Far too many people mistake confidence with overcompensation. Adopting a stubbornly myopic worldview and aggressively defensive attitude might as well be the definition of insecurity.

Confidence arises in knowing both one’s capabilities and limitations, enabling one to overcome those limitations through active conditioning. It is not an inverting of one’s perceptions of the “self,” but rather, an awareness and clarity of tangible [rather than conceptual] reality.

Well said. There’s a really good quote I came across (forgot the source): “Confidence is quiet. Insecurity is loud.”

Confident people are realistically aware of their own capabilities without feeling the need to prove it all the time. They know that showing off to other people to get validation doesn’t actually make their skills any more or less valid.