I grew up in a Christian home with two loving parents. I went to a good public school, got good grades, and had good friends. I was given positive reinforcement, words of affirmation, and plenty of praise for my accomplishments. I had all of the right ingredients to make perfect self-esteem.
But in the mix of all of these wonderful life components, there was one phrase repeated to me over and over again: be humble. “The LORD values humility,” my Dad would say. This is not a wild concept, right? No one likes a bragger.
However, being told repeatedly again and again to be humble as a child started to deplete my ability to self-advocate and value myself. If I did something I was proud of, I would bring it up carefully and casually. When I got great grades? I was silent. When I was accepted into my first-choice college early? I said nothing to my friends. My parents told me to keep it on the down low; to not come off as arrogant.
I understand the concept of arrogance. There has been, and always will be, a fine line between arrogance and high self-esteem. But there were two major factors that made this balancing act more complicated.
The first: graduating college and starting a professional job. Once you move to a new city and become a working professional, you are surrounded by people who are not there to cheer you on. It is not their job, nor their preference, to make you feel affirmed and confident in your abilities. It’s not their responsibility to make you feel emotionally secure. The praise and affirmation your family or teachers used to give you are gone.
In professional settings, there are no “A’s”. Success can be murky and jagged. It’s often not clear whether the work you’re doing is making a significant difference, and you’ll begin to realize that showing up to work and doing your best doesn’t actually equate to making more money and getting praise. It usually just means you’ll live to last the next round of personnel cuts.
It is in this setting that I realized I needed to be my own cheerleader. That the affirmation and praise I used to get from parents, teachers, and friends now needed to come from myself. I did some soul searching, self-evaluations, lots of therapy, and even some reflection to see how far I had come, and how well I had done despite the obstacles that were placed in front of me. But despite all of this effort, the statements I heard as a kid never went away: be proud of yourself, but not too proud. Be confident, but not cocky. Be successful, but don’t tell anyone.
This brings me to a second element: I’m a woman. Because of this, my success will always have my gender attached to it. Even if I become the next CEO of Amazon, the headline will read “Amazon selects woman CEO to lead online retail empire”. I will intentionally be made to sound too weak to handle the intensity of a job, or I will be patronized and pitched as a “brave decision”.
Women have had to balance being just the right amount of confident for centuries. We are made to feel ashamed for our success if comes across as “too confident” or “arrogant”. We so rarely are given the chance to succeed, like, actually succeed at things, and then we’re made to feel guilty for being proud. We have so little time to even celebrate our achievement until we’re told to sit down and be humble.
When women are made to feel like their success is a lucky fluke, it hurts our ability to self-advocate. When women are told they’re being too pushy or aggressive, it hurts our desire to ask for what’s rightfully ours (raises, promotions, more responsibility on projects). It discourages us from applying for leadership roles, taking initiatives, and promoting real change. And when that happens, humanity as a whole suffers.
Humility is a difficult balancing act. I struggle with deciding how I should feel every time I accomplish something. That’s a problem. I shouldn’t have to feel guilty for being good at things. Should I shout my success from the rooftops? Probably not. Should I feel comfortable sending an all-caps text to my family and friends? YES. I should. But I don’t.
The line between arrogance and high self-esteem is a blurry one, especially for professional women. If confidence is seen as the most “attractive” quality in a woman when you want to date her, then why do you categorize that same attitude as “arrogant” and “aggressive” when they apply for a job? Or land a business deal? Or become your boss?
I don’t have a solution for this problem. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to change the systematic belittling of female success both in and outside of the professional world. But if being proud of my accomplishments and celebrating my hard-earned success makes me come across as not-humble, don’t worry, I checked with God, and he’s actually proud of me too.
“For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
