What is the Difference Between Being Arrogant and Being Confident?

You probably already know that without confidence, you have MUCH fewer options in your life. In fact, self-doubt might just be the most crippling limitation that you’ll ever face in life. It limits your ability to ask for and to receive the things that you want and to assert and stand up for yourself. Self-doubt can limit your options for having good romantic relationships, earning respect from others, earning career opportunities and so many other things. Nevertheless, as important as confidence is, few people know how to develop it. Some even opt for the counterfeit, which is of course arrogance.

Building genuine confidence requires a solid understanding of the difference between real confidence and arrogance. Let’s start with one thing which makes all the difference between the two...

The One Difference Between Confidence and Arrogance

The most pronounced difference between confident people and arrogant people is this: arrogant people’s assertive behaviors are an attempt to validate themselves in the eyes of others. On the other hand, confident people don’t care what others think of them, they have nothing to prove and even if they did, it wouldn’t be for the sake of validating themselves. This is why they have the freedom to be assertive and to command respect from people and, most important, to step up and speak openly about what they want and what they deserve.

Just imagine, how much easier would it be for you to be bold and assertive if you had NO need to be validated by other people? You would never have to worry about rejection or ridicule or failure or all those things which cause a person to be self-conscious. This is what gives a person the power to have rock solid, untouchable confidence. In other words, people who have nothing to prove to others have nothing to lose, and this gives them the courage to put themselves out there and to go after the things that they want.

The Switch from Arrogant to Confident

You can easily tell if you are acting out of arrogance or out of confidence by asking yourself this question: am I acting out of the desire to validate myself to others? If so, it will impossible to display true confidence indefinitely. By checking yourself to see if you’re attempting to validate yourself, you can move from being arrogant and self-absorbed to being genuinely confident. In other words, self-awareness as to how you’re measuring your own value is the beginning of building confidence.

When you measure your own value by exterior things such as the opinions and the influences of others, it’s impossible to be confident. However, when you let go of the need to be validated by others or by circumstances, you develop the fearlessly magnetic skill of self-confidence.