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                                       Pride or Confidence?

Good afternoon dear reader & welcome to my world for another week.  I read a fascinating article recently about why so many struggle with their sense of self-esteem & how the key to confidence often lies in failure as much as success.

 “Unfortunately, confidence is an elusive goal for many people. I think this is because we fundamentally misunderstand the way it works.” So describes Melody Wilding in Quartz
Wilding writes how many parents in the 1980s & 1990s worked to instil self-confidence in children through participation awards & constant praise ~ earned or otherwise. The reality is however because parents assisted their children avoid failure rather than learn from it & work to become better, many of those children now struggle to build confidence on their own. As a result we live in a culture where many either wrestle with self-doubt or over compensate with baseless pride.

The latter temptation is especially troubling because the line between pride & confidence is often difficult to discern. So, how do we live with confidence without crossing the line? The key is understanding where confidence ends & pride begins.

Pride & confidence cannot both exist in the same person. Pride is an overestimation of yourself, confidence is the result of a right understanding of your abilities & limitations. Consequently prideful people are in constant need of justification to maintain the façade, believing they are something greater than their reality.

However, confidence does not require this sort of justification because it is already a correct view of one’s abilities & character. As a result, the confident person can be humble when the prideful person cannot, because his or her limitations are threats to be dealt with, rather limitations to be explored & improved upon. When we can view those aspects of our lives requiring improvement as an opportunity, rather than a danger, it is a good sign we are on the right path.

Unfortunately many people are frequently more proud than confident of themselves, because they have yet to take the next step of allowing their identity to become the defining characteristic of their lives. Consequently no one will ever be able to consistently & appropriately deal with their shortcomings until admitting them does not threaten their self-image.

So, are you proud or confident today my friends? Will you live with this confidence?

Thank you for taking the time to be with me once again. I hope my journey may encourage you also. This is Kenn Butler in Paradise, Nelson, with my best wishes for the week ahead. I look forward to being with you all again next weekend.
 
 


www.kennbutler.com

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Kenn Butler
Director
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