Recipes for Humility
“Humility is not touchy-feely; it is a clear-eyed, cold-blooded, accurate assessment of yourself and your abilities. Downplaying your abilities and overplaying them are both opposed to humility.” This quote is from the book Super Habits by Andrew V. Abela. He argues that the classical virtues, like humility, are super habits that have cascading and diffusive benefits. Abela says, “Humility is a superpower…Extensive research indicates it is linked to greater optimism, positive growth, decisiveness, comfort with ambiguities, stronger social bonds, less relationship conflict, and lower stress.”
He gives three ways to practice humility from a free workbook written by the Positive Psychology Research Group:
Consider a challenging situation you’ve faced recently and consider it from a third-party perspective. Write out how a hypothetical outside person would describe what was happening.
Adopt a growth mindset about your intelligence. If you think you can grow in intelligence, it means that there are things you don’t know. This will help you be more open to learning, to exploring where there are gaps in your understanding, and to admitting when you are wrong.
Honestly assess the limits of your knowledge. When approaching a new topic, write down everything you don’t know about it in order to approach it with greater humility.
This week, I invite you to ask:
How accurate is my view of myself? Do I tend to downplay or overplay my abilities? Which of the three recipes for humility will I put into practice this week?
God bless,
Dan
