In a lot of ways, surviving the modern world means wrapping yourself in the warm safety of a massive ego. For those of us who live in Westernized countries, particularly those with fast-paced, competitive economies, it might seem impossible to become successful unless we think of ourselves as anything less than a superhero.
However, as more and more people realize that there’s more to success than just the tangible. Indeed, many who have gotten to high places (through their hard work or otherwise) are the very people who are pushing the vast benefits of being a more humble, thankful person. Everywhere you go, humility is seeing a big resurgence. Why?
In the following article, we’ll take a look at how to humble yourself, as well as why being a humbler person can end up being very beneficial. So, if you want to learn how to live a more humble, happy, and thankful life, read on.
Why Should You Try to Be More Humble?
The relationship between confidence and humility is quite complicated. Sure, being confident in yourself and your abilities is a key factor for healthy self-esteem. It can also be a great way to ensure you get that job, make that sale, or finally tell that person you’re crushing on that you like them. However, as with so many things, too much confidence can lead to petty, selfish, and even dangerous behavior.
Overconfident people are often defensive, reluctant to accept criticism, and standoffish or even cruel to those that they deem to be “less” than them. Because their egos offer them protection from outside influence, they often become close-minded, judgmental, and reluctant to accept change. For all their abilities and successes, they often end up being extremely unhappy.
Luckily, it’s never too late to change your ways. If you’ve been pushed down the road of overconfidence and are having trouble controlling your ego, there’s still hope for discovering humility. Along with our discussion of how to humble yourself, we’ll also cover the benefits of living a more humble life (many of which might surprise you).
Benefits of Being Humble
Below we’ll list just some of the many reasons why living humbly can be beneficial to you. While some of these will apply to nearly everyone, others will be more specific to certain situations. No matter the current state of your ego, there’s almost always some way that you can better yourself through a humbler approach to life. For instance:
Being Humble Helps with Self-Control
As we mentioned, confidence is one of the many keys to becoming successful in life. According to many studies, however, so is self-control. When our ego is operating out of control, we can become much more impulsive because – ultimately – we trust ourselves to make the right decision no matter what. Removing this sense of self-importance can conversely help us develop better self-control.
Being Humble Encourages Helpfulness
When we go through our lives with our egos unchecked, we tend to get far too caught up in what people can do for us. This fact can be beneficial in some of life’s arenas, but it mostly causes us to lose our sense of empathy. When we shake off those egotistical ways, we intrinsically become more generous and more helpful. Over time, these qualities make us more likable, earning us more (and better) friends.
Humility Can Help in All Our Relationships
Many of us struggle in our various relationships because of ego factors like entitlement, selfishness, and judgmentalism. Those who have embraced humility, however, tend to be much more open to accepting people as they are and adapting themselves to fit that person’s needs. In the end, these men and women can form stronger bonds with friends, lovers, and even coworkers.
Humility Can Help Us Cope
We all go through painful times. While one might assume that the strong-willed and self-determined people would be better at fending off anxiety and despair, however, it is actually humble people who have the advantage. Humility keeps us from becoming defensive and helps us keep our lives in perspective. This fact makes difficult times more contemplative rather than combative and helps us cope.
Being Humble Makes Us Better Leaders
There are a lot of ways to lead, and successful leaders develop more, better strategies every day. Where those with out-of-control egos and overconfidence will often embrace an “iron fist” form or rule, some studies have shown that humbler, empathetic leaders are more successful at motivating their workers. If you’ve ever suffered under an egotistical boss, this point will seem like a no-brainer to you.
Being Humble Can Help Us Perform Better at Work and School
While confidence may be the reason you got your job, humility might be the reason you keep it. Humility and certain attributes associated with it (honesty, teachability, openness to change) are strong indicators of one’s future performance in work or school. So if you want to see a marked uptick in your performance, stop thinking you’re the best and seek out those that can teach you something.
Ways to Humble Yourself
Now that we’ve established the many ways that embracing humility can have a positive effect on your life, we’re going to take a closer look at specific ways to humble yourself. Many of these, as you’ll see, are techniques that you can introduce into your daily life with little to no effort, while others will require a conscious change in how you see yourself and others.
Don’t Obsess with Your Image
Few people car argue that we’re living in a self-obsessed culture at the moment. From Instagram to Facebook to Tinder to Twitter, many of us are overly concerned with how we portray ourselves (both physically and in other ways) to the world.
While it’s good to care about one’s looks and one’s attitude, being overly obsessed with your image is a one-way trip to egotistical town.
Fortunately, there are ways to deal with this problem that won’t take a lot of work. First, you can stop taking selfies. If you go traveling on your own, try having someone else take the photo rather than you doing it yourself. If the photo isn’t perfect, learn to live with it.
Second, curb your social media presence. You can still interact with people, but maybe take a break from trying to show you have the “perfect” life.
Learning to let go of our self-obsessiveness is a huge stepping stone toward a more humble, more gratifying existence. Not only will you and your friends get a more realistic and honest look at who you are a person, but the people who might have judged you as a selfish diva will get a chance to see the great person behind the great smile.
Admit You’re Not the Best
Another side effect of our rather un-humble culture is that we often push ourselves to be the very best in various aspects of life. If we do show a talent for a particular skill and pursue it with gusto, our egos might even manage to convince us that we are the best. Doing so can throw off our ability to properly define ourselves and cause us to be extremely defensive when something threatens our self-image.
Humble people can admit that they aren’t the best in the world and that they also don’t need to be. People like this cheer on those who have similar skills and don’t feel threatened when someone with more ability shows up. They also have no trouble admitting that, while they may be great at one thing, there are other things they can’t do.
The best part about admitting that you’re not the best at something is that you can instantly take a ton of pressure off of yourself. You might not admit it, but keeping up a huge ego can take a lot out of you. Once you humble yourself, you’ll be in a better position to enjoy what you do well and improve what you need to.
Apologize to People
There is unimaginable power in an apology. This fact is true for both the person doing the apologizing and the person to whom you apologize. Apologies have the strength to heal damaged relationships and mend broken situations in amazing ways. However, most people avoid apologizing at all costs. The reason? In almost every case, it’s because of their pride.
Apologizing to someone means admitting that we were wrong. Doing this, in turn, means humbling ourselves in a way that other people can see (and other people will hear about).
To some, apologizing can mean accepting blame for situations and arguments, even if they weren’t 100% their fault. However, there is a therapeutic aspect to accepting our mistakes or even taking on the mistakes of others.
If you truly want to humble yourself and take your ego down a notch or two, try apologizing to people you’ve wronged, or even to people who’ve wronged you. Do it enough, and you’ll find a new sense of self-confidence while developing stronger relationships with others.
Don’t Always Talk About Yourself
We live in an extremely “me first” society. Most of us feel pressured to put our needs first and “look out for number one.” Because of this, we tend to talk about ourselves first as well. When we meet friends or even strangers, we often forget to ask questions about them and merely tell them about ourselves instead, or try to relate what they say back to us.
Humble people, however, make it a point to try and listen more than they talk. Doing this gives them a chance to put their ego on hold and nurture the needs of someone else for a change.
They also tend to speak positively about others, especially when there’s no benefit to them to do so. Not only does this keep conversations decidedly positive, but it makes you look like a much more confident person overall.
This technique can be a difficult one to master at first, as it might require an entire change in your conversational approach. Still, after putting it into practice for a short time, you’ll quickly gain a new sense of self-control and enjoy stronger, deeper connections with people.
Request Honest Feedback from People
Our egos have evolved in such a way that they can almost completely shield themselves from criticism. In some cases, our egos will even turn any negative input back on the critics, convincing us that they have ulterior motives for reproaching us. We might see them as enemies or rivals, rather than someone who’s generally trying to help us improve.
Humble people have evolved ways to take down this “ego shield” without allowing criticism to do emotional harm. In most cases, these men and women convince themselves that there is value in having an accurate view of themselves. Getting this perception requires listening to both positive and negative feedback and then judging it on its own merits.
To help break down the barriers your ego has set up, try finding a few close friends and requesting that they give you some feedback on you as a person. Ask them to name five things they appreciate about you and five areas of your life where they think you could use improvement. You’ll be surprised how quickly your aversion to criticisms will disappear when you’re the one soliciting it.
Confront Your Various Prejudices
Many of us lead rather insulated lives. That is to say, very few of us have had the opportunity to visit every country in the world. Even fewer have been able to spend months or years learning about every culture, faith, and minority group. F
urthermore, many of us grew up with parents or grandparents who had some innate prejudices that they passed on to us as early life educators. These feelings are not our fault, but they are our responsibility.
One of the best ways that we can humble ourselves is to take a culture, religion, or minority group that we don’t understand, or might even be a little bit critical of, and make a concerted effort to understand them. Depending on the group, this could be very easy or a bit more challenging. Either way, however, your only goal is to listen and learn everything you can.
Experience and understanding have an amazing ability to wipe away prejudices. Without these prejudices in place, we can truly let go of our egos and begin to understand that other people, regardless of how different, have merit.
Ask More Questions
This technique harkens back to our point about talking only about ourselves in conversations. Though it may seem a bit difficult at first, this is one of the most straightforward techniques to insert into your daily routine.
Unfortunately, the modern world encourages us to act as if we know everything about everything. Doing this can cause major inflation of our egos, but doesn’t make for strong interpersonal discussions.
To solve this problem, try leading off every conversation with a question. When you get an answer, encourage them to ask you a question. As you converse with people, try to maintain this “question and answer” back and forth so that you include everyone in the room and no single person is doing all the talking. This type of conversation leaves no room for egos, and puts everyone on an equal playing field.
This technique is particularly useful for those in management or who work in a team-oriented environment. Give it a try, and you’ll be surprised how easily new ideas come flying out of people who would otherwise feel “unwelcome” to contribute.
Actually Listen to People
As you can see, there are a lot of points on this list related to how we communicate with others. This fact isn’t a coincidence. The way we talk, what we say, and how we say it are big sticking points that keep us from living humble lives. Master these communication techniques, however, and you will be able to lead more effectively and forge stronger relationships with friends and coworkers.
Though this technique sounds easy, it requires a very conscious effort on your part to change the way your mind works. When we talk to others, often we don’t listen fully, but think of various responses to their points that we can relate when it’s our turn to talk. Listening with humility means shutting this mechanism off, and really taking in the information, they’re giving you.
By “information,” we don’t just mean the words they’re saying. We also mean their body language, their tone, and other forms of non-verbal communication that many of us ignore. It can take some practice to get used to this technique, but – luckily – it’s something you get to practice every single time you have a conversation.
Recognize Your Faults
We live in a time where it’s acceptable to judge nearly everyone we meet at a glance. We judge people for how they look, what they do for a living, and the skills they don’t have. Leading this type of life, however, can cause us to inflate our ego to epic proportions because we know that someone out there is judging us as well.
Humble people acknowledge their faults and failings. By doing so, they take the ammunition away from those who might use those faults to hurt them. It’s a unique psychological trick, as it not only helps us humble ourselves in our own minds, but it provides us with better emotional protection than our defensive ego would have ever provided.
You can introduce this technique into your life in a lot of ways, but the easiest is to sit down and write out things you wish you could improve about yourself. Make yourself aware of your faults, not afraid of them, and you’ll have a strong sense of self-understanding. As a wise man once said, “wrap them around you like armor, and they can never be used to hurt you.”
Admit When You’re Wrong
People who live and die by the whims of their ego all have one thing in common: they hate to admit it when they’re wrong. Unfortunately, we all make mistakes, misjudgments, and miscalculations, so it’s impossible for anyone never to be wrong.
To cope with this fact, egotistical men and women have created elaborate mental “dances” to protect themselves from having to admit mistakes.
Humble people, on the other hand, have no problem admitting when they’ve made a mistake. In some cases, they can even learn to appreciate the feeling of accepting responsibility for and learning from an error.
This point is true because humble people thrive on the criticism that so many of us avoid. It doesn’t just provide them with important feedback – it helps them be better.
This technique is, admittedly, one of the hardest for many of us to integrate into our daily lives. This is true because even the smallest of egos have been trained from birth to resist accepting fault. Still, that doesn’t mean that you can’t start small when you’re around people you love and trust. You might be surprised how people’s respect and empathy for you will increase.
Don’t Boast About Accomplishments (Be Grateful Instead)
Many people are disproportionately proud of what they’ve achieved in life. In some cases, this is merely the result of the thousands of hours we spend trying to achieve those things. If we work hard and get what we want, who’s to tell us not to be proud of it? The problem arises, however, when we boast about our accomplishments to feed our ego.
The alternative to this is to be grateful for what we’ve achieved. Doing so means acting as if what we have is more of a gift we’ve been given than something we conquered or mastered by our own will. Professional athletes have managed to master this technique despite being considered quite egotistical. They almost always thank the world for the gifts it’s given them instead of considering themselves to be a gift to the world.
You can put this technique into practice in your daily life almost immediately. All you need to do is be reflective and grateful for everything you have (even if it’s not that much). Cultivate this trait, and you’ll be shocked by how quickly people take notice of your new attitude.
Be Considerate. Always.
Another side effect of the judgmental modern world is that many of us have succumbed to the idea that it’s ok to be mean to others. Usually, this happens because we are encouraged to subconsciously “rank” people in one way or another.
One of the most common examples is how some of us treat people who perform menial or service-oriented jobs, like waitresses, fast food workers, or government employees.
Humble people have made being considerate to other people a huge part of their life. This doesn’t mean that they don’t acknowledge when something is an inconvenience to them or a threat to their ego, it just means they’ve taught themselves to react to these stimuli with kindness and positivity.
It’s an important distinction – and one that can have a huge impact on a person’s life.
The first step of introducing this technique into your daily life is to acknowledge that everyone has their own opinions, likes, and dislikes. Furthermore, everybody has their own history and reasons why they’re the person they are. Keep this in the back of your mind when interacting with others, and it will be easier to approach every challenge with kindness and humility.
Be Accepting of Who Others Are
We live in a divided world. Unfortunately, it sometimes seems that it’s getting more divided by the day. We judge others based on where they come from, what they believe in, where they live, and who they love. Doing this doesn’t just lead to mutual distrust, but it also causes us to become more egotistical in order to justify our sense of being right or better.
Humble people accept others as they are, without judgment or rancor. Doing so doesn’t mean that they don’t acknowledge when someone has faults, but instead of defining a person by those faults, they attempt to see the good in them as well.
Living this way leads to a more open-minded approach to life, and allows our minds to accept amazing new information and stimuli more readily.
Accepting others is one of the most important stepping stones to see the benefits of living humbly in your daily life. Once you become more open-minded, you’ll be shocked how much better you can communicate with others, as well as how much simpler it is to be a leader.
Final Thoughts
If you truly want to learn how to humble yourself, the techniques on this list will be a great starting point. It’s important to remember, however, that the journey to being humble takes constant work and dedication. You might fail now and again, but if you keep with it, the rewards will be great. Here’s to you and your better, humbler lifestyle. Enjoy it.