#35 Humility vs. Confidence: Cultivating Humble Confidence

Humble confidence" might sound like a contradiction, but it's part of a Winning Mindset that can set you on the path to success. After years of equating humility with self-deprecation, I discovered the transformative power of balancing self-awareness with self-worth. This episode sheds light on redefining humility—it's not about minimizing your achievements or self-worth but rather, appreciating your strengths and weaknesses in equal measure. We explore the fine line between confidence and arrogance, and how staying true to yourself is key to authentic self-expression. 

Navigating high-pressure situations with humble confidence can be a game changer. Authenticity and self-acceptance become essential tools, allowing us to walk our paths with genuine ease. Learn strategies for maintaining humble confidence, particularly when the stakes are high, by fostering self-awareness and personal growth. Embrace your journey, recognize your accomplishments, and let's talk about how you can own who you are without falling into the trap of comparison. 

Join us for an exploration into a mindset that welcomes both humility and confidence as partners in your personal and professional growth.

Chapters

• 0:00 Building Humble Confidence in Yourself
• 13:42 Balancing Humility and Confidence

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:28

Hello, beautiful friends, welcome back to Sash and Soul and happy Valentine's Day. It is February 14th, the day of love, and I for one, am really practicing that self-love this week and practicing what it actually means to feel worthy and actively take care of myself and show myself the grace that I need in the day-to-day. So I hope you're doing the same thing for yourself. You know, like last week's episode, I talked quite a bit about kind of giving yourself that grace and taking it easy. It was a shorter episode last week. This week we're back into it. It was a shorter episode last week. This week we're back into it.

Speaker 1: 1:14

I'm going to stay on a theme today based on the upcoming February Masterclass, which is on confidence and mindset. That is coming up on February 25th and it's called Unshakable Confidence Building a Winning Mindset. And today we are going to talk about one key aspect of the winning mindset, which is building humble confidence. So as we dive in, I want you to just be really self-reflective and think about, like, where do you stand in the scope between humility? And we're going to go as far as arrogance, because I want to break down what's the difference between humility and confidence? Where do they intersect? How do we go too far to self-deprecation or to arrogance? How do we find like a really healthy happy medium and I think the key component here is healthy how do we have a really healthy frame of mind? How do we see ourselves through a lens of self-awareness and self-understanding that really sets us up for success, for anything that we're doing and for joy and peace in the things that we do, whether we are succeeding or we are experiencing setbacks, so that we aren't connecting it to our own self-worth.

Speaker 1: 2:41

So I want to start off by talking a little bit about how humble confidence came to be for me when I was growing up and I think in general as a woman in society, we have this idea that humility is about not letting yourself get too confident. We have a misunderstanding that humility is a space where we're not bragging, we're not overly inflated in our sense of self, and so I practiced humility by putting myself down and by not letting my head get too high in the clouds, not dreaming too big or putting myself out there too much. I was quiet and I often minimized my accomplishments and all that did was leave me feeling stuck and incapable. These tactics of what I thought was practicing humility really didn't serve me and they just kept me back from accomplishing the things that I wanted to. And so, as I've grown into adulthood, I started adapting a new concept of humble confidence, meaning that I know my self-worth. And even though I know my self-worth, I often still battle these difficult default habits of the self-deprecating thoughts, because this is just a part of who I am and it's a constant battle. Mindset is not perfect I've talked about this before but I use my strengths to provide service to others and build the life that I want. Meanwhile, I'm also in a space, in this humble confidence, of being able to appreciate others' accomplishments too. Something that I struggle with quite deeply and I know many of you can relate because we've talked about it is comparison, and humble confidence is a way of helping you overcome that comparison, so that when you are looking outward and seeing other people, any kind of comparison that you might be doing is only to better serve yourself, so that you can grow, rather than to put yourself down in this old means of practicing humility put yourself down in this old means of practicing humility. So today I want to talk about what are the misconceptions about humility? What is confidence versus arrogance and the power of humble confidence and actually how to practice that humble confidence in your life. So let's get started.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Humility is not self-deprecation. Self-deprecation is any kind of activity that you are doing to diminish your own worth. It could be limiting beliefs that have a really strong hold on you and when you are in that self-deprecating place, the only thing that that is doing for you is keeping you stuck. It may be giving you this false sense of security, but ultimately you are stuck where you are and growth does not happen where self-deprecation lives. Humility is also not shaming yourself, or in other words, not believing in yourself or believing that you are not good enough.

Speaker 1: 5:51

I, for one, struggle a lot with shame. It is kind of a default emotion for me when I'm going through a really difficult time. So when I'm fighting with my husband, or I make a big mistake or something's just not working right in my day-to-day life, or health issues come up and I'm not able to function at my best, like shame is my go-to. So humility is not shame, even though I think sometimes it can be masked as humility. And finally, humility is not downplaying your achievements or your potential out of fear of something and being like or sounding boastful, okay. So humility does not mean that you are hiding the things that you have accomplished. It does not mean that you are not sharing those things openly. So, for example, like if you're in a pageant interview, being humble doesn't mean not talking directly about the things that you've accomplished. If you've ever received feedback in practice interview about, like, how you don't use the word I enough, like we need to hear more about what you have actually done with this, that may be a sign that you struggle to actually talk about the things that you've done and you may have this limiting fear that you're going to sound like you're bragging or something along those lines.

Speaker 1: 7:11

On the flip side, humility is a very grounded sense of yourself, awareness of your strengths and of your weaknesses, and this is really important. The weakness component, right, I think. Oftentimes we find it pretty easy to come up with a list of our weaknesses, really easy for us to come up with a list of our challenges or our failures. I hear that very often and it's more difficult to come up with a list of our strengths or our inner qualities. But we need both. We need to be aware of both and in that awareness of both, our strengths and our weaknesses or our challenge areas. We need to have some neutrality of thinking so as to not judge ourselves about those weaknesses and challenges and also not to allow ourselves to get too egocentric or egotistical about our strengths at the same time. So a very grounded sense of self and a balance between those two things.

Speaker 1: 8:08

Another part of humility is a willingness to learn, to grow and to acknowledge other people's contributions. I oh sorry, my dog is barking in the background. There must be another dog walking by. I have a book about mindset and a very key component. Oh my goodness, she is just the most fierce guard dog ever, although if we're out for a walk and we pass somebody walking by and they try to pet her, she like cowers away. So she's really not that tough Anyway. So in this book on mindset talks about growth mindset, and so growth mindset to me is a really key component of where any kind of setback or failure or perception of failure doesn't mean that there's something wrong with us. It just means that there's an opportunity to learn.

Speaker 1: 9:00

And finally, humility is a sense of confidence without needing external validation. One of the love languages, if you're familiar with the love language, is words of affirmation, excuse me, and so that external need, that need for that external words of affirmation, gives us a false sense of confidence, a false sense of security. When you need somebody else to boost you up, then you are also at risk of other people tearing you down. And so when we can develop our own sense of confidence internally again, going back to recognizing our strengths and being okay with our weaknesses and seeing them as an opportunity to learn and grow, then we are much more grounded in our sense of self. Okay, I had to pause there for my dog to stop barking, although now she's whining. So you know what. I'm just going to be authentic about this. This is my life. I work from home, I have two dogs and they haven't been able to be outside very much because it's been so cold. So I do apologize for that, but I'm going to keep it real and I'm not editing this out. So, humility when you think about humility in pageant, competition, competitors and contestants often struggle with accepting compliments or owning their successes without feeling guilty. I hear this frequently. I would imagine that, as you're listening to this, this is probably hitting home for you. So one thing that I like to talk about is like a real concept for you to consider real concept, for you to consider it's like you yourself, as a genuine, wonderful human being.

Speaker 1: 10:51

Give compliments to other people, whether they are family members or your close friends or a perfect stranger. When you give that compliment, are you being genuine and does it feel good to you? Chances are the answer to both is yes. Yes, you are being genuine, otherwise you probably wouldn't have given that compliment in the first place. And yes, it feels good to you to compliment somebody else. Otherwise you might not give that compliment in the first place. How do you want people to receive your genuine compliment? Does it feel good to you when they brush you off or when they deny it, or is it nice when they acknowledge and say thank you? Wow, that really means a lot to me that you say that. Now consider it on the flip side. Consider how someone else wants you to receive a compliment that they give you. Really, really think about that. It may be, for some reason, uncomfortable to you to receive that compliment, but if you do receive that compliment with grace, you may be helping that other person feel good too. A compliment is not just one-sided, it is dual-sided. So keep that in mind when you maybe find yourself struggling with accepting a compliment from somebody else.

Speaker 1: 12:07

I think the best thing that I started practicing when I first really started diving into humble confidence is saying thank you, genuinely saying thank you, even if I'm not necessarily believing it at the time. And I'm going to tell you, it's still not easy. My husband, especially when I'm feeling really low, likes to provide those words of affirmations, but for some reason sometimes I really just don't believe it in myself and I have a hard time taking that compliment from him. But if you can start practicing taking compliments and actually looking for evidence that those compliments are accurate, you will be setting yourself up for building your confidence in a humble way.

Speaker 1: 12:51

Next, confidence versus arrogance. I think one of the reasons that we try so hard to maintain humility is because we don't want to come across as arrogant, and there's a big problem with that because sometimes we go too far to the self-deprecating side and that's not healthy or helpful, as we've already established. So what is confidence? Confidence is simply believing in yourself and your abilities, it's owning your achievements and your strengths and it's trusting your preparation and your skills. Easier said than done, I completely understand that. However, confidence comes with some practice and putting yourself out there and celebrating and recognizing your wins. These are all ways to build your confidence.

Speaker 1: 13:42

On the flip side, confidence is not arrogance. Arrogance is thinking that you're better than other people. I think arrogance is a trap that we fall into when we're struggling with a lack of confidence. It can also be a trap that we fall into when we do really think that we're the best, and so that comparison goes both ways. Sometimes we may find ourselves comparing ourselves to others and feeling really yucky about ourselves, and other times we may find ourselves comparing ourselves to others and feeling really inflated about ourselves. Be self-aware. Check yourself when you're doing that comparison. Are you feeling better and really awesome about yourself? You may be struggling a little bit with some arrogance.

Speaker 1: 14:29

Confidence is also not conceit or exaggerating your abilities to seek approval from other people. That essentially is bragging. We don't want to hear that in interview, because we want to hear your genuine person. We want to hear exactly who you are, that authentic self and honestly. Perfectionism and bragging just give people the yucky feeling and they don't connect to you. Perfectionism is. It can be intimidating and it can be really off-putting. So there's a difference between owning your accomplishments and exaggerating your abilities. And finally, confidence is not egotism or centering everything around yourself.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Oftentimes in pageant interview or when we're public speaking because we've practiced so long to learn how to speak about ourselves and speak about ourselves in positive ways, so that we sound good in interviews, so that we're showcasing everything that we have to offer to the job we go a little bit too far and now, all of a sudden, all we're doing is talking about everything that we've accomplished. I think a really good way to balance that out is to answer questions directly and share facts about what you've done and in turn, as you are sharing examples of things that you've accomplished and ways that you approach things, you're using it as a lesson. You've got some level of trying to inspire the audience. You're sharing maybe even anecdotes about what other people have done that have been similar, or ways that you learned and grew in that moment as well. It's different than bringing up examples of your awesomeness for the sake of making yourself sound good. It's a red flag for me when someone's doing that, and the red flag usually is telling me that that person actually struggles with a lack of confidence.

Speaker 1: 16:25

When there is that arrogance, when there's that level of self-inflation, my first thought is that you don't actually have a sense of self-confidence and a sense of self-worth. Otherwise you wouldn't necessarily need to boost yourself up like that, to boost yourself up like that. So another area for just that self-awareness, and also not going so far as to be self-deprecating and experiencing that shame because, as we know, shame and self-deprecation are also not humble. How do we combine humility and confidence? For me, the way that I define humble confidence is that I'm not better than anyone else and I'm not less than anyone else either. So I'm walking this very beautiful line of the in-between, of being really content in and of myself. It's the ability to walk into a room perfectly content with who you are and comfortable in your own skin, that you don't need to be in the spotlight, you don't need to be the loudest voice in the room, you don't need all eyes on you. And in doing that, when you're walking into a room and just being your own beautiful self, you are much more approachable and enjoyable to be around, and so that humble confidence then shows up in your presence.

Speaker 1: 17:47

There's a quote that I really like that I heard from Brene Brown. If you're familiar with Brene Brown, she's obviously very well known, but some people are not aware, she is a researcher and author and public speaker. She has a very powerful TED talk on the power of vulnerability, so check that out if you haven't watched it yet. But she says when she walks into a room she tells herself don't puff up, don't shrink down, stay in your sacred space. And I just love that. I think that epitomizes and puts a visual to what humble confidence in action actually looks like.

Speaker 1: 18:24

So how do you actually balance humility and confidence in your day-to-day life, especially when you are in a high-stakes situation, a high-stress situation like pageants or an interview or public speaking? Because we know in these spaces of stress or public speaking, because we know in these spaces of stress, insecurities personify and magnify, and they can magnify in the sense of the self-deprecation or they can magnify in the sense of the arrogance. And we want to stay in that beautiful space in between. My number one baseline on how to balance humility and confidence is knowing yourself and, most importantly, accepting yourself as you are. When you can know yourself and accept yourself, you will be more balanced and you'll be between that humility and confidence in that balanced space.

Speaker 1: 19:18

Knowing and accepting yourselves means knowing your strengths and your inner qualities. We work on that a lot in Fearlessly Authentic. It also means knowing your shortcomings, owning your mistakes and recognizing areas for improvement without judgment of yourself. Again, it's that growth mindset that just because you have a shortcoming, just because you make a mistake, just because you have areas of improvement, doesn't mean that you are somehow less than or not worthy or incapable. Let's not judge it. Let's get to a neutral zone and work on focusing on the things that we can control.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Okay, so, overall, when you're practicing humble confidence, it means owning your strengths and remaining open to growth. So, as you're listening and as you're processing this, I wonder where do you lean? Do you lean on the side of too humble or self-doubt, or do you lean on the side of too confident and borderline arrogance? And as you're processing this, think about one step that you can take to strengthen your humble confidence this week. Think about it in terms of that self-love that I just keep talking about, and having grace for yourself. And also think about it in loving other people and having grace for them and their shortcomings and recognizing that, if they are seeming too confident, maybe they're struggling with some insecurities of their own, and in that way you can practice having some empathy as well.

Speaker 1: 20:49

All right, so for more on confidence and mindset, and we're going to dive into deeper strategies. Be sure to click the link in the episode description for the upcoming February masterclass on February 25th it's going to be an hour long, 7 to 8 pm in central time, because I'm located in Wisconsin called Unshakable Confidence Building a Winner's Mindset. We are going to focus on overcoming self-doubt, reframing your negative thoughts and cultivating self-belief. We're going to talk about tools that you can use to stay mentally strong and confident under pressure. Okay, so you're going to learn how to reframe those negative thoughts into empowering beliefs. We're going to work on daily practices to build and maintain that confidence and you're going to learn tools to stay mentally strong under pressure.

Speaker 1: 21:37

So this is for any one of you that struggles with self-doubt or you want to exude confident in every aspect of not only competition and being a title holder, but of your life as well. Mindset is the baseline of Fearlessly Authentic Mindset is 80% of your success. This is if you're going to make it to any masterclass. Sign up for this one. You will also have access to the recording afterwards, so be sure to click that link and sign up. Also, be sure to subscribe to Sash and Soul. I want you to follow on social media so that you can stay updated on any new episodes, including some guests that we've got coming up in the coming weeks. Until then, please be well, practice that self-love and move towards humble confidence in everything that you do. We'll talk to you next time. Bye.