By: Kimber Auerbach, Military Family Member
Confidence is a moving target that’s often tough to hit. And if you’re lucky enough to hit the mark, it can be hard to maintain your confidence across personal and professional challenges like deployments, heartbreak, or failure. We all want to have confidence in what we do, but how do we get there? Humility can offer a pathway to build confidence and grow from setbacks.
The humility stigma
In military, leadership, and performance cultures, humble
people are sometimes characterized as being mentally weak. There’s a pressure
to always win, be the best, and be right. You can’t show weakness or doubt—otherwise
your enemy might take advantage of you.
Some researchers believe people's discomfort with humility often stems from the false idea that
being humble means devaluing or even hating ourselves and underestimating our
own abilities. Yet many elite athletes and
leaders attribute their success to being humble! Humility opens you up
to criticism and helps you see where you can do better. Many leaders say humility
is one of the most important character traits to develop.
A model of humility: John Tavares
As the VP of Communications for the New York Islanders in the
National Hockey League (NHL), I’m in charge of communicating with the
NHL when players have disagreements about the statistics recorded in a game.
Players often come to me when they’re not awarded points for goals or assists
when they feel points should have been awarded.
Our New York Islanders team captain John Tavares was different.
He never asked for points. The crazy thing is, the only times I’d hear
from him was when he felt he shouldn’t
have earned a point. This was especially noteworthy during the 2014–15
season, when Tavares was in the race to win the Art Ross Trophy, awarded each
year to the player who has the most points.
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| New York Islanders forward John Tavares celebrates after scoring a goal against the Boston Bruins at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. |
That season, Tavares had me check video with the league to see
if he earned assists on 2 separate goals. Both times, he was right—he should
not have been awarded assists—so the
points were taken away from his stat line. The NHL heads of statistics were
baffled when I went to them to check the goals. They told me they had
never been asked by a player to take points away.
Fast-forward to the final day of the season where Tavares had
84 points going into his last game—and Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn had 83
points going into his last game. At the end of our game, Tavares scored one
goal and one assist playing against the Columbus Blue Jackets, making his
regular season total 86 points. Meanwhile, that same day, Benn scored a hat
trick (3 goals) playing against the Nashville Predators. But he also assisted
on a goal with 9 seconds left in the game. That last assist gave the Stars
a 4–1 win and Benn 4 points. He finished his season with 87 points, beating
out Tavares by one point to win the Art Ross Trophy.
Those 2 assists Tavares had me speak to the league about
earlier in the season are what cost him the trophy. I remember Tavares’
teammates asking him, “Why are you taking points away when you’re in this
scoring race?” His answer? “Because I don’t care about the individual
award, but if I do win it, I don’t want to have in my mind that I didn’t
deserve it.”
Jamie Benn won the 2014–15 Art Ross Trophy because of his
outstanding play that season. He scored more points than Tavares. He
also won because of Tavares’ humility and integrity. Tavares’ humble act showed
he had the confidence to do the right thing. He didn’t need a trophy to prove
he was one of the league’s best players.
Humility builds confidence
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| Kimber and son |
We walked away and had a vulnerable conversation. Through
his tears, he told me he was too nervous to go back on the field, in fear of
letting his team down and losing. He had the humility to speak about his
feelings, and how that nervous emotion was debilitating his actions. By
the end of our talk, once he let out his fears and emotions, my son was in a
better mindset and agreed to go back and compete with his teammates. They
wound up losing, but that didn’t matter. By the end of the game, he was smiling
and proud that he got through his emotions and returned to help his team. And
I was proud to have had the humility to listen to him.
There’s a popular saying by C.S. Lewis that “Humility is not
thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.” Humility helps
us open ourselves to receive help from others and see how we can best help
others. When facing adversity, knowing others have “got your six” vs. feeling alone can
literally change the hormones your stress
response system secretes, which can enhance your performance,
health, and confidence.
Humility is strength
Humility is not a weak or “soft” value. It allows you to have
an honest self-appraisal. Humility helps you challenge your own ideas, identify
blind spots, and be more prepared. When you show humility, you also model for
others a growth
mindset, which can make them more open to take risks, admit
mistakes, and work to improve. Humility eliminates the fear that can come with
feeling like you always need to seem on top of everything. It frees you to
learn, grow, and do your absolute best!
To learn more about how to build strengths like humility check
out HPRC’s worksheet on signature
strengths and the
Strategic
Habits Workbook.
