Humility is knowing all that you are—and aren’t—and not thinking more or less of yourself because of it. More or less are only words that exist in terms of your function to society.
Every Good…
article starts with a sentence—there was mine. And a comic to tee things up:
However, that graphic is obviously missing a few things…let me fix that…
Double obviously, stick figure 2’s safe bet is to aim left of accurate. If he accidentally overshoots to the right… well… things start to spiral from there.
Now might be perceived as aloof or cocky or narcissistic or, at the very least, just lacking some self awareness. Not an ideal impression we want to make on stick figure 1.
So in a Game Theory kind of play here, Stick 2 should ALWAYS aim to be left of what is true. Better to think less of yourself than too much.
However, if he keeps flying left, at some point he’s just lying to himself and Stick 1. We don’t want that. The resulting imposter syndrome spiral could leave him with a cripplingly low self esteem. An abysmally low confidence.
Basically, the only thing saving Mr. Low Confidence is a fairy tale intervention from Peter Pan and Tinker Bell so he can believe in himself.
With that said…
Humility is not lying to yourself. It attempts to be accurate without overevaluating how worthy you are as a person, so that you can act upon your acknowledged skills and talents.
You’re no good to the world and others if you have beautiful, magnificent talents and skills—which you do in varying degrees to other people—that you can’t use because you can’t even acknowledge that you have them.
The result of this false humility, one where belittling everything you are is the name of the game, is that your giftings go unused. This is roughly the same effect as someone who is overly prideful, who objectively has talent, but will also go unused because he’s socially repelling.
So the goal is accurate, self-assessment without an inflated sense of self-worth
Because when a leader doesn’t take themselves too seriously, we know we can give them critical feedback and they won’t explode on us. They’ll take it seriously.
The egomaniac…not so much.
However, if we have a leader with no confidence in their skills, we also don’t want that. We want them to confidently state where they can help—i.e., provide value and serve—and know what their limitations are.
Now that ☝️is a beautiful thing when it happens.
Action Thought
With an accurate self-view, it is easier to identify your skill, knowledge, or behavior gaps (read: shortcomings).
- When you’re struggling to find the words, put it to a #. How smart am I, 1-10?
- For any answer, ask yourself what would’ve made you a 10 or an 11? You are hunting for the gaps so you can fill them.
- Help others see themselves accurately by asking them useful questions. If they struggle to answer a question, try the 1-10 thing. I’ve found it useful for quite a many folk.
Happy journeys 🤙