Confident or Cocky?

Confidence can be an admirable quality. We tend to trust people who seem confident in their ability to do their job. If our doctor seemed nervous right before he started a surgical procedure, we would be very nervous about his ability to do it right. There is a line between confidence and cockiness. When you are cocky you take unnecessary risks. Cockiness is about strutting about proving your value. Confidence is a more quiet character, something we grow toward when we work hard to gain knowledge about a subject or skill. Cocky people tend to be off-putting, but quietly confident people seem to draw the trust of others.

Self-confidence is often the last thing we exude in early recovery.  Many of us were pretty cocky when we were out there drinking.  We took a lot of chances. We acted indignant if anyone challenged us.  We blamed a lot of other people when work, relationships, or just life wasn’t working out the way we thought it should.

If you are confident that you are doing the right things to stay sober today, that’s a good sign. If you are cocky about it, not so good.

But how do you move from cocky to confident?

For me, cockiness is a direct result of insecurity.  When I was terrified of being shown up, exposed as a fraud, or in any way shown not to be perfect, I reacted with fear.  The over-reaction is to be cocky and pretend you know more than you do.

So for me the first step to confidence was being okay with mistakes.  It was okay to be wrong, but more important, it was okay for other people to know I was wrong.  My self-esteem had to stop being based on an unattainable perfection and instead based on the fact that I worked hard and I diligently focused on being a better person, friend, employee each day.