My number one tool for building self-confidence is learning the lesson of humility. Usually when we think about humility it’s about a person who’s gotten to big for their boots, but it’s also for those who don’t treat themselves with enough respect or esteem. Either way, both types of people could benefit from learning this lesson, let me tell you why.
For me, I was always on the side of low self-esteem, always needing to be recognised for my efforts. Because I didn’t find myself worthy of praise, I craved it from others. Which means whenever I made a mistakes in front of others my world would come to a crashing halt. I remember a time in school when I made a spelling mistake whilst writing on the board in front of my fellow students and when someone pointed it out, in a nice, factual way, I literally crawled under a desk, wishing the world would swallow me up. They all laughed at me, not to ridicule me, they just thought I was being overly dramatic but the level of humiliation I felt was real. Oh, and I was 24 years old, so you’d think I’d have known better.
Humility means you are no more or less important than someone else. That’s right, no one is more important than you, but you are no more important than anyone else either.
This one fundamental concept opened up an entire new world to me. Just because I thought I was worse than everyone else it didn’t mean it was true. There was no better, no worse, we were all on the same level.
Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think people were better than me, I just thought I was worse than everyone. The same way cocky people might not think you are worse than them, just that they are better than everyone. It’s a difficult concept to explain but think of it like this, it has everything to do with how we think about ourselves and there is no one else in the picture. It’s a very self-centred view. Me, me, me.
At the thought of becoming more humble I relished in the fact that I could take the focus off of me. OK, yes, no one would be looking at the great things I was doing, but who cares, no one was going to be looking at my mistakes either. I could make as many as I wanted and it wouldn’t matter! Woohoo! I could now turn my attention to other people and see what they were up to. No more dragging myself through the mud. No. Now I was free to look around and see how other people were dragging others (and sometimes me) through the mud instead. Wait, what?
Yep, after detaching myself from my own self-tyranny, I would have to find a way to detach myself from other people’s judgement as well. This part was harder, much harder, and I still work on this one. It’s all too easy to find myself at the mercy of other’s people’s opinions as they are easily able to trigger my sense of shame or pride. And this is where the overly cocky people come in to play. Just because someone may have the private jets, the limos, the chefs, their not free to follow their own path as sometimes they are just puppets to their egos. Their pride is their driving force, and if someone was to take away all that stuff they may feel that they no longer have an identity. So they keep striving and striving but to what end?
So here’s the main crux about humility – it keeps you balanced and aware. For those with little esteem it digs you out of your own hole and brings you up to the ground level. For those floating in the clouds, it brings you down to ground level. When you are grounded you are truthful with yourself and with those around you. It keeps you detached from what you have, what you’re wearing or what you’ve done so you can make the best decisions for yourself and your loved ones.
When you are humble you don’t need to “win” everything, you don’t need to come first as you have nothing to prove. You have the confidence to know your path and what you need to do to follow it. You don’t have to be perfect, you can take educated risks without paralysing fear. You can give compliments to people when they have a done a great job. You don’t have expectations of others. There are so many gains to being humble, you wonder why this isn’t taught at school.