The Vicious Cycle

Self-doubt Confidence Arrogance Confidence and Humility...

The “Vicious Cycle”, a process through which all humans achieve the highest and virtuous state of
mind that is Confidence and Humility. It is a step wise process in which one can reach the ultimate
state by experiencing the cycle again and again, learning along the way or reach it by being wholly
conscious about the downfalls and rising above from it. It is essential for everyone to go through
every phase of this cycle to discover the true value of the fundamental state and I hope after reading
this cycle becomes less vicious for you.

Self-Doubt
“a feeling having no confidence in your abilities and decisions”. In the era of social media and
merciless competition we have experienced this emotion at several occasions in our lives. I am sure
all of you reading this would have questioned your ability of performing a specific task,
communicating something to someone, passing an examination, getting admission in a particular
college/university, getting a particular job, winning a competition and at many other instances in life.
It could be possible that you currently are going through this feeling.

We sometimes act on this feeling and overcome it or majority of us convince ourselves that we are
not capable of doing the job at hand. However, I want you all to go back in time and remember the
challenging bodily movements we learnt in our childhood, it was discovering how to walk and talk
which we effortlessly do now. That moment we never had this feeling of insecurity and scepticism,
so why now?? When we were babies, we simply did it because we knew we could, we had
Confidence.

Confidence
“a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities and judgement”. The first step towards overcoming the
previous emotions. Confidence is accepting yourself the way you are and feeling proud about the
things that make YOU regardless of what others may believe. It is when one stops comparing
themselves to others.

When we feel confident about ourselves, we put in all our energy and have faith that we will achieve
success. It is having trust in the decisions and judgements we make. BUT hold on, here is where the
vicious cycle usually starts, when we start achieving success constantly with confidence, it gradually
leads us to Arrogance/Over-confidence.

“The thin line between Confidence and Arrogance”.

Arrogance
“an attitude of superiority, the quality of being unpleasantly proud and behaving as if you know
more than the other”. We do not realize when Confidence turns into Arrogance. Many times, it so
happens that when self-doubt turns into confidence and we begin to climb the ladder of success, we
believe we have become the masters of the universe, and no one will be better than us. This is
where the downfall commences. People write their own failure the moment they turn egoistic and
self-centred. We sometimes justify our arrogance by showcasing the amount of hard work we have
put in getting where we are, forgetting the simple reason why we started our journey in the first
case. One learns their lesson soon, although now after reading this you can choose to consciously
stop yourself from becoming Arrogant and be the opposite, Humble.

Confidence and Humility - together make the world’s best leaders and successes. It is
acknowledging the hardships you have been through to get the confidence and yet being modest
about it. Of course, one must be proud of their achievements, but it is when one uses it to motivate
people that makes them humble and not when ones uses it to display power. After reading this, I
have faith that this essential cycle will now become less vicious for you!