"We live in a culture that reveres self-confidence and self-assuredness, but as it turns out, there may be a better approach to success and personal development..."

"... self-compassion. While self-confidence makes you feel better about your abilities, it can also lead you to vastly overestimate those abilities. Self-compassion, on the other hand, encourages you to acknowledge your flaws and limitations, allowing you to look at yourself from a more objective and realistic point of view. Both have merits, but many experts believe that self-compassion includes the advantages of self-confidence without the drawbacks.... Dr. Kristin Neff, an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas, [says] 'Self-compassion is treating yourself with the same kindness, care and concern you show a loved one.... We need to frame it in terms of humanity. That’s what makes self-compassion so different: "I’m an imperfect human being living an imperfect life."'"

From "Why Self-Compassion Beats Self-Confidence" by Kristin Wong (in the NYT).

ADDED: Etymologically, "confidence" has the prefix "con-" (meaning with) and the root based on fidere (meaning to trust). "Compassion" has "com-" (which also means with) and root based on "pati" (which means to suffer). These are just words, and as you go forward taking advice from psychologists, you can use them any way you want. It seems to me that you can have too much or to little trust in yourself or sympathy for yourself. The trick is to get the right balance (or at least not to be too delusional about where the right balance is).