Modesty is the best policy

Imagine you are in a situation where you did some incredibly extraordinary job and everyone around is congratulating you about your work, but you get this feeling where you feel like saying ”It isn’t my hard work alone, my teammates, my supporters equally deserve this applause too.” That my friend is when you know, you are modest.

Being modest is one of the best policy one can implement in his/her life. Modesty helps in staying clam in tense situation, create a better environment at your work place, and it makes you a better human being. But every coin has two side, right?

In recent age of competitive world, where everyone wants to stay on top, modesty is often taken as the sign of weakness. People now a days don’t want to share equal amount of credit with their team mates, this create an unhealthy environment. People working with you or under you won’t be helpful to you when you need them. On the other side if you are modest, the environment turns out to be friendly. People come to you seeking for help, love to work with you, and think of you as a good leader. Would follow your advice when needed, and wouldn’t even hesitate to share their opinion. Modesty helps you to excel in your leadership, thus giving you bundle of opportunities to success.

The thing that defines truly being modest is a quiet understanding that you are good at what you do, but you don’t expect others to praise you excessively. You want recognition for your hard work, but you would never need anyone to go on and on about how brilliant you are without crediting someone else for helping you somewhere along the way, or without telling them that you worked very hard and how fortunate you are.

In a study it is found that modest people are more generous, and kind. They won’t hesitate to help needy people. Moreover modest people take failure very positively, they know something great it going to happen, and they would wait for it. They are not self-centered, they focus their energy on other people, and their contributions to the world. They also have more courage to try new things, since their focus is on other people rather than being perfect, it frees them to take risk.

We all know excessive of anything is bad. Well same is the case in being “too modest”. The worst thing that can happen by being too modest is that people might underestimate you. If no one hears about your achievements they will assume that you are not doing anything significant. There might be people who may judge you, based on what you have told others. So try to showcase yourself, avoid saying “it was an easy task, anyone could have done it easily”, instead say  ”Me and my entire team has worked hard and now we are happy for the outcomes ”. Easy, isn’t it?

Saying “NO” wouldn’t affect your modesty. When people come to ask you for help and you are not in situation where you can help or you don’t want to do it, it is okay to say no. Say it politely but say it!

Being overly humble may result in becoming a follower rather than a leader. Try to seize opportunity to lead. If you know you are good at certain things, you have enough skills to lead the project then go for it. You don’t need to step back and let other people take the lead when you know you are capable enough to pursue it.  Don’t be too modest of your skills and do not belittle what you’re capable of.

Don’t hesitate in praising yourself a little bit. If you don’t tell people about your achievements, will someone ever know? You surely don’t want anyone else to take all the praise when you have worked so hard, so it’s okay to take praise, but make sure not to brag about it.

And as they say “Kill them with your kindness” .

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