judgement when I have to make a decision.
12.I can say no to someone without feeling that I have to earn my place afterwards.

How to read your result

Each part gives between 6 and 30 points. Three of the self-esteem statements are reversed — there, «completely true» counts as the lowest — because they describe how it feels when self-esteem falters: that a mistake says something about who you are, that you need approval to feel worth something, that you compare yourself and come up short.

The thresholds are set so that 22 points or more counts as that part looking stable, and 14 or fewer as it looking low. They are reasonable rules of thumb, not norms developed through research. So a score of 21 doesn't mean anything different from a score of 22.

The most interesting thing is often not the numbers but the gap between them. High self-confidence and low self-esteem is the classic pattern in someone who achieves a lot and still never feels enough. There is more on why that happens in the difference between self-esteem and self-confidence.

What you can do with it

If it is self-confidence that pinches, the good news is that it can be trained. It is built from experience: pick an area where you doubt yourself, and a step that is a little bigger than the comfortable one. Do it, and notice that it worked — even when it didn't go perfectly. Repeat.

If it is self-esteem that pinches, the same recipe doesn't work. More achievement gives more self-confidence, but self-esteem stays where it was. What helps is slower: doing things because they matter to you, even when nobody sees. Being in relationships where you are not the one who delivers. And starting to hear the inner voice as a thought — «I'm having the thought that I'm not good enough» — rather than as a verdict.

If both pinch, start with self-esteem and one small action at a time. An attempt to think positively about yourself tends to bounce off. An action that fits with what you think is right usually doesn't.

If it is about more than self-esteem

If you feel worthless most of the time, have stopped feeling joy, or think other people would be better off without you — then it is not self-esteem that this is about, but possibly depression, and that can be treated. Contact your local health centre (vårdcentral) or call 1177 (1177 Vårdguiden, Sweden's national healthcare advice service), and 112 if it is an emergency. If you are having thoughts of not wanting to live: call Självmordslinjen 90101 (Mind's suicide helpline), open around the clock, or chat via mind.se.

I am a wellbeing coach with a Master's degree in psychology, not a licensed psychologist. The test and this text are a pointer, not an assessment of you.

What the test is not

This is not a validated instrument. The statements are worded to reflect the difference between the two concepts, but they have not been tested in research, and there are no norms to compare yourself with. Two people with the same score can be in completely different places.

Psychological research uses other measures, such as the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and they are interpreted by someone who knows them. If you want a proper assessment of how you are doing, it is healthcare or a licensed psychologist you need, not a test on a web page.

What the test can do is give you words for something you may already have sensed — and a question to take with you: is it what I can do that I doubt, or what I am worth?

How I work with it

In personal coaching we don't try to convince you that you are good enough, because you can't argue your way there. We work with what actually shifts self-esteem: acting on what you think matters, and turning the inner voice into something you hear instead of something you are. If it is mostly about performance, there is also the article on perfectionism.

The most important thing

If you take away just one thing: self-confidence and self-esteem need different things. One is trained through experience. The other grows from doing what you think is right, enough times, however it turns out.

Warmly, Mikael GlännströmWellbeing coach, author and father of two