A recent article
for the BBC News, entitled “Does confidence really
breed success?” reports on a study conducted by Psychologist Jean
Twenge which suggests, “…a 30% tilt towards narcissistic attitudes in US
students since 1979.”
Narcissism is
defined in the article as “Excessive self-love or vanity; self-admiration,
self-centredness.”
Twinge is quoted
as saying, “What's really become prevalent over the last two decades is the
idea that being highly self-confident - loving yourself, believing in yourself
- is the key to success. Now the interesting thing about that belief is it's
widely held, it's very deeply held, and it's also untrue.”
Really?
Dr. Twinge
elaborates, “You need to believe that you can go out and do something but
that's not the same as thinking that you're great," says Twenge. She gives
the example of a swimmer attempting to learn a turn – “this person needs to
believe that they can acquire that skill, but a belief that they are already a
great swimmer does not help.”
The BBC article
goes on to say, “Despite a library's worth of self-help books promoting the
idea we can achieve anything if we believe we can, there's very little evidence
that raising self-esteem produces positive, real-world outcomes.”
Hogwash.
I am not sure
how these studies were conducted and what protocols were used, but my guess is
they have very little to do with those that have excelled and achieved
“real-world” success.
Over 50 years
ago, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale declared, “Believe in yourself. Believe in your
abilities.” Others in the self-improvement and human potential movement have
continued to hammer the point home to this day.
Regardless of
Dr. Twinge’s suggestion that a strong belief in oneself is an indicator of narcissism
and has little or nothing to do with success, there is a mountain of “real-world”
evidence to suggest that Dr. Peale and the other self-improvement experts are
correct.
As for Dr.
Twinge’s example, I can say from personal experience as a former swimmer, she
is wrong. You not only need to believe you can learn the skill of turning, but
you need to believe you will be great at executing the turn quickly and
flawlessly. You need to believe you will be great at performing those turns and
visualize turning over and over again. By doing so, it will help you become a
great swimmer. Great of course is a relative term…not everybody will achieve an
Olympic gold medal, but when you believe and achieve to the best of your
ability, you are indeed ‘great” and it does not make you a narcissist.
Indeed, almost every
successful entrepreneur, business person, athlete or entertainer will tell you having
a strong belief in their abilities and an idea, visualizing achieving goals,
was an essential ingredient of their success. Many of them have used their
success to give back to their communities and worthy causes, not exactly narcissistic.
Listen to what legendary
entertainer Carol
Burnett, said is this video. As a young girl she believed she would go to
UCLA, but her family could not afford it. Burnet says, “I knew I would go. I
visualized being on campus. It was a known fact, I was not wishing.”
Sure enough
Burnett’s dream cam true, a mysterious envelope appeared at her home with a 50 dollar bill in it, enough for the first
semester’s tuition. To this day, Burnett does not know who gave her the money.
Now that is
belief!
Note how she visualized being on campus.
Entrepreneur Sara Blakely, the creator of Spanx, says in the video below, “The advice that I tell people who are just starting out or have an idea is to differentiate yourself. You've got to trust your gut, you have to believe in yourself.”
Sara wrote in
her journal that she would be a millionaire by the time she was 30, She made
it. By 41, Sarah is now the youngest woman to ever appear on Forbes
Billionaires List. In
another video interview with Forbes, Sara talks about visualization, saying
“visualize where you are headed. Take a polaroid of where you are going to be.” Elsewhere, she is on record as saying she
bought a watch she could not afford early on in her venture as a signal of
where she was headed.
With all due
respect to Dr. Twinge and her colleagues, a healthy self-belief, confidence and
the ability to visualize accomplishing your objective is essential to success
for most people and does not necessarily mean you are unrealistic or a
narcissist. I wonder, at age 29, when Sara Blakely first hatched her idea for Spanx, if Dr. Twinge would have labeled her
unrealistic and narcissistic? After all she wrote in her journal she would be a
millionaire by 30.
Belief and
visualization works and there are hundreds of real-world examples like Carol
Burnett and Sara Blakely out there to prove the point.
But is belief
enough?
No.
In the same BBC News article, Florida
State University self-esteem expert, Roy Baumeister says 'Self-control is
much more powerful and well-supported as a cause of personal success…” “An
intervention that encourages [students] to feel good about themselves,
regardless of work, may remove the reason to work hard.”
Dr. Baumeister
has a point, belief in and of itself is not enough. Belief must be combined
with discipline, hard work, and perseverance.
Believe, work
hard, and as Winston Churchill once said, ‘Never, Nerver, Never, Never Give Up!
Do you have a
story where believing in yourself and or a crazy idea has helped you accomplish
your mission? Comment and share below.
Be Great!
MB
