10 Ways Humility Reduces Resistance

Why learn anything new if you're already perfect?

Humility does not mean we’re worthless worms who have no right to feel proud of our work; it literally means we are “capable of being educated.” Without humility, we cannot learn.

In his Modesty Manifesto, David Brooks asks us to embrace the virtue of modesty to restore balance. He’s not suggesting we should never feel pride, he’s highlighting that we have swung the pendulum so far that:

• 19% of Americans think they’re in the top 1% of earners (a mathematical impossibility)
• 94% of college professors think their teaching skills are above average (another mathematical impossibility)
• and not surprisingly, Americans rate ourselves as having much higher math skills than we actually have.

According to Brooks, one of the problems with thinking so much of ourselves is that we’ve become polarized. We are unwilling to tolerate, let alone, benefit from opposing viewpoints. Writers cannot afford to close our minds this way.

But when we humbly recognize that we don’t know everything there is to know:

1. We’re willing to seek feedback from people with different perspectives, which gives us a broader, more comprehensive view of our writing.
2. We’re willing to really listen to and apply the feedback we get to improve our writing – not just filter it to hear only praise and adoration.
3. We’re willing to research. We know that we can learn something from everyone and everything. This gives us a constant supply of the new ideas and images we need to create new connections.
4. We recognize the need ongoing professional development. We’re willing to keep learning, taking classes, reading books/mags/blogs about writing and about the topics we write about or might want to write about. We don’t let ourselves become intellectually lazy or delude ourselves that we’re “above” the need to grow.
5. We’re empathetic. We learn how to walk around in someone else’s shoes and see the world through someone else’s paradigm. Readers are engaged with the characters, stories and ideas we write about because they aren’t all about “me, me, me.”
6. We challenge ourselves to entertain multiple, even contradictory possibilities. We do not rely solely on our own opinion or the opinions of others who think the way we do.
7. We can step out of our own assumptions and world view and have a shot at recognizing the intricacies and nuances of a complex truth.
8. Because we collaborate, we reap the bonus of synergy.
9. We remain civil and exercise our mental, emotional and social intelligences to keep them from atrophying.
10. We recognize what vast, diverse, amazing, beautiful, complex world we live in. We are never bored or lonely.