Over the years, I have observed that the main reason why people fail in life, professionally and personally, is arrogance. I have seen arrogance destroy marriages and ruin careers. Now we all start out in life fairly humble. After all, when we are young, everyone knows more than we do! But as people get older, become more knowledgeable, and have some success in life, they tend to go in one of two directions: They either become arrogant and mistakenly consider themselves to be better than others. Or, they develop the very important skill of being humble and yet confident.
My mother is a great example of how to be humble and yet confident. She is elderly and retired now, but in her younger years, she was a church organist and pianist. And she was highly talented. In fact, I personally have never known anyone who is as talented as my mother.
And yet, I’ve never heard my mother once brag about herself. She always has been the most talented person in any room that she entered, and yet, you’d never know it. In fact, she typically will tell you how smart, talented or successful someone else is. During her life, she has been confident in her own talents, and yet she also has been happy to acknowledge the gifts of others. Her life has been the perfect example of what it means to be humble and yet confident.
Admittedly, being humble in this world is hard. Let’s face it. We live in a competitive world in which people will readily tell you that they are smarter, more successful or more awesome than anyone else. Arrogance and bragging are not frowned up. Instead, they are considered to be socially acceptable behaviors. Being humble and yet confident in a world of full of self-promoters isn’t easy.
Below are some tips on how to be humble and yet confident in a world of noisy braggarts. Learning to be humble and yet confident will not be easy. But if you learn to do so, you’ll see your relationships improve and your happiness increase.
Run Your Own Race
I’ve written a lot over the years about the importance of running your own race. That is because I think it’s truly the key to being happy and successful. When you run your own race, you operate like a racing horse wearing blinders. You don’t look to your right or to your left to see what other folks are doing. Instead, you concern yourself solely with the race that is set before you.
The benefit of focusing on your own race is that you stop competing with others. Realize that being competitive is what keeps us from being humble. When we are competitive, we feel like we have to outdo everyone else. And that leads us to brag and tell everyone how smart or accomplished we are.
Humble people don’t compete, and they don’t brag. They don’t puff themselves up and claim to know more than other people. And they don’t talk about their accomplishments or their salaries because they aren’t trying to outdo anyone else. Instead, they look straight ahead and run their own race.
So, run your own race. Don’t look to your right or your left. When you give up the competition game, you can then forge ahead with confidence and quiet humility.
Learn to Love Yourself
If you are too hard on yourself, know that you are not alone. Most of us are far too self-critical. We demand perfection of ourselves, and we beat ourselves up for the smallest mistake. That kind of attitude will not make you humble. It only will create low self-esteem.
Humble people don’t lack confidence. They simply don’t run around tooting their own horns. My daughter is a great example of how to be confident and yet humble. She is a college student who volunteers with the underprivileged, works on campus and gets straight As. But you’ll never hear her brag about any of that. In fact, I typically have to ask about her grades because she doesn’t offer that information up freely. She simply goes through life with humility and quiet confidence in her abilities and accomplishments.
Remember that humility isn’t about being overly self-critical. Rather, humility is about going through life with quiet confidence, knowing your strengths, but not needing to advertise them.
So, learn to love yourself. Learn to love all your wonderful qualities. Know what you are good at. And then go through life with humility, but also with quiet confidence in your gifts, skills and qualities.
Don’t Demand That Others Agree with You
We live in a world in which many people are uncomfortable with disagreement. So, if folks don’t agree with them, they’ll accuse those folks of being “stupid,” or “ignorant,” or (my personal favorite) “uninformed” (The idea being that if you simply knew more, you would agree with me! My goodness.). And then they try to bully others into seeing the world their way.
It is obnoxious to demand that other people see things your way. Realize that reasonable minds can differ on issues. That is because we all have had different life experiences. And those experiences inform our perspective on the world. So, no one is going to see the world exactly the way that you do.
I’ve seen people fall apart when others didn’t agree with them about personal issues, politics or religion. And they fell apart because they lacked confidence. Realize that if you are confident in your point of view, you won’t be unnerved if some folks don’t agree with you. And in addition to being confident in your own point of view, you should have the humility to realize that you don’t know everything. As a result, other people can validly have points of view that don’t align with yours.
If you wish to be humble and yet confident in life, consider following the approaches above. If you do, you’ll find that your relationships will improve, and you’ll simply feel better about yourself and your place in the world. (To read about how humility is the true key to your success, click here.)
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