We know we shouldn’t listen to our critics. We know we should do things for ourselves. Morihei Ueshiba, founder of the Japanese martial art aikido, said, “As soon as you concern yourself with the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weaken and defeat you.”
So why do we listen? What makes us interested in external measurements? Why do we take outside rankings, results, or opinions over our own opinion of ourselves?
There is a root issue. An underlying reason. There is one issue that many of us have, that I know I have, that is at the basis of why we jump at external rankings. The root issue is . . . our lack of confidence. Self-judgment. We get lost in our own heads, we get confused with mixed advice, so we follow what we see. The root issue is self-confidence. And we’re going to solve this root issue together right now.
“Every single day I come to work I feel like I’m a failure.”
Twilight shone through the glass window and dim lights lit up leather chairs and the shiny lacquered desk as I sat staring in disbelief at my Harvard Business School leadership professor as he smiled wryly through wet, shiny eyes.
Tenured Harvard Business School professors have bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and PhDs, and they finish at the top of their class in all three! They make six-figure salaries and consult and speak on the side to earn even more. And they’re teaching at Harvard! A not-too-shabby résumé bullet point.
So why did my Harvard professor consider himself a failure?
“I walk up to my office door every morning and see that the professor in the office to my left has a Nobel Prize . . . and I know I’ll never have a Nobel Prize,” he continued. “And I see that the professor in the office to my right has written twelve books . . . and I know I’ll never write twelve books. I haven’t even written one. Every single morning I’m reminded how inferior I am and it kills me.”
I looked at him and could tell he was smiling and trying to make a point . . . but I could also see there was some truth in his words. After all, in his world, all his major accomplishments are neutralized by his peers. Piles of degrees, million-dollar bank ac- counts, prestigious jobs—all just par for the course.
The secret scribble to increasing your confidence
What is confidence and how can we become more confident?
Time for the confidence scribble.
Let’s talk about your opinion of yourself. It can be high or low. Sure, it will flip-flop all the time. But let’s say in any instant it can be high or it can be low. Does confidence just have to do with your opinion of yourself?
No!
Most people think it does. But we always have an opinion of others, too. What do you call people with a high opinion of themselves and a low opinion of others? They’re not confident. They are . . .
Stuck-up. Egotistical. Bigheaded. Arrogant people are not confident because they don’t understand that having a high opinion of others doesn’t lower their opinion of themselves. They are affected by other people’s confidence! It makes them feel weak. So they try to lower that confidence while increasing their own. Remember the school yard bully who actually feels bad about himself deep down? This is the guy we’re talking about here. This is the guy who feels the need to be better than others in order to be good at all.
Next box. What do you call people with a high opinion of others but a low opinion of themselves?
We’ve all been there! We think greatly of other people and believe ourselves to be “lesser than.” You feel this way when you stare at a group photo and say something like “Oh my God! I look hideous! I look huge! You look great, though.” Talk about beating yourself up. High opinion of others. Low opinion of yourself. Insecure.
Now, what do you call people with a low opinion of themselves and a low opinion of others? No high opinions of anyone at all!
We’ve all been here, too. Bad days, bad bosses, big mistakes. We can get into a funk and see problems everywhere. We become cynical. The cynic isn’t confident. Cynical is the furthest thing from confident! As Conan O’Brien said on his final episode hosting The Tonight Show, “All I ask of you is one thing: Please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism—it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere.”
What’s left? What do the truly confident people have? They have a high opinion of themselves. And! They have a high opinion of others. That is the true definition of confidence.
The secret tool to increasing your confidence is the confidence scribble. We will all float around these boxes over and over but the key is taking a second to pause, stand back, and ask yourself where you are right now... and how you can help your mind navigate to the top right box.
Buddha says, “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
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A slightly different version of this article is excerpted from The Happiness Equation