Cultivate Humility, with Confidence

Today, a quote from late, great author, C.S. Lewis on the subject of humility:

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

I love this quote, because to me it really gets to the heart of what humility is… and again, we’re going back to that sense of confidence over arrogance.

Because if you aren’t humble – if say, you demonstrate arrogance – then you think about yourself a lot. Arrogance is an ugly quality. It stops people from really looking at others, at wishing them well, everything being seen as it is through their own reflection and the need to be better than what they see outside of the mirror.

As I’ve said before, arrogance in a person implies underlying insecurity… and you only have to look to its similarities with anxiety to see this. Just as arrogance causes a more extreme level of self-consciousness, so too are anxious people not able to see past themselves and their own experience. And it all stems from the same place – a fear of being judged by others.

Confident people, however, are comfortable in their own skin. They’re accepting of their own life reflection.

As such, they can look to and think of others – and support them to reach their potential – without needed to look back at their own reflection.

Just as C.S. Lewis said – it’s not ‘thinking less of yourself,’ but quite the contrary; the higher your self-esteem and the more you value and appreciate yourself, the more freedom you’ll have to support the people in your life;

which is pretty great. For you and everyone around you.