The Power of Humility

Why confidence is overrated:

Any good self-help book will tell you to be confident. Stand up straight, see past your critics and believe in yourself. I’d like to break tradition and argue the opposite. That humility is a useful tool and confidence can be overrated.

Deluded by Your Own Hype

Whipping yourself into a motivational frenzy may temporarily make you feel better, but it has hidden side effects. The major disadvantages from false confidence are:

1. Inability to Learn.
2. Avoid Humbling First Steps.
   
3. Arrogance Swingback Effect.

Humility Is Not Low Self-Esteem

Humility does not imply low self-esteem. If confidence is often faked by positive affirmations about yourself, humility is not created through negative ones. Humility is simply about focusing on the unknown rather than the known.

To illustrate this, take a look at the following diagram:

I’m separating all information into three broad categories. The things you know that make you positive, the things you know that make you negative, and the things you don’t know.

Confidence would come from focusing on the positive things you already know. In contrast, humility isn’t focusing on the negative information as it is focused on the overwhelming amount of information you don’t know.

Read the whole thing.

Seems like a good dose of humility would help minimize the effects of 7 stupid thinking errors you probably make.