Confidence vs Arrogance

In order to succeed one has to have confidence, now this is
often confused with being arrogant. So right from the start I am going to give
you a clear definition of what they both mean. Firstly I will define confidence
for you, the dictionary meaning of confidence is: “belief
in oneself and one’s powers or abilities; self-confidence; self-reliance;
assurance: His lack of confidence defeated him.”  Arrogance on
the other hand is unlike confidence, it is a negative quality defined by the
dictionary as: “Offensive display of superiority or self-importance;
overbearing pride.”

 Now you see that
these two words have different meanings and sometimes confidence can be perceived
as being arrogant by others because as Friedrich Nietzsche put it “the arrogance
that accompanies merit offends us even more than the arrogance of people who
are lacking merit: since merit itself offends us.” Many a time if a person is
very successful and they have achieved what others have not, others manifest
their jealousy as judgement of the achiever. What was before confident behaviour
becomes arrogant behaviour because you make under achieving people feel bad
about themselves. Instead solving their problem buy doing something with their
lives so that they too can achieve people deflects their insecurities onto the
confident person.

Of course that is not always the case, some people really
are arrogant, for example boxers if they are the champion and they are
undefeated. This kind of arrogance is often the reason they stay on top,
because this belief that they are better than everyone else is what keeps them
going, what keeps them training so that they stay the best at what they do. A
great example of this was Muhammad Ali, he believed he was the greatest before
he was even champ and when he was champ he continued to tell people he was the
greatest because as he put it, “I figured if I said it enough, I would convince
the world that I really was the greatest.”  He was a man of many words, and wise words at
that, there was method in his madness. He is the guy famous for saying “it’s
not bragging if you can back it up.”

There are benefits to both confidence and arrogance, both
will make some people dislike you but arrogance will make many more people
dislike you, but if you are good at what you do I am sure there will be plenty
of people who love either way. You have to think of your end goal, the point is
to believe in yourself, to back yourself up no matter what. The point is to
make goals and convince yourself that you can achieve them even if you
originally had doubts and you will find that you achieve your goals and go
beyond that. The point is not just to talk the talk; the point is for you
antics and your appearance to match your work ethic (actually walking the
walk). You cannot be confident/arrogant a lazy, you are confident because you
know you work hard and can “back it up.”

Muhammad Ali is not the only person who had unrelenting
belief in himself, it is a common trait among the successful no matter which
field they are in. Look at what Arnold Schwarzenegger achieved in his
bodybuilding, Hollywood and political career. It’s an obvious belief which
shows in the words he often says when referring to his success, “I knew I was a
winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People
will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a
word that applies to me in any way – I hope it never will.”

If you don’t believe in yourself that is the first thing you
need to fix so that you can progress and stop looking down at yourself. If you
don’t believe in you, don’t expect others to believe in you.