Last week I read a post on the Harvard Business blog entitled, “Less-Confident People Are More Successful.”
Its premise was that people with low self-confidence work harder and thus, are more successful.
I strongly disagree with this idea.
So much so, that I thought I would write the counter view.
Today, I want to discuss the reasons why confidence leads to success.
Lack of Confidence Leads to Inaction
The post referenced was written by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. I was not the only one who objected with the concept, as many of the comments voiced similar dissent.
Less confidence does not lead to success.
To the contrary, it leads to holding back.
It leads to shyness. Inaction. And often, missed opportunities.
Lack of confidence results in inaction and not standing up for oneself.
It results in missed chances and setting the bar too low.
Believing in yourself is what allows you to rise up and reach your potential.
Confidence In Yourself
When I speak of confidence, I am not talking about blind arrogance. Those that are overly confident fall into yet another category.
However, I am referring to the self-confidence needed to believe in one’s own skills, goals, and ability to succeed.
When you believe in yourself you are more likely to take action. To stand up and seize the moment. And to persevere long after those who doubt themselves.
Here are 10 Reasons That Self-Confidence Leads to Success:
- The Drive to Start Things – Confident people start things. They are not shy about striking out on a new idea even when those around them are still pondering it.
- The Ability to Stand Up for Oneself – Confidence allows you to stand up for yourself in a fair and consistent manner. Otherwise, you may find yourself unheard or unfairly treated.
- The Ability to Say No – Confident people have the ability to say “No” where appropriate. They do not take on unnecessary or inappropriate work or obligations.
- The Ability to Say Yes – And at the same time, confident individuals say “Yes” to opportunity. They do not miss new options because they are shy. I have seen individuals’ pass up opportunities (even promotions) because they didn’t think they were “worthy.”
- Confidence Overcomes Fear – Lack of confidence can lead to paralysis from fear. Fear of failure. Fear of what others think. Fear of the unknown. To succeed, you need the confidence to face and overcome your fears.
- Believe In Themselves – Self-confidence means believing in yourself. Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.” He was right.
- Set the Bar High Enough – Confident individuals set the bar high and aim high. Lack of confidence leads to weak goals, setting the bar too low, and mediocre results.
- Stretch Your Limits – Confidence lets you know your limits and test them. By stretching your limits you increase them. You are stronger than you think.
- Confidence Asks Questions – Confidence allows you to ask questions, even when others are silent. Confidence even lets you “ask for the job.”
- Believe In Winning – Confident people believe in success. And more importantly, they believe in their ability to succeed.
Believing in Success
Confidence leads to success.
Believe in yourself. Believe in your skills.
And most importantly, believe in your ability to succeed.
Question: What do you think? Which side of this concept do you side with?
Try not to confuse confidence with ego. Rarely does one equal the other. There are far more people who have big egos that have no skill or talent to back it up.
Agreed. Ego and arrogance do not lead to long term success. 😉
Exactly,more about confident people trigging up the fundamentals in their own lives though they do face pondering from that makes them holding back.why is it so?
I believe the biggest factor in success is a bias toward action, regardless of confidence. One can be very confident, but without the skills that come from repeated effort and openness to learning, confidence can be no more than self-delusion.
Right on target. Without action there is no forward progress.
I couldn’t have said it better! I agree.
Confidence is vital. The connection between confidence to leads and leads to success is very easy to understand. This is a very important article to know about how crucial it is.
I couldn’t have said it better!
Being able to make yourself feel certain of success can give you a massive edge in many endeavors. Confidence is many times a deciding factor in making a sale, closing a deal, acing a test, giving an audition, being hired or promoted etc. Lack of confidence can put you into the decrepit state. Where even though you have the intellectual resources to succeed, you don’t even make the attempt. You fail to ask for the sale, the raise, the date, etc. Sometimes just summoning the confidence to ask is all it takes to achieve a successful result..
I was just talking to my niece about feeling like an outsider and coping. She gets really sad if she feels like she’s been rejected.
What we found out was that she didn’t realize how amazing she was. We’ve had several discussions about self-belief and what it means to be true to your heart, and why you don’t have to try to be amazing because you already are.
I got my ideas from a video about confidence with teens at: https://preparemykid.com
Not sure if you care since this post is quite old, but this article looks like it was plagiarized here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-reasons-why-confidence-leads-success-victoria-anderson
Looks like they just changed the formatting and published it 5 years later. It does mean it ends up as 2nd in SEO after yours.
I checked out the article you were talking about, and it looks like you’re right. It bugs me that it’s not only high-school students plagiarizing, but real people publishing articles on the Internet.
lol thanks for the info
lol
lol thanks for the info lol
Thanks these things helped me build my confidence
Confidence is important to human being,without it you can’t get what you want in your life.
I can say confidence is the main driver of success and people believing in you, i am where i am today because of it, i have managed to pull myself through alot of difficult situations and life challenges, now im seeking for a Job and i make sure that i put the my Confident self in words on a resume..
*it’s just a matter of time and patience sometimes, but the right amount of confident wins.. Not Arrogance, or undervaluing oneself.
I am currently doing a school project for health. I do believe that low confidence is better cause it helps us become determined to reach our goals. It makes our goals higher so there will be more profit off of it. I am not saying that low confidence is good in our personal life, but in business life, it is certainly better. It improves your performance dramatically. Just think about it, your goals will be bigger when you have low self confidence. It can lead to depression and anxiety and what not but that is very low self confidence. Just the right amount of self confidence, only slightly low, could overall improve your improvements maybe not in your love life or personal life, but it definitely in your business life and in my opinion, that is much more important and it is just not worth having high self confidence.
Though the reasons given in the articles are relevant to self confidence, I think the other article mentioned at the beginning was also relevant if not more accurate and useful. I wish I could have lower confidence so I could do better in school. I already have fairly low confidence but it’ll be great if it’ll be lower. I wish everyone else who owns companies would too have lower confidence so their businesses would be better. I believe that lower confidence makes the world a better place for technology and the people that use it.
I feel that overly high confidence also causes awkward situations even more awkwarder and uncomfortable, especially for the other person. It will not be awkward for you and it will make the person you are talking to more uncomfortable around you. This is due to high self confidence and it will really affect your reputation around others. In another situation, you will start a awkward conversation and you will end it cause you realize that it is awkward cause you have low self confidence. It would keep going and get increasingly uncomfortable for yourself and the other person if you had any higher confidence. This is yet another reason why confidence is bad.
I was in the confusion between confidence and blind arrogance, Thanks for clearing my doubts… 🙂
It was interesting when you talked about how a lack of confidence can cause us to set our goals too low and not stretch ourselves. I’ve always wanted to be a leadership position at my work, but have also struggled to find confidence in myself and my abilities. Maybe I’ll look for a private life coaching service so I can start developing confidence and accept that I’m enough!
The article is really helpful and full of knowledge. It has been explained in a better way the reasons that lead a confident person to success. And also we can learn from the article the negative impacts of lack of confidence. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.
Thanks for the interesting article! https://www.instagram.com/