Humble confidence.
Those are two incredibly powerful words. Put them together … holy wow!
I was introduced to this phrase by one of my coaching clients. Yes … that happens a lot. I personally get something out of most of my one-on-one coaching sessions. I firmly believe that I’m helping my clients get to where they desire to go, but I can also confidently say that they’re positively impacting me on a regular basis as well.
When this particular client shared this mindset with me, it hit hard!
We were sitting at a coffee shop, and I was letting him talk. I’ll
forget those two words. They were crystal clear when they left his mouth.
“I always try to have humble confidence,” he explained. I’m not sure what he said next, because I quickly looked away and tried to gather myself. I’ve never broken down in a coaching session, but I came close in that exact moment.
Why? Because in an instance, I realized I was not being humbly confident in many aspects of my life.
Real quick … here is some context: I talk to my coaching clients all the time about having a neutral mindset - not getting too high and not getting too low. It’s about staying in the moment, focusing on the here and now. If you're a golfer, it’s about focusing on the next shot. A football player … the next snap. A small business owner .. the next “fire.” A corner-office executive … the next big decision.
I’ve written about my coaching philosophy several times on this blog, reminding my readers that it’s a powerful place to be. But humble confidence takes it to another level.
When my client uttered those two words - humble confidence - I quickly admitted to myself that I wasn't living that way. That’s why I looked away. That’s why I had to compose myself.
Recently, I’ve been either too high - cocky and arrogant - or too low, laying bruised, bloody and shitty on the arena floor.
This probably doesn’t need to be said, but when you’re too high, there is a definite lack of humility. And when you’re too low, confidence is non-existent and the demons creep in.
So … the million-dollar question: How do I harness that powerful mindset? Again … humble confidence had a profound impact on me, and I instantly craved it!
I immediately thought about my primary keynote speech - Make the Important Things Important, Starting with YOU. Every time I stand on stage and deliver this message, I tell the audience one of the best ways to practice self-care and self-love is to pay attention to how we talk to ourselves.
“We all talk to ourselves, right?” I ask the audience rhetorically. “If you’re claiming that you don’t, you’re actually lying to that voice inside your head.”
I go on to make a bold assumption: “The only problem with talking to ourselves - it’s normally ugly, mean and destructive. It’s rude and insulting.”
I tell the individuals in the audience that the best way to combat these self-deprecating lies is to focus on truth and affirmations.
“When you remind yourself that you deserve all of God’s blessings and/or you are a good person and/or you are strong … you start to believe those truths instead of the BS lies,” I always explain.
So, when I was on a targeted quest for humble confidence, I stopped for a second and cleared the mechanism. I sat down with my journal and made a new list of truths and affirmations. Here are some things I wrote in my journal:
I DO live on purpose…
I AM a child of God…
Failure is not fatal…
I chose to be happy…
I DO work hard…
I am NOT perfect…
I AM a warrior…
My mistakes and failures do NOT define me…
I AM a masterpiece.
With every truth that I wrote down, my humble confidence grew. When I started revisiting those affirmations every morning, my humble confidence began to ascend. Pair that up with some intentional prayer … holy wow!
The really cool ripple effect … after a week of affirmations and prayer, that humble confidence turned into peace, which is my Word of the Year.
Psalm 29:11 captures this transformation beautifully:
"The Lord gives strength to his people, and the Lord blesses his people with peace."
Real quick … let me say this … I’ve been focusing on God’s timing a lot recently. I think I heard those two words - humble confidence - exactly when I was supposed to hear them.
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