Self Confidence and Arrogance

**Posts:** 3 · by **CXMP** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 4:35 pm

Hey Guys,

I am new to this forum and I just wanted to introduce myself. I live in the Midwest (US) and currently work at a US defense and aerospace contractor. I graduated college 7 months ago.

I came across a difficult situation and that is the line between self confidence and arrogance. I am often told I am arrogant or cocky but I dismissed the criticism because it came from people who's opinion I did not value. When I was in college (7 months ago) I had many side jobs (restaurants, home remodeling etc.) and it was people who were single mothers while serving tables who gave me this criticism. It wasn't until I received a performance evaluation at my current job when I saw this as a real issue. I was given a great review and I was promoted. I was told that I had "tremendous interpersonal skills" but sometimes I came off as arrogant or cocky. I then sought out a path to improve myself in this situation but first here's a little history about me.

Growing up I had zero confidence. In high school I had zero confidence. I wasn't involved in any clubs or events in school and I performed horribly academically. In terms of GPA, I graduated second to last in my class and only beat a student who had severe autism. I was extremely shy, often looked down at the floor and stuttered horribly when speaking to strangers. I had zero discipline and I was just wasting my life away. It was time to change. In college, I saw a perfect time to reinvent myself. It was a hard and painful journey. I dropped speech class 3 times because public speaking wrecked havoc on my body and mind and I stuttered pretty bad to everyone since everyone was new to me. I dropped out of school for a year and set on a journey to dramatically change myself. I read several self help books, watched self help youtube videos, audio books, seminars and online articles. I hated the way I was and I would do anything to change that. When I enrolled in school I was determined to succeed but it was hard. I started off as a C student, joined a few clubs and attended a few social events. Long story short, by senior year I was Vice President of the Finance club, ended the year with damn near a 4.0, studied abroad in Athens, Greece and was the most talkative and charismatic person I knew. I made it a goal to talk with every stranger I encountered. When I graduated I was asked by the Dean of the business school to speak to the incoming freshman class on how to become a successful business student at the school. It was an honor. I was pretty proud of the progress I had made.

However, I feel that my strategy I learned has a drawback and that is the appearance of arrogance. My strategy was to visualize who I wanted to be and act in that way. I wrote out personal goals everyday and wrote them in the tense like they already were true. I invented a persona, dressed professionally and acted like I already had the traits that I desired. One of the books I read was about Aristotle and if I can remember correctly he said (paraphrasing), "If you desire a trait that you don't already have, act in every instance where the trait is called for and you will have it." That is exactly what I did. This big bold knowledgeable persona I created was not real but my subconscious was working to fill in the gaps and eventually I became it. I worked extremely hard (got rid of my TV, put all non professional social encounters aside) and went into focus mode to fill in this gap. However, I am still using this tactic today. Even though I graduated 7 months ago I still attend night classes in conversational spanish because my goal for 2017 was to become bilingual. Another goal of mine was to develop an extremely healthy lifestyle (strict diet and exercise routine) and I have a persona that I am already there and am an expert in nutrition. I am applying to grad school next month and I act like it is a sure thing I will get in.

This strategy has helped me so much but it is starting to hurt my personal and professional relationships who view me as arrogant. I came so far and I feel that my journey has just begun. I have so many goals I want to achieve and envisioning it as already occurring has helped so much. Can anyone offer advise on balancing confidence and arrogance? I find it extremely difficult. Thanks!!

**Posts:** 12131 · by **Richard@DecisionSkills** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 6:21 pm

CXMP wrote:However, I feel that my strategy I learned has a drawback and that is the appearance of arrogance. My strategy was to visualize who I wanted to be and act in that way.

One of the books I read was about Aristotle and if I can remember correctly he said (paraphrasing), "If you desire a trait that you don't already have, act in every instance where the trait is called for and you will have it."

This strategy has helped me so much but it is starting to hurt my personal and professional relationships who view me as arrogant.

It doesn't sound like your strategy is the problem. The solution sounds pretty evident to me.

What stops you from writing a persona, writing a narrative of the humble student, seeking to learn from those in the company? Nothing. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from writing a narrative of a non-arrogant, non-pretentious, yet effective, intelligent young employee looking to learn from mentors, role models. What stops you from looking towards a person in the company you admire and writing a narrative that benefits you, yet is not arrogant?

The other thing you may consider is Benjamin Franklins 13 virtues. Benjamin, go figure, had an ego. He lacked humility, yet using his process of 13 virtues he worked on self-improvement. One item per week, 4 times a year, he would focus on improving one trait or future he felt important in life. He was 20 when he created this system.

http://www.thirteenvirtues.com

**Posts:** 30 · by **wonkymirror** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 6:30 pm

First of all welcome to the board, and congratulations on working so hard to achieve your goals and become a more confident person, for someone like myself it is something I battle with every day.

My boyfriend has a public persona of being very confident, and interestingly when we met I viewed his as arrogant and I didn't like him at all ( it may help to know we worked together)

Obviously the more I got to know him I realized that he had some really wonderful traits and when that barrier was down we were able to have conversations and bond.

The problem is, meeting people for the first time, first impressions are important, that's not to say you can't recover from an unsavory one, but over time it gets harder because you build a reputation that may or may not be true and these things have a habit of sticking.

I think the fundamental difference between confidence and arrogance is humility. Yes you are confident and hard working and knowledgeable, but when was the last time you told someone they had done a good job, or offered to help someone out if they were struggling, you may do these things already, but I say do them more, more, more.

True confidence is not being afraid to show you are human, you have vulnerabilities and you can overcome struggles too. There is no point climbing to the top of the mountain only to look down on those still at the bottom!

Look at it this way, if you met your past self how would you act towards him? would you gloat at how far you had come or would you appreciate that confidence is a work in progress?

are you happy with who you are now? or do you sometimes feel like it is a rod for your own back? I'd just be interested to know if a part of you still feels vulnerable

**Posts:** 3 · by **CXMP** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 8:29 pm

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:
CXMP wrote:However, I feel that my strategy I learned has a drawback and that is the appearance of arrogance. My strategy was to visualize who I wanted to be and act in that way.

One of the books I read was about Aristotle and if I can remember correctly he said (paraphrasing), "If you desire a trait that you don't already have, act in every instance where the trait is called for and you will have it."

This strategy has helped me so much but it is starting to hurt my personal and professional relationships who view me as arrogant.

It doesn't sound like your strategy is the problem. The solution sounds pretty evident to me.

What stops you from writing a persona, writing a narrative of the humble student, seeking to learn from those in the company? Nothing. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from writing a narrative of a non-arrogant, non-pretentious, yet effective, intelligent young employee looking to learn from mentors, role models. What stops you from looking towards a person in the company you admire and writing a narrative that benefits you, yet is not arrogant?

The other thing you may consider is Benjamin Franklins 13 virtues. Benjamin, go figure, had an ego. He lacked humility, yet using his process of 13 virtues he worked on self-improvement. One item per week, 4 times a year, he would focus on improving one trait or future he felt important in life. He was 20 when he created this system.

Thanks for the input Richard! I will read the 13 virtues tonight. They look extremely interesting. And you are right. I could definitely develop a narrative of a humble student yet I feel that it would contrast against the narrative that I have towards my other goals. A humble student views themselves modestly in terms of their own importance. Yet developing a strategy of believing you have traits you don't currently have is the opposite of humility in my eyes. That is where the balance is difficult for me. If I were to bring about a humble narrative, I would down play my chances of getting into this grad school and my skills as a spanish speaker. Yet, taking Aristotle's advice I would use in the power of positive thinking, visualization and the subconscious mind to act like I already have the traits and my chances are guaranteed. :/

**Posts:** 3 · by **CXMP** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 8:42 pm

wonkymirror wrote:
Look at it this way, if you met your past self how would you act towards him? would you gloat at how far you had come or would you appreciate that confidence is a work in progress?

are you happy with who you are now? or do you sometimes feel like it is a rod for your own back? I'd just be interested to know if a part of you still feels vulnerable

Thanks for the input! Honestly, if I met my past self I would be angry with him. How could I throw away such a great opportunity growing up? I would probably be a lot further down the road in life if i had gotten serious earlier. I would tell myself it is easy to hide. Easy to lock yourself away from criticism and negativity. But the feeling and rewards of getting yourself out there are far greater than the temporary feeling of safeness by locking yourself away. Everyone is locked away by some degree. I guarantee that if I were to somehow take them and place them into a body of a successful entrepreneur who puts himself out there and achieves all of their goals and is constantly doing new great things they would change instantly. But its that first hurdle that paralyzes people just like me.

Yes, I still feel vulnerable. My confident persona isn't 100% real in all situations. There are still parts of my past that linger into today. Some social events I can crawl into my shell. But its becoming more rare. I am happy with who I am now but I won't be happy if I am the same person next year. Every year I aspire to be radically improved and doing great things. Part of me feels like I need to make up for lost time (wasted high school years and beyond).

**Posts:** 12131 · by **Richard@DecisionSkills** » Tue Mar 28, 2017 8:58 pm

CXMP wrote: A humble student views themselves modestly in terms of their own importance. Yet developing a strategy of believing you have traits you don't currently have is the opposite of humility in my eyes. That is where the balance is difficult for me. If I were to bring about a humble narrative, I would down play my chances of getting into this grad school and my skills as a spanish speaker.

I understand. You are struggling with your beliefs...your personal understanding and definition of what it means to be humble. Have you heard of Pope Francis? The man is head of arguably the most powerful church on the planet! He speaks 8 languages. You don't think the man had or has goals, dreams, visions? By all accounts he is the prototypical humble leader. You don't see him effectively balancing humility with accomplishing goals in life?

Point being, the belief that humility requires you downplay your chances you get into grad school is inaccurate.

And another way to frame your narrative. Humility/arrogance requires you compare yourself to others, that you establish goals that are competitive, i.e. to get a better grade or run faster or outperform someone else. Modify your goals to focus on yourself, improving over your last performance, not trying to beat out someone else. When you write your narratives/goals make sure to frame them as non-competitive and that eliminates the humility/arrogance issue.

For instance, in addition to English I speak Spanish. Am I fluent? Heck no. Humility or arrogance has nothing to do with my ability to speak, because I don't give a rats a$$ if another person is better or has learned faster than me. My goal to improve is personal and is only measured by comparing my latest performance to my previous performance.

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