We all want to be successful. It’s the reason we got into business in the first place. But success can have a downside too: it can cause us to lose our humility.
When we start out in our new career, we’re often overwhelmed by a feeling of incompetence: we have no idea what we’re supposed to be doing. Once we start having some success, we begin to think we know everything, and that can get us into lots of trouble.
No matter how great we’re tempted to think we are, it’s important that we attempt to maintain some feeling of inadequacy about our job. The minute we start thinking we know it all, we risk becoming arrogant and losing our ability to accept criticism and the council of others. We decide that no one can teach us anything new, because we’re already the best (insert your profession here) out there!
The minute we stop thinking there’s someone out there that can teach us something we don’t know, we start that slow and steady decline to obscurity. We should always be on the lookout for opportunities to learn and get better at our craft.
The day we start believing that we’ve reached the top of the mountain, there’s nowhere else to go but down.
The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.
Robert Hughes
Share this Post