Martial Arts and Modesty

By Carol Wilsey, orange belt

Confidence is a great quality, but bragging is not. Being modest about one's skills and talents is not a lack of confidence. It is a lack of bragging. A person can be confident and still walk humbly.

A person that talks overly about their accomplishments can be very off-putting, or even make others feel insecure. A good leader will build up team members, not laud themselves and make their team feel inferior or inadequate.

A modest person will more likely make friends easily because they don't make people feel uncomfortable or embarrassed. They will make a better supervisor at work because they will use their words to encourage their co-workers rather than bragging about themselves. They will be more enjoyable to spend time with than a person that talks overly about their accomplishments.

It can be a fine line between bragging and celebrating accomplishments. I think it is good for people to share their victories with their friends and loved ones, but not to make a huge deal of them to the exclusion of others, or in a way that makes people feel uncomfortable or bad. For example, I recently broke my first board at my orange belt test. My husband and other family members were really excited to hear about it. We all love to hear about each others' successes to cheer each other on, not to one-up each other."