False Confidence
Week 5 Journal
It was a few weeks ago. I was sitting in class, obviously paying adamant attention, when a student made a statement that I can only describe as hubristic. In a conversation on purpose and life direction, our professor was aptly challenging whether or not our intended paths of life laid in line with what we considered our purpose, or why - another topic which will surely be covered at a later date. In this process, our professor asked the student if he could clarify on his understanding of his own purpose. The student responded, “I don’t see why this matters. If it weren’t for covid I would be working in marketing making $150K a year. Easy.”
It was this brash statement in the midst of another helping him find meaning, satisfaction, and success which truly struck me. Here, a 21-year-old college student with no degree, no real work experience, and no developed marketable skillset was boasting in a falsely self-assured sense of competence.
Questions cascaded in my mind. At their thematic core lay the question: “What’s holding you back?”.
When - Then
It has been my observation over the most recent two years of my undergraduate studies that many students, and people for that matter, subscribe to the when-then fallacy of thought.
When I graduate then I can make money.
When I start dating someone then I will be happy.
When I hit 100,000 followers then I will feel validated.
When (insert the blank) Then (insert the fallacy).
People, myself included, develop so many roadblocks in our lives. In the case of this student, the only thing holding him back from making 150K starting out of college was a piece of paper and a virus. Perhaps for you it is time, a past experience, a present circumstance, or a train of self-doubt. Herein lies a dichotomy. I call it the dichotomy of comfortability.
Dichotomy of Comfortability
To move from the current state to a new state requires a transition. Transitions can be difficult as they remove us from a place of knowledge, from a place of comfortability. This change is difficult for many. We idealize a future state. We see the success of others and think, ‘that should be me’ or ‘I’m so much smarter, better, more creative than them.’ These trains of thought produce nothing but envy and reason to remain in the current state. Often moving towards where we desire to be, however much we desire it, becomes such a looming and insurmountable feat that we develop excuses to remain exactly where we are.
I love to hike. I especially enjoy hiking fourteeners, but doing so is not always easy. Later in the hiking season, I had finished my work early in the afternoon so I scurried home, packed a bag, grabbed some firewood and a sleeping bag, and went out to Mount Elbert. Arriving just before sunset, I strung up my hammock and enjoyed the company of a flickering fire, my bible, and the continuous array of thoughts in my mind. Tomorrow was to be my first solo fourteener.
I woke at 2:30 AM, atypical for my current start time of 7. With coffee and oatmeal consumed, it was time for my first solo hike and I wanted to summit by sunrise at 6 AM. 3:30 came and I stepped foot onto the trail, realizing the grave mistake of my rushed departure. I had no flashlight. With limited phone battery, I relied on the beaming full moon and a sense of faith to guide my path. The hike was peaceful, only facing winds well above treeline and passing a mere 2 people during the ascent. By sunrise, I rose upon the summit, moments before the sun’s light glistened across the horizon. I was the first one up there, and the first one down.
Presented before me was every opportunity and reason to stop, go back, and go home before my meeting at 12. It was cold. It was early. I had no flashlight. I had to drive 3 hours for a meeting at 12. If I had quit, no one would have been the wiser. Yet in the midst of a plethora of reasons to quit, I summited. More than that, I summited in under 2.5 hours then ran down and completed the descent in 1.5 hours. In the midst of discomfort, I chose to push.
Often we face real adversity, legitimate hurdles that hold us back from where we want to go. But just as, if not more often, we rationalize in our own minds reasons to remain comfortable. Hence this dichotomy of comfortability. As much as we desire, or at least express desire, to leave our comfortable state, all the more we create for ourselves reasons to remain in the state of comfortability.
The Blame Game
Which is easier? To accept an intrinsic failing requiring necessary action and change, or creating a target upon which problems can be placed. Surely the latter. What that student did, what I and every person has the opportunity to do, was place the blame on something, or someone outside of ourselves. This is easy and, for a time, satisfying. It is much easier to remain in comfortability and boast in one’s ability when there is some insurmountable external obstacle preventing our arrival at the desired state. The more we do this, the more we develop a mentality of false confidence. We convince ourselves of our own infallibility, competency, and righteousness. If everyone is to blame but ourselves, we become godlike in a sense, being the ultimate virtue, held back not by ourselves but by uncontrollable external forces.
Confirmation of Fallacy
As external forces become our only hindrance, we confirm our competence. If it were not for ____ then ____. By reiterating this narrative in our minds, we falsely confirm our virtue and our ability without ever putting either to the test. The more we develop reasons to remain comfortable, the more we develop hubris and entertain our dogmatic self-perception. Cultural ideas do not tend to benefit this unhelpful stagnation. Self-acceptance is a wonderful idea in principle, but seen in action has resulted in what can only be described as an epidemic of delusion. External validation and confirmation that it was someone else’s fault that you are in the position you are in, that someone else must fix your circumstance, that how you feel is good and your truth.
The principle of self-acceptance is great. To see oneself honest and truthfully is a noble thing; however, the issue lies in when we affirm a false and pinhole self-perception. We allow others to affirm our selves and state instead of honestly recognizing our own faults, those cancerous portions of ourselves which we would rather make gilded than pure.
So where does this lead?
To self-confidence? To loving oneself?
Perhaps. But if it does, then it is a lie, nothing but a veneer. Faith in yourself means nothing if that which your faith is placed in has no substance.
Ok Boomer
You have likely heard the phrase: “Ok Boomer”. It is a derogatory statement which many younger individuals utilize to invalidate the statements or feelings of those older than them. So what does this have to do with the dichotomy of comfortability, false confidence, or blame?
Everything.
The more we confirm the hurdles in our paths, our comfortability, our cancerous traits, the greater our ego, hubris, and dogma grow. With the internet has come access to vast swaths of information at ease. What did not come with this is wisdom.
By virtue of access to information and false confidence and competence has come the belief that those who are old understand nothing. This relatively western means of thinking replaces wisdom and achievement with self-efficacy and excuses. The attack on those older merely displays the modern-day faith in one’s infallibility.
“These older people need to get with the times. They don’t understand anything about the world. What could they possibly teach me, I can just youtube whatever I need to know.”
It is this mentality that will be the downfall of so many.
What Separates
Those who are successful often boast one core characteristic, one quite counter to the narrative which we have explored throughout this post. They live with a sense of humility and reality.
“Maybe I am making excuses.”
“This person in front of me, I wonder why they think so differently from myself?”
“What can I learn from this person?”
“What are my shortcomings?”
People who go places live asking these questions, they live in the reality of understanding that they know nothing. The greatest expert knows nothing in comparison to the infinite secrets of the universe. They understand that circumstances can be scary, challenging, and uncomfortable. What separates those who succeed and those who remain in false confidence is action. The successful person chooses to act, they see the reality of the situation and better themselves. They become braver, more competent, and overcome. They don’t make excuses, rather they face reality and choose to do something about it. They take control of their lives and circumstance rather than allowing circumstances to control them.
Someone to Walk With
It is much easier to overcome hardship when you are facing it with someone else. Those difficult hikes are made easier, or perhaps simply more difficult to quit when you are moving alongside someone. So if overcoming the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of your life seems too difficult a feat, perhaps what you need is someone to walk with. A friend, family member, teacher, or mentor. Someone to call out your false confidence, to help you glimpse at reality, and walk alongside you on the worthwhile journey to becoming who you could be and getting to where you wish to go.
We can build our sense of confidence so easily, but it is hard to see our excuses for that which they truly are. It helps to walk with someone who can help us see what we often intentionally neglect.
Conclusion
In the midst of this, marketers face a dilemma.
If we confirm excuses, we do a disservice to society as a collective and society as individuals. The tradeoff is that most people will not choose the difficult path of reality. We can affirm dogmatic veneers and easily win the minds of people, but is it right?
The false confidence across society has led me to a conclusion. If that which I am meant to market and communicate affirms naivete and willful ignorance, I will not market it. In a world that is gilded, I desire to be and progress that which is real, that which is pure.
Action
So what can you do?
Take ownership of your life. Look at yourself and your situation truthfully. What excuses are you making? What are you allowing to control and dictate the course of your life?
Find someone you can trust and give them permission to call you out. Let them call out your excuses, your hubris.
Make a plan. Look to where you want to go, or better, who you want to be. Determine not the whole plan to get there, but ask “what is the next step I can take in becoming who I desire to become”
Because getting somewhere is great, but it is so much greater to become the type of person who can get wherever it is you hope to go. Then you will live no longer in false confidence but in the security of understanding your own true capability and courage to overcome.
