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.

A Sedentary Life WILL Inevitably Kill Us.

A set of common complaints most of us have are, ‘I have too many problems. I can’t deal with these problems. I wish I didn’t have so many problems. I wish my life were easier.’

But what is an easy life?

Is it a picture perfect neighborhood with white picket fences and perfectly groomed lawns? Is a life without problems and when they do arise, they’re solved like the ending of family sitcom?

Would that make us satisfied?

I think a life devoid of challenge, problems and tough times is far worse than any picturesque sitcom life. Such a life would not be satisfying mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually.

Life is meant to be challenging, difficult and arduous. Without these integral characteristics of life, we would often feel unfulfilled and unhappy.

All of our growth, progression and perspective in life directly erupt from our challenges and experiences. In these moments, all our mental and physical strength is galvanized towards a specific moment, as we harness the hidden power deep within ourselves to overcome any feat.

The perfect life leaves us sedentary. If we don’t constantly chase never-ending improvement, we will eventually become unsatisfied with our circumstances.

Soon we will start feeling unsatisfied with the white picket fences and the perfectly groomed lawns. Without real problems to challenge us, we will lose the drive to improve.

Perspective of Problems

Our problems gives us the opportunity to grow and improve, but only if we view them as such.

When we are faced with problems, we can feel and think only one of two ways-The positive or the negative.

Who we choose to embody will inevitably change our perspective. Weighing the circumstances, which person – the negative or the positive – will produce the better result?

Which perspective will make us stronger, or, conversely, weaker? In the ultimate end, who we embody is completely our choice.

We can choice to be wholly negative and wish for the picturesque white picket fences, or we can be wholly positive, push through our problems with great stride and grow stronger.

Until next time, my beautiful readers,

Be bold, be free, and love on.

The 3 Mindsets You Need To Be Happy

When I was younger I had a blood disorder that affected my serotonin levels and caused me to be depressed.

At seven years old I would watch cartoons and break out into tears. I felt like I was losing the battle against my emotions.

I thought a lot about what it means to be happy, and how I could be happier despite this chemical imbalance.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever really won this battle of emotions. I still have ups and downs, good days and bad days.

But I’ve realized that when it comes to being happy, the circumstances don’t matter that much. It’s all about your perspective and your mindsets.

So here are the 3 mindsets that we need to be happy.

1) Our Present Does NOT Dictate Our Future

No matter where we are, how we feel, or what we are doing—that doesn’t decide what will happen in our future.

When everything is going wrong in our lives, we’ll have a hard time imagining a hopeful future.

And you aren’t the only person that gets trapped in this feeling of doom and gloom. Impact bias is the tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of future feeling states.

When we are depressed we can only assume that we will be depressed forever. We are twenty feet deep in a hole with only a shovel—we feel we can only go further down.

But if we have this mindset instilled within us, we’ll be able to get out eventually.

2) The Past Is A Story, The Future Is An Imagination

If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
But, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.
-Lao Tzu

We spend a lot of time regretting the past, or worrying about the future. But we don’t realize that these things are not exactly what they seem.

Humans are naturally pretty terrible at remember the past. Every time we recall a past memory we are actually remembering the last time we remembered it. In this process we alter the memory.

After years and years, the past is just a collection of completely inaccurate stories we tell ourselves. Some of us tell happy stories, some tell sad stories, but they are all stories.

Don’t base your emotions on the past.

The rest of the time we spend worrying about the future.

We stress about deadlines, awkward conversations, whether we will find love, get the job, and even whether or not we will be happy.

Think about that. We ruin our happiness in the present because we are worrying about whether or not we will be happy in the future.

Humans are bad at correctly recalling the past, and we are also terrible at predicting the future. Every doomsday scenario that plays out in our heads fail to come to pass.

The solution is to not regret the past, but move on, and not worry about the future, but live in the moment.

3) We Don’t NEED A Reason To Be Happy

This is the most important mindset for happiness. If you need a reason to be happy, your happiness can always be taken away.

Happiness is something we should try to cultivate within us. We need to learn to be happy for the sake of being happy.

Material possessions, promotions, friends, relationships, respect—these are all great and should make us happy, but we should never rely on them to be happy.

If we learn to be happy for no reason at all, we’ll be able to keep our happiness no matter what happens around us.

And that’s what we all want right, to be happy?

How To Escape From A Rut

I’ve been in a complete standstill for the last three weeks. I was stuck, unhappy and saw no end to it. But, today is the first day I actually feel ‘alive.’

I made a conscious decision to pick myself up by the bootstraps and start anew. I realized three things that pulled me out and, today, I started my day properly.

It begins with a change in perspective.

Realize that it will end

In the natural progression of life, standstills will happen. They will occur frequently and, perhaps, for extended periods of time. But realize this portion of your life is short-lived.

You will feel better, if you allow yourself to.

Life occurs in cycles. As sure as the seasons change from fall to winter, spring to summer, so will your ups and downs. At some point in your life, ruts will occur, but don’t wallow. Realize it and push through.

Use it to grow stronger

In my last article, I mentioned that every negative situation has a positive. Well, every bad stretch serves a purpose to your larger life.

This bad portion, for lack of better words, is bad. But treasure and notice the changes.

A stronger person is born out of ruts because you learn. You learn how to manage debilitative emotions, how to handle lack of progression, and how to pull yourself out.

Take this valuable knowledge and store it in your back pocket. When the next one occurs, you apply it and learn more, carrying little bits of knowledge throughout your entire life.

Actively search for solutions while you’re in this phase. Every rut has a silver lining. Explore it.

Have an end goal

I don’t know the exact reason for my rut. I woke up and felt different. This different feeling held on for the next three weeks. Maybe I let school or my relationships get to me.

Regardless of the reason, when I look forward, everything changes. In a few months, I’ll be done school and moving out. That is my end goal. This rut is a momentary.

Everything changes when I enter a new phase in my life and that excites me. It breathes new life into my lungs.

Have a goal solidified in your head. Keep the image strong and push toward it. Through your rut, hold it firm and be steadfast. Goals are important to give you that little extra nudge.

Ruts will occur. It keeps life different and interesting. If we didn’t have them, we would probably complain about a mundane life. If we didn’t have them, we wouldn’t be able to cope.

And, worst of all, we wouldn’t grow as a person. Growth is the central purpose in life. Through ruts, we become stronger, happier and more fulfilled.

We can learn a lot from them. So don’t toil and wallow. Stop, learn and progress.

Be bold, be free and love on.

What Video Games Taught Me That School Didn’t

I never enjoyed school.

I felt that most of what I was being taught was useless, I couldn’t pay attention and I didn’t preform very well.

In middle school I was so distracted that the teacher decided to have a meeting with my mother. She came up with the idea of giving me some play-doh that I could play with, along with a tape recorder to record the lessons so that I wouldn’t distract the other kids.

But there was something that could keep my attention.

Video Games

I loved the game Halo 2. It was a futuristic war game that involved team work, skill, strategy and many other aspects. I would login online every day to play this game for hours.

I think I missed almost all of grade 9 because of this game.
But, I learned things that I didn’t learn in school.

Only Passion Leads To Motivation

Doctors told me I had A.D.D., teachers said that I couldn’t learn and my mom told me that I never listened.

So why was it that I focused so intently when I played this game.
Because I was Passionate.

I hated school, so I didn’t try. I loved video games, so I put my heart into it.

This taught me at a young age that you had better pursue things you feel passionately about, or you will never reach any level of mastery.

Every day when I woke up I wanted to keep playing, and keep getting better. These days I wake up and the only thing I can think about is helping people conquer their obstacles.

I could have easily given in to pressure and gone to university. Maybe I would have even found a good job and made good money.
But I wouldn’t reach my full potential if I didn’t feel the passion.

Learn From The Best, Play Out Of Your League

The reason I became so good at this game was because I always searched for the best players I could find and tried to learn from them.

If someone beat me in a game, I didn’t complain or make excuses. I messaged that person and asked them to play me again and criticize my weaknesses.

If you surround yourself with people who are not as talented as you, it might boost your ego, but it won’t help you reach your potential.

When the people around you are on another level compared to you, your skills and knowledge will skyrocket.

Check your ego at the door and play with the best.

Work Ethic Beats Talent

I had a friend in this game, his name was Dustin.

I was always better than him, but he had determination that would impress Olympic athletes.

We would play games with each other one-on-one and I would win every time, but he never complained and never wanted to stop practicing.

One day his school had a lock down drill and he was stuck in class for hours with nothing to do. So what did he decide to spend this extra time on?

He got out a pen and paper, and started plotting. He thought back to all of our games, looking for commonalities and patterns to exploit. He spent literally three hours sketching and contemplating.

The next day we loaded up a game of one-on-one as always, but this time he won, again and again.

I was naturally talented, but he put in more effort so he beat me.

Whenever I worry about my abilities—seeing all of these people who are so much more talented than I am—I think of this story. It reminds that no matter how much talent I have, it’s the effort that counts.

I’m not trying to say that school isn’t important, or that it doesn’t teach you anything, or even that video games will teach you more.

I believe that we can learn lessons from every experience. Video games taught me teamwork, patience, work ethic, humility and much more.

School wasn’t the right environment for me to learn, so maybe it’s good that the teacher gave me play-doh and separated me.

I was learning on my own time anyway.
*pew pew, bang bang bang, BOOM*