Confidence and Humility

Confidence and humility might seem like polar opposites. But actually, they are partners. 

What do you think of when you read the word “confidence”? What comes to mind? What images appear in your imagination, and what people do you recall?

The shades of meaning and the contextual baggage the word confidence evokes are numerous—almost as much as its friend, humility. In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there are definitions for this word as a noun and as an adjective, with multiple meanings for each entry. For this book, I will rely on these two definitions, which each support and enhance the other.

confidence

: a feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or of reliance on one’s circumstances

: the quality or state of being certain 

Building our students’ confidence is a core part of our mission as music teachers. We want to build a strong consciousness of power in our students, in the face of the far more common mindsets of self-doubt and fear. We want them to be certain that they can do what they need to do. We want them to be certain that they have the ability they need, certain that the outcome of their work will be worthwhile, certain that they will find ease after a time of struggle.

When someone has strong confidence in themselves, their minds are at rest. 

I also have confidence in things outside of myself. I have confidence that my roof won’t cave in; I hardly think about it. I have confidence that my brakes won’t fail; I don’t spend time worrying about whether they will. I have confidence that my friends and family love me no matter what, and I can be myself easily in their company.

For things I have practiced and learned, I have confidence in myself too. When I walk around my neighborhood, I don’t have to think about putting one foot in front of the other. I might have spent a good amount of my toddler years having to focus on it, but I have had full confidence in my ability to walk since then. When I open my mouth to speak, I don’t worry that I will forget my native language. And I don’t mean to brag, but I am so good at using a fork and spoon that I (almost) never miss my mouth.

The primary difference between becoming a confident walker, speaker, and eater and becoming a confident musician is that most people learn to walk, speak, and bring food to their mouths when they are very young. Young children are blessed to not have a keen sense of their own dignity; therefore, failure doesn’t cause the kind of embarrassment for them that it does when they get older. 

When a toddler falls, they almost don’t notice. They pick themselves up, fall again, and pick themselves up in an endless cycle of shameless trying. But when a new musician fumblingly picks up their instrument and makes a noise and it sounds awful, they don’t have the advantage of that childlike lack of self-consciousness. This older human has a much sharper sense of themselves, so they tend to feel the injury to their pride more. The older the beginner, the harder the hit to their dignity when they make mistakes—fall down—in music. 

This is why the best partner to confidence is humility. 

Think of humility and confidence as two pedals on the same bike. In order to move forward in music, a student must press forward confidently, yet balance that with the humility of expecting to fail and having to work hard. They must embrace failure, pushing through tough moments and not letting embarrassment or shame stop them from moving ahead. 

Humility in a student is best practiced by helping them stop comparisons and teaching them not to think of whether they are doing better or worse than others. Teach them instead to choose to enjoy both their own work and the work of others. Humility can be learned by laughing at mistakes, rather than unhappily grunting or groaning at them. Humility is embracing a healthy habit of childlikeness—the ability to fall and get up again with joy. Humility is the confidence that, even if they make a mistake, they will still be worthy, uninjured, and fine.

Above all, you can help your students learn confidence and humility by simply being kind to them. Be kind to your students when they make mistakes, and they will learn to be kind to themselves.

Confidence and Humility in Action

The best example I have of confident humility is a dear friend of mine, a former student named Alba. She is an intensely intelligent woman in her sixties with long silver hair and a luminous smile. Alba is also a total boss-lady; a veteran teacher, she founded some of the first public Montessori schools in the United States and served as chairman of the board for national Montessori education associations. She has a thriving psychology practice and a close-knit family of children and grandchildren. 

While all of these things are enviable, what I most admire in Alba is her childlike approach to life. I got to see this firsthand in our lessons together. When Alba played piano for me in her lessons, she failed fearlessly. Whenever she made a mistake, she didn’t get embarrassed or make excuses. She didn’t try to explain to me why she had made a mistake. No. Every time Alba made a mistake, she would tilt her head back, take a deep breath—and laugh.

What kind of person laughs when they make mistakes? 

Young children do.

Alba had learned the value of childlike laughter in the face of failure from her preschool students. As she would sit and observe her young charges, she noticed what they did when they couldn’t figure something out. She watched them closely. She noted and considered their lack of self-consciousness. She brought what she learned from the children to her piano lessons, and the childlike confidence she brought to her music served her very well. Within a year, she was playing beautiful, complicated music—and she was loving every minute of it.

If we don’t create confident and humble musicians, we could end up:

• Training people to see failure as a signal to stop and hurt, instead of a signal to joyfully try again.

• Developing people who keep their focus so far inward, they can’t see the possibilities in front of them.

What we gain from creating confident and humble musicians

When a music student, of any age, learns confidence and humility, they can:

• Embrace good failure.

• Keep a childlike wonder in their own accomplishments, without self-abasing thought patterns or self-talk.

• Turn their instant internal monologue from “What is wrong with me, and what do people think?” to “What is wrong with the situation, and how can I fix it?”