How to Walk the Thin Line Between Pride and Overconfidence

Are you a confident person or just a cocky S.O.B?

The thin line between pride and overconfidence is not always as obvious as it seems. You may know of a person that you consider to be a real cocky S.O.B., but to that person, they simply consider themselves to have an abundance of confidence.

Clearly there’s a disconnect between the two opinions, but there are ways to tell if pride and confidence is genuine, or a person is just arrogant, with nothing to base it on.

In this story, I’ll share a brief learning experience I had when I was younger, and allow you to consider some interesting life lessons I learned about myself and about true pride and confidence.

Encouraged to Have Pride

Pride is an attribute we’re constantly being encouraged to develop and clearly, it can be a real motivator and driving force for good.

Athletes are often encouraged by their coaches to work hard and aim to “…beat their personal best.” It’s really just another way to say challenge yourself and force yourself to do better!

When we do good, whether we beat our personal best or not, it’s a good feeling. In fact, dare I say, we feel proud whenever we accomplish a goal, after working our butts off to get it done.

Yes, we feel proud when we finish that job or school project, or maybe just after fixing something minor around the house. But pride is a tricky thing, and if we’re not careful, it can cause more problems than it’s worth.

Obviously, the kind of negative pride I’m talking about is the same kind that’s mentioned in the Bible.

Proverbs 16:18 “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” — King James Translation

Bare with me a moment, and I’ll elaborate on the type of pride that can cause you to stunt your mental growth, and stop progressing in your personal development.

Pride Requires Balance

Pride is not wrong, as long as you keep things in perspective. But if you’re not careful, too much pride can slow you down. You may find that you’re actually getting overconfident.

Overconfidence is a real problem. When you are too sure that you’ve got it right, then you don’t try to improve your understanding. You tend to not check your facts, or try to learn more.

I know about this first-hand, because this is something that happened to me, during my earlier school days. Junior High and High School was a period of extreme learning for me, in more ways than one.

My Lesson about Pride

I was an exceptional student in my preteen and teen years, and it started with me working and studying my butt off, striving to be the best I could be. But eventually, the pride I began to take in the praise I received, was what ended up causing me to fail.

It wasn’t that I had pride in my achievements that were directly a result of my abilities and hard work. My pride amounted to false pride, in the sense that it stemmed from the perception that others had of me, not how I felt about myself.

There was a time when I didn’t realize this, or understand the difference. As my pride grew to confidence, the gradual progression of my mental state resulted in overconfidence. I stopped studying altogether; thinking I was so smart, I couldn’t do poorly if I wanted to.

And most of the time it was true. I aced through so much work and so many tests, having done little to no studying or homework.

It’s a good thing too, because I bounced around from home to home so much, I was always at a new school, having to start all over somewhere.

The thing that finally caused me to come to my senses, was the summer I spent in summer school, trying to bring my grades back up to par. I’d gotten a report card with three C’s, and one was actually a C- which meant it was damn near a D.

I remember being in shock over the grades, even though my teachers had been warning me for months that I was slipping.

My overconfidence wouldn’t allow me to believe that I could do poorly on my finals at the end of the year, even if my grades took a slight dip. I was horrified at the results, but it helped me learn a solid lesson.

During this same period, my 11th grade psychology teacher had some words of wisdom for me. He realized I was struggling, and he talked to me about not being content to “…rest on my laurels.” In fact, Mr. Dangerfield is the one who helped me appreciate what the expression meant.

You can’t continue to get praise for being on top of your game, if you stop doing the work to keep you on top of your game.

True pride should be rooted in how we ourselves feel about what we accomplish and those accomplishments are directly connected to our actual abilities.

That meant I needed to get back to working hard, if I wanted to improve my grades. But I also needed to stop worrying so much about being on top, if it means constantly vying for undeserved attention.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The thin line between pride and overconfidence should never be taken for granted. If it is, you might look around and find yourself on the wrong side of the line.

• Don’t allow too much pride and overconfidence to cause you to rest on your laurels, to the point of not striving to do better.
• Be determined to challenge yourselves every day, unlike I did when only rested on my laurels.
• Learn to quit worrying about being on top and vying for attention from others. True pride is a feeling that starts and ends with you.

Would you like to read more informative, entertaining Justiss Goode stories? Just click this Directory link: choose from my OVER 140 titles (by category).

My additional publications:

Black Like Me | Just Like New | Hard Knock | Short Story TIPSTER

Thank you for your: FOLLOWS | APPLAUDS | RESPONSES

Check out this FREE way to: promote your Medium Stories automatically