Profound Self-Confidence

December 28th, 2016 by Kelly Kienzle

Once again this year, I plan to ditch the New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I want to focus on this little gem I found recently:

“It takes profound self-confidence to be humble enough to recognize your own limitations without self-blame.”

This quote is from Norman Fischer and, in my mind, captures both the easy grace and iron will that make up self confidence.

An inherent grace exists in being humble. Humility is noticing the strengths of others, understanding where others excel and I may not. It is not allowing my ego to grow so big that it eclipses my sightline of the talents and skills that other people bring to a team.

But what about that iron will? For me, the idea of noticing my limitations without self-blame requires an iron will that stands up for who I am. An iron will emboldens me to face my weaknesses head-on and not blame/shame myself for them.

Because if I can regard my weaknesses with open candor and honesty, then they have no hold on me. In fact, I make those weaknesses irrelevant, as Peter Drucker said:

“The task of leadership [of ourselves or others] is to align our strengths so as to make our weaknesses irrelevant.”

For me, this conjures up an image of the strongest soldiers flanked out in defense of their fort, with a small wall of sticks behind them. The flimsiness of the stick wall is irrelevant given the strength of the soldiers aligned in front of it.

And so this is how I will face 2017. Recognizing my limitations without blame. My weaknesses are irrelevant so long as I keep my strengths aligned at the forefront.

What do you consider to be your weaknesses? How little can you shame yourself for them? More importantly, what are your strengths that you truly love to use? How will you align them in 2017? I look forward to hearing about it.   See you then!