The double edged sword of being humble

Throughout my entire life my parents engraved in my sister and I the importance of being humble. I remember distinctly a day when I went to work with my mom. I walked behind my mom into the schools office, and woman named Opel’s eyes lit up,

“Lukas!! How are you?! I hear you’re some soccer player!”. I replied with a blushed smile, and then she goes, “So, now tell me how good are you really at soccer?”.

I was confused, the lady just complimented my soccer ability but wants to know exactly how I feel about my soccer ability and so I replied the way my parents taught me,

“Well, I cannot tell you how I think I play but you should come watch me play sometime and make a judgment for yourself.”

As a young boy I never thought of myself as a good player, because I didn’t know how to combine the two different forms of thinking. Be humble on the outside, but selfish, and arrogant on the inside. This is how true champions are made, self-belief beyond measure. That comes with belief that is backed by performance. However, that performance is impaired if you don’t already think highly of yourself.

Never promote yourself, don’t mention your accomplishments unless you’re asked, let other people make judgments about you from your performance on the field. That was the way I was raised. I learned throughout my years that most of my peers were not like that. When they were good at something they spoke about it, they promoted themselves. I was jealous of that, because most of those peers got further in those years in what they thought they were good at. What they thought inside, knowing they were good at something, they made that thing apparent on the outside, thus having more self-belief and because of that better performance. My humble attitude turned into self-doubt throughout my adolescence. I remember a kid named Dom told me during a period of time where kids were being dropped from my team,

“Who do you think is going to be let go?”

I said, “I really hope not but I am afraid I might.”.

I didn’t, but just the fact I went so far to say that out of the 17 players on our team I am one of the worst is incomprehensible to me, since it was only two years later I became an every game starter.

The difference was a coach named Fernando Yamazaki, he took charge of our team abruptly. Our past coach didn’t hand him any notes which meant a new slate for me. I knew this was my opportunity to spew confidence out of my playing without being caught in the net of self-doubt that was holding me down. I raised my hand when asked, who is good at taking freekicks, I raised my hand when asked who is confident to take a penalty. This was my turning point in my soccer career.

Now the humble attitude that my parents instilled in me I beleive I still have. However, there is an important difference between arrogance and confidence. This is where I turned wrong. It is still hard for me to promote myself, and thus here is the other side of the sword;

I have never been given anything in my soccer career, I’ve worked for every ounce of progress, every accomplishment I have ever made is because of my hard work and nothing else. It is the reason why at 23 I am still in pursuit, still working hard every day, step by step to achieve the most I can. I am still here because being humble and not self-promoting gave me accomplishments that I was able to thank only for my sheer ability. Nothing extra.