Being Confident Without Being Arrogant

We naturally assume that when someone has problems with confidence, it’s that they don’t have enough of it. But this isn’t always true.

Confidence, like most other traits, is a spectrum. You can have too little, which results in a low self esteem, or you can have too much which results in arrogance.
You can say hubris if you want to sound polite and fancy.

The key is to have a healthy confidence. Like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears you shouldn’t have too much or too little, but just enough.

Having a low self esteem can make you hate yourself, but being arrogant can make everyone else hate you.

Having a low self esteem can lead to:
Self sabotage, poor relationship and social skills, lack of assertiveness, neediness or dependence, and when it gets really bad it can lead to things like eating disorders and self harm.

But on the other end of the spectrum, arrogance can lead to:
An inability to handle criticism, a lack of empathy, having unreasonable expectations of favourable treatment and delusions of grandeur.

Which are all pretty undesirable personality traits.

Maintaining a healthy confidence is a fine line to walk and you need a lot of qualities. It’s accepting yourself even if you aren’t perfect. It’s having a healthy self-esteem, and it’s having the ability to go through life knowing deep down that for better or worse, you are who you are and that is okay.

So what are the three main qualities you need in order to walk that fine line between self deprecation and delusions of grandeur?

Humility

It can be hard to walk that fine line when you are really good at something. When you are winning your first reaction might be jumping up in the air screaming “Yes! Who’s the best!? I’m the best!”

But that is a sure fire way to look arrogant.

When you win, use humility to make others around you feel good. When you lose, use humility to know that you can always improve next time.

Respect

If you respect yourself and the people around you a healthy self-confidence is sure to follow.

Don’t put yourself in situations you don’t feel comfortable in and try not to put yourself down too often. Respect yourself in this way, as well as the people around you.

It might take time to develop this trait, but start by catching yourself whenever you aren’t showing respect to yourself or the people around you.

Generosity

We tend to have negative self-talk constantly. We spend so much time beating ourselves up that it’s no wonder we don’t have a healthy confidence.

Be generous in giving yourself compliments and pats on the back. And while you’re at it, be generous with others in this way.

A few kind words can go a long way to making your day—or someone else’s—a thousand times brighter.

With these three tips, we can feel good about ourselves without becoming arrogant in the process. We often tend live in one extreme or the other, but true happiness and lasting confidence comes from balance.

So exercise humility, show yourself some respect and be generous with kind words—you’ll build a foundation of self-confidence that will carry you throughout life.

3 Ways Your Brain Damages Your Self-Esteem

Your brain wasn’t made for the modern era. 

For most of human history we were hunter gatherers surviving in tribes. We didn’t have the stimulation of technology, the safety net of modern medicine or the vastly interconnected social system that we have now.

Because of this fact, our brains and bodies have some left over mechanisms and responses that aren’t exactly suited for our time. Today we are going to be talking about one of the mechanisms and responses that we have left over from a distant past: cognitive biases.

Cognitive biases are tendencies to think in certain ways that can lead to systematic deviations from a standard of rationality or good judgment.

Specifically we’ll explore how these cognitive biases can help cause one of the most rampant mental well-being problems that we all have in common, a low self-esteem.

While you think every decision and thought you hold is completely voluntary, I’m here to show you that the shortcuts your brain takes deeply impact how you view yourself and the world around you. Once we are aware of the tricks our brain can play on us, we can control them a little more.

Negative Bias

Negative Bias refers to the notion that, even when of equal intensity, things of a more negative nature (e.g. unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or social interactions; harmful/traumatic events) have a greater effect on one’s psychological state and processes than do neutral or positive things.

In other words, something we consider very positive could have less of an affect on our mental state and behaviour than something we find to be less intensely negative. It could take 5 positive experiences to outweigh one negative.

If you go outside and five people compliment you, but one person insults you, the insult might affect you more than all of the compliments combined. With this in mind it’s easy to see how our self esteem can be skewed from what it could be if we weighed the positive and negative equally.

Attentional Bias

Attentional Bias is the tendency of our perception to be affected by our recurring thoughts. For example, people who frequently think about the clothes they wear pay more attention to the clothes of others.

Put in the context of self esteem it is easy to see how this could become a problem. If we already think negative thoughts about ourselves often, this bias will send us into a spiral. We will believe that other people are thinking negative things about us and it will become a point of focus for us.

This bias will affect our behaviours and mood based on reoccurring thoughts. If those thoughts are negative (which the negative bias can cause) then we are fighting an uphill battle.

Spotlight Effect

The Spotlight Effect is the phenomenon in which people tend to believe they are noticed more than they really are. Being that one is constantly in the center of one’s own world, an accurate evaluation of how much one is noticed by others has shown to be uncommon.

This can easily damage an already bruised self esteem in that we may believe that everyone around us notices all of the flaws that we see in ourselves. We believe that everyone sees our pimples, or our nervousness in conversations, or our clothes, or height, or whatever else already makes us feel self conscious.

These biases in combination can be detrimental to our mental well-being if we are not aware of them. It’s hard to fight against millions of years of evolution and a brain that we don’t have complete control over. But we have to try to be aware so that the next time some bad happens, we can try to truthfully balance it against the good. Or that we can catch ourselves the next time we are in a spiral of negative thoughts. Or that we can realize that the people around us don’t actually pay as much attention to our flaws as we believe.

If we can keep these biases in mind and try to mitigate their affects whenever possible, we can help lessen the damage they have on our self esteem and live a better quality, happier life.

Shia LaBeouf Says “Stop Giving Up!”

We love motivational videos with a passion. They are a guilty pleasure.

That is why we were ecstatic when we saw that Shia Labeouf had put out a motivational video.

It is to the point and we love it. One of the lines is a classic.

“If you are tired of starting over, stop giving up.”

So, we’re here to explore all the reasons that we might give up, and stop it from happening.

We Expect Results Too Fast

When we first start on a new venture we want everything to work out perfectly. In our mind’s eye we see the stars aligning and all of our dreams coming true overnight, but it never works that way.

The thing is, anything that comes fast, will go just as quickly. Even then, it isn’t what we are getting that is important, it is who we are becoming. And becoming something takes time.

If you aren’t where you want to be yet, it’s because you don’t deserve to be there yet. You haven’t put in the time, the effort, the persistence, or the blood, sweat and tears required. When you deserve the thing you are after, you’ll get it.

So don’t give up.

We Fear The Future

We are terrible predictors of the future.

Think of all the doomsday scenarios that have played out in your head throughout the past. How many of them ended in your life being ruined forever? Probably a lot of them. But right now look around, has your life actually been ruined forever, even once? Probably not.

If you are reading this right now that means that you have internet and probably food and shelter, so it’s safe to say that your doomsday scenarios never came true.

We Dwell On Mistakes

A mistake won’t become a regret unless we fail to learn from it.

That is what mistakes are for. We need to make mistakes so that we can learn and become better. Another word for a collection of mistakes is experience.

We Overwork Ourselves

The religion of hustle and bustle tells us that we have to work 24/7/365 if we want anything in life, but if we don’t have balance we will eventually give up. 

Always remember that there is no finish line. If we want to get in shape and we do all these crazy diets—never eating anything we enjoy and put ourselves through hell—what will happen once we reach our goal?

We will go off the crazy diets, lose all our progress and start again. There is no finish line, once we reach a goal it isn’t “happy ever after,” we have to maintain it. If we reach our goals through means that are not sustainable then we won’t be able to keep what we get.

We Fear Change

If I told you that in fifteen years, you, and your life, would be exactly the same as it is right now how would you feel? Probably pretty crappy. That sounds a little like a nightmare right?

So if that is the case then why are we so afraid of change!?

The fear of change is an immediate fear that we have to confront to conquer, but the fear of staying the same is gradual. The only difference is, when we realize that we are afraid of changing, we can do something about it. But by the time we realize that we’ve stayed the same, we can’t go back.

We Never Visualize What Is Possible

We don’t believe in ourselves, and the reason we don’t believe in ourselves is that we never visualize ourselves conquering our goals.

People say daydreaming is useless but all of the world’s greatest people daydreamed about greatness before they ever made it there. They imagined exactly how it would feel. They saw themselves accomplishing great feats and changing the world.

If we never visualize and put ourselves in that category, that caliber, then we will never believe in ourselves enough to make it. We will doubt ourselves and eventually give up.

Visualize yourself in your greatest state. Visualize the possibilities and don’t worry about the process. Most of the time you figure out the process as you go, but you have to believe that you can reach your goals if you are ever going to start.

So those are the most common reasons why people quit, and why we should never listen to them. Don’t let these fears and anxieties take over your life. If you quit before giving it your best shot, you’ll always regret it.

4 Productivity Principals EVERYONE Needs To Know

The world is a busy place, and we are busy people.

But just because we are busy, doesn’t mean we are accomplishing our goals.

There is a BIG difference between busy and productive.

With these essential productivity principals, you will be able to get more done in less time than ever before.

1) Decision Fatigue

The average adult makes 35,000 decisions a day.

Decision Fatigue is a phenomenon where the quality of the decisions of an individual deteriorate after sessions of decision making.

In short, every unnecessary decision you make throughout the day lowers the quality of your decisions thereafter.

Not only that, decision fatigue can cause decision avoidance which “suggests that choice, to the extent that it requires greater decision-making among options, can become burdensome and ultimately counterproductive.”

Another notable effect of decision fatigue is impaired self regulation, which, in the context of productivity, is the worst effect.

This effect states that “The process of choosing may itself drain some of the self’s precious resources, thereby leaving the executive function less capable of carrying out its other activities.” Essentially leaving you with less willpower to get things done.

Let’s do the math here.

Too many decisions + Too many options =  more fatigue, worse decisions, less willpower

The solution? Make everything we can think of into a routine. Have a routine for breakfast, for when we workout, for when we go to bed, and anything else we can imagine. Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day because he understood this principal and its importance.

2) Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s Law is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

Essentially, if we give ourselves two weeks to complete something, it will take us the full two weeks. But if we give ourselves two days, it will be completed in two days.

This idea is an absolute game changer. The next time you want to accomplish anything, give yourself a much smaller time limit than you would normally, and watch yourself work miracles.

3) Pareto’s Principle

Pareto’s Principal—also known as the 80/20 rule— states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

For productivity purposes, this is the idea that 80% of our accomplishments come from 20% of our work. If we find and focus on the 20% that achieves these results, we will become exponentially more efficient at achieving our goals.

Look at how we spend our time, 80% of it is just busy work and procrastination. It’s the 20%, the real game changing stuff, that results in our accomplishments.

Find the activities that are the most effective in getting your desired results and focus on those.

4) Opportunity Cost 

This is an economics principal, but I like to use it for productivity as well.

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines it as “the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen”.

In the context of productivity this essentially means anytime you choose to spend your time, money, or energy on one thing, it is at the cost of all the other things you could be spending those resources on.

So when you are social media, you are losing the “potential gains” that you would receive if you were working out, working on projects, or doing something else productive.

This principal, combined with the 80/20 rule, is a powerful combo. Now we know when we are focusing on the 80% of things that waste time, we are not only getting sub-par results, we are also losing the potential gains we would receive if we were focusing on the 20% of real productive activities.

In summary: 

• Cut down the amount of unnecessary decisions you make. Use routine.
• Give yourself short periods of time to complete tasks.
• Focus on the 20% of activities that achieve 80% of your results.
• Keep in mind the opportunity costs you are paying when deciding how to use your time.

3 Reasons You SHOULD Procrastinate

We live in a hustle and bustle world. Full of deadlines, sports metaphors, and motivational quotes about smashing through our goals.

In the religion of hustle and bustle, there is but one sin:

Procrastination

We have been so indoctrinated into the world of the hustle that even a momentary lapse of procrastination immediately causes guilt.

We feel guilty because procrastination doesn’t get us to the next stage, it doesn’t get us closer to our dreams, it doesn’t get us anywhere.

We are all in the rat race, blinders up, on full tilt, and there is no reason to slow down.

Unless, there is?

[Spoiler Alert: There is.]

Procrastination For Percolation

Some of our problems feel like brick walls. The non-stop hustlers would tell you to go gung-ho into that wall until you smash through it, but this doesn’t always work.

Archimedes had a problem. His king was given a gold crown, but wasn’t sure if it was pure gold. To tell if it was pure gold Archimedes would need the exact volume of the crown, which would be difficult to say the least.

When did Archimedes discover the answer to his problem? When he was in the bath. In a moment of excitement he leaped out of the bath, running around the streets yelling Eureka!

He didn’t discover the answer in his lab, or while he was hard at work. He discovered it while procrastinating because he was allowing the problem to percolate in his mind.

If we always hustle, we never have time to let things stew, and sometimes that is exactly what we need to reach our ‘Eureka!’ moment.

Procrastination For Reevaluation

Procrastination can be a good time for something else as well.
Deciding if this thing is even right for us!

It doesn’t matter how busy we are or how many goals we accomplish if they aren’t leading towards our authentic dream life.

How much time do we waste doing things that don’t really matter, all because we never take the time to step back and look at the big picture.

If we are procrastinating that much, we should take it as a sign that we need to reevaluate why we are tackling this task in the first place.

Procrastination For Energy

If we burn the candle at both ends, we’re going to burnout.

Life requires a certain balance, even if the hustle religion would like to tell us otherwise.

When we spend all of our time grinding towards our dreams, we leave no time for ourselves to look up and enjoy what we’ve accomplished so far.

We need to have days of fun. We need to have days of rest. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Our goals feel fruitless if we don’t take the time to enjoy the fruits of our labour.

In the religion of the hustle and bustle, to procrastinate, is to sin. But nothing is ever that simple. We can’t distill life into the equation ‘Hustle = Accomplishment = Happy.’

So don’t feel guilty the next time you procrastinate. Take some time to let the task percolate in your mind, reevaluate the situation, and do something that recharges you.

In the land of the hustle and bustle, the occasional procrastinator is king.

Do you think it’s okay to procrastinate? Let us know your opinion in the comments!