How to Stay Humble Without Decreasing Your Confidence
There is a fine balance between valuing yourself and being proud of your successes, and knowing how to stay humble without decreasing your confidence.
The things you achieve in life play a part in creating your identity. It also affects your self-esteem and self-confidence.
While it’s important to display confidence and not downplay what you have achieved, you also do not want to come across as an arrogant person.
1-Minute Summary Video
What is Humility?
To stay humble, we need to first know what humility means.
Humility is about accepting one’s self. Everyone does certain things well, and other things not as well.
Having humility is knowing we have skills and abilities that are better than others, and having the awareness of how to conduct ourselves, while being respectful of others.
Humility and self-esteem are linked. A person with low self-esteem has not accepted themselves completely, which means they will compensate for it by behaving in ways that do not align with who they really are.
Therefore, humility is valuing ourselves for who we are, without pretending to be someone we’re not.
As an example, someone reluctant to share their successes or victories most likely has low self-esteem. It means they don’t value themselves enough.
Someone who brags about their successes without knowing when it’s appropriate and when it’s not, doesn’t have a high level of humility.
What Does it Mean to Stay Humble?
To stay humble means to be aware of the situation or context you find yourself in, and acting appropriately. This does not mean pretending to be someone you’re not.
It means knowing how to respect yourself and others, and communicating in a way that’s best for the situation.
If you know how to stay humble, you will:
- Enhance your relationships.
- Improve how you communicate.
- Learn to value yourself better.
- Know how to read a situation and respond accordingly.
- Stay congruent without compromising your values.
If you understand how to stay humble, you will create genuine connections with people without over-selling or under-selling yourself.
5 Ways to Stay Humble and Value Yourself Without Disrespecting Others
Here are five ways to stay humble while valuing yourself and not disrespecting others, so you feel good about who you are and how you relate to those you associate with regularly.
- Share your struggles as much as your wins. We don’t connect as well to those who only talk about their successes. Struggle is part of our human experience. People will relate better to you if you also share things that did not work out or go as you had hoped.
- Have someone who will keep you grounded. We all need someone who will not let our ego get too big or out of control. This person will not sugarcoat things if you appear big-headed or arrogant. They will get you back to being humble and respecting others.
- Give credit to others as needed. No one is a self-made success. Everyone has had help along the way. Not giving credit to others is disrespectful and will alienate yourself from others. Show your appreciation and gratitude to those who have helped you.
- Encourage others to brag and share their wins. Sometimes, people don’t know when it’s appropriate to talk about their successes. If you can get people to talk about their wins and the lessons they learned, that will improve your relationships and the connections you have with others.
- Ask for feedback whenever you’re unsure about something. Other people’s non-verbal signals often show how well they relate to you. If you sense something you said did not go down well or may have been misinterpreted, ask questions to better understand what you could have done better. This takes courage and a high level of self-respect.
Final Thoughts
You will always communicate and deal with others, which means knowing how to stay humble without decreasing your confidence is something you will need to do. The better you do it, the better you will value yourself and others.
As you develop humility, your self-esteem and how you view yourself will improve, which means you will become a more confident person.
Action Step: During your next conversation, ask the person to share something about themselves that they’re proud of. Help the person feel comfortable sharing their successes and notice how that makes you feel.
Question: What are other things you can do to stay humble without decreasing your confidence?
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