Most of us believe that confidence is a strength, if not a virtue. But entertaining strong doubts about yourself also has a lot of surprising benefits. Otje van der Lelij investigates the positive side to human insecurity. You can read the article in issue 15 and on our blog we share a preview of the article.
“Insecurity is often viewed as a problem, something we need to overcome. Those people who seem so sure of everything, who are confident, seem to go the farthest in life. But this unjustly dismisses insecurity as an inferior value, while actually there are plenty of benefits to a good dose of self-doubt every now and then. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at the University College London, UK, even says it is the less self-assured people who have the most success—people who doubt themselves and their abilities are more critical about themselves and more open to feedback than people with spades of self-confidence. What’s more, they work harder and appear less arrogant: all characteristics that may not make life easier, but can lead to higher-quality results.”
Read more in Issue 15.
Text Otje van der Lelij Illustration Yelena Bryksenkova
