This little light of mine
As I embark on this new world of websites, launching my book and deliberately putting myself into the public eye, I’ve had to take a hard look at things like explaining who I am, what I stand for, my “brand” (god I hate that term!) and marketing.
Promoting myself is such an uncomfortable space. Where is the line between being “shameless” and self-confident? I’ve earned my stripes in my field and I believe I am competent, but if I say so, does that make me arrogant and conceited?
New Zealanders value “humbleness” and I agree that this quality is something to foster, but what does it actually mean? The Cambridge Dictionary defines humbleness as:
“the good quality of not being proud or not believing that you are important” or
“the fact of being poor or of low social rank”
and then goes on to suggest synonyms of “mousy, unassuming, inadequate and backward” to name a few. Either we are using the word in the wrong context or I’m in trouble. I’m also highly offended by that definition.
I am proud of what I have achieved over the years because I worked hard to achieve it. While I don’t believe I’m the end all to be all, I am important, just as important as the next person. With my strengths and flaws I still matter. Don’t we teach that to our children?
And it’s funny that we use the second part of that definition to say that someone overcame that they were poor or of not much social standing - “despite the humbleness of his birth, he rose to greatness”
A lot of the people I supervise struggle with taking ownership of their successes as they feel that they will not seem humble. When faced with a compliment they will shrug it off and sing someone else’s praises or say that it’s not a big deal, when actually they worked really hard or did an absolutely stellar piece of work. Why do we stop ourselves from taking credit that we are due, or thinking that it’s bad to be proud of ourselves?
Tall Poppy Syndrome is another cultural thing in Aotearoa, though not exclusively (Other countries have it and Canada has it too but it’s usually used to only reference successful women- go figure). We see it in our sports all the time. Someone really great at what they do is deliberately criticised when they make a mistake, only because of their success or achievement. If we stick our heads up, we may get them chopped off.
I will often “poke fun” at myself. Is this false humility? Am I fishing for compliments? After much reflection I believe there’s a couple of reasons for this. One is to deflect compliments that I feel uncomfortable with despite having a teeny tiny bit of a glow inside at the recognition, and the other reason is simply because I don’t believe I’m better than anyone else and will make sure that I point out my failings too. So I guess the answer is both yes and no. Does that mean I am fake, not “authentic”? Hmmmm.. Now that IS a humbling question….pun intended.
I think that we are too hard on ourselves and on those around us. I think we all struggle with pride at times, the desire for recognition and fear of it, and the inner acknowledgement of our talents and skills. There is a balance of not bragging or boasting and having a surety of our competence. It’s okay to accept credit for something you’ve done as long as you don’t do it at the expense of others, and the achievements are used to help make the world a better place. I think I’ll put this on my list for my next session with my own supervisor.
C.S. Lewis said that “humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less”
I can live with that.
