Humility is Bullsh*t.

“I think the concept of humility is bullshit.” 

The words came spilling out of my mouth to a coworker the other day in response to a story he shared. 

He was saying that his leaders have encouraged him to start standing up for himself a little more and own the awesome things that he’s doing but he really struggled with this idea. 

His leadership proposed that he look at it from the perspective of doing it for the greater good and promoting the program he represents and not himself. 

That’s when I blurted that infamous line out. 

As soon as it came out, I thought “oh no…now I have to defend this thesis.” 

Fortunately, this coworker and I have a pretty good relationship and I can be a little bold around him. 

So here’s my truth around humility and how I think it keeps us playing small. 

I’m a firm believer in we, as humans, having more power than we give ourselves credit for in our lives. 

I’ve seen this in my own life. 

When I own my power, it feels good and I can make magical things happen.

When I play into my own victim ‘woe is me’ type stories, it feels good too…for a minute and then it feels icky. 

I’ve been doing this type of work for a minute and let me tell you, it’s a blessing and a curse, friends. 

Having a high level of self-awareness and situational awareness can be cool but it can also be absolutely overwhelming and draining being in your head constantly coaching yourself instead of living in the moment. 

But working through that is a story for another day. 

How many times have you heard “Be humble”? 

Or some iteration. 

As a Midwestern kid, I feel like this is ingrained in our culture from a young age. 

“No one likes a braggart.”

Quite frankly, I find the concept of humility to be a ploy utilized to keep us small and out of our power. 

We live in a victim mentality world. 

A world where there’s always something that has hold of our power, whether we’re consciously aware of it or not. 

Things like (in no particular order and not a comprehensive list): 

Organized religion. 

Now, don’t get me wrong here, I think there’s some value in organized religion but at the end of the day, organized religion is a business. 

And as a business, we need to keep our people buying into our concepts so the business can continue to thrive. 

I also chuckled the other day when I heard an intuitive refer to organized religion as “Kindergarten level for the Soul.” 

It’s the beginning but there’s so much more and with religion needing to keep the business churning, they can’t allow you to recognize that. 

So there’s typically a lot of fear tactics involved to keep you playing small. 

‘You just need to believe in what we believe and you’ll go to heaven.’

‘Just go ahead and tithe regularly and we’ll make sure you’re in good standing with the man upstairs.’

‘No no, you can’t believe in that…that’s wrong and you can’t sit with us if that’s what you believe.’ 

Another thing that absolutely keeps our power in a choke hold is fear.

Specifically fear related to social constructs and relationships.

At our core, humans are tribe minded. 

Western society, especially, has moved toward a more independent approach these days but back in the day, we had to rely on one another for our race to survive. 

Hunting. Protection. Gathering. Love. 

You name it, it took others.

Now, in our more modern world, one place we still rely on one another is around feelings of belonging.

We know what we want to do but subconsciously, we’re absolutely terrified that our mother/father/sister/brother/neighbor/random person in the coffee shop we’ve never met and will probably never see again is going to think about us pursuing that dream. 

So we let our power slip into their hands. 

We let them dictate our moves and push our own desires to the side so as not to jeopardize these relationships. 

And even worse, become the weird kid who’s stepping over the line society has drawn for us.

Then we have the system that is our jobs.

The concept of time for money is another way we’re held small. 

Our power to receive money is traditionally fully tied to an organization and someone else’s dreams. 

We go to jobs we hate because we need the money to live.

We do things that give us absolutely zero energy and enjoyment because we’ve been taught that the only way we can survive and get money is to do things we hate. 

Honestly, I’m personally working on unraveling this belief but after existing in this space of Corporate America for 11 years myself and having grown up seeing it, this has been a tough one. 

Follow along as we work through ‘Aly’s money stories’ in another post one day. 

Speaking of…. 

How often do we give our power away to money?

Mostly, the fear of not having money. 

We live in a society where money is required. 

I love money. 

Oh lord, that statement is also going to get me canceled.

‘But Aly, money is the root of all evil.’

Again…that organized religion thing sneaking in there. 

But it’s not the paper itself, it’s the freedom of choice money gives me in life.

I once was a part of an organized conversation group where the topic was money. 

I felt completely on the opposite end of the group when everyone continued to say ‘Oh, I don’t need more money. I just want to go walk in the woods with my kids.’

To which my rebuttal, as the only willing to say that money is great, was “Okay, but you absolutely have to have money in order to have the privilege of the time to be able to do that….’

Yah, that’s fine, I’ll be the weird kid rolling in the moneys while all ya’ll are out in the woods. 

Our power is being held hostage by so many aspects of the systems we exist in and we don’t usually recognize it.

These are just a few examples. 

So coming back to the idea of humility. 

It feels like yet another societal construct where we’re giving away our power. 

Being humble, to me, is not being allowed to own what you’re good at. 

I’m not saying that you feel like you’re a better human than someone else.

I look at this more from a skills perspective. 

Blame the recruiter in me. 

There are some things that I’m better at than others. 

And to the contrary, there are some things that others are better at than me. 

I’m the best at being Aly. 

You’re the best at being you. 

You are designed perfectly. 

While I may have some issues with religion, I do believe in something bigger and I believe in souls.

I believe your soul designed you perfectly for your earth experience. 

Even the things that our society has taught you are ‘bad’ about you. 

That’s bullshit too.

All based on someone else’s beliefs of ‘good’ and ‘bad.’

But it’s time to start recognizing where we’re giving away our power and how we can disprove these beliefs. 

And mostly, it’s time to start celebrating the power of others. 

Please, stop being humble. 

Let’s celebrate you being a badass and owning what you’re good at.

Let’s celebrate you achieving your dreams and doing it scared. 

Let’s celebrate each other. 

Let’s stop being humble and start bragging the hell out of the fact that we exist as magical beings on a giant rock floating through space. 

Upon sharing some of these thoughts with my coworker, he said “Aly, I’m going to share that with my interns. That’s good.”

My biggest win in this story is that the next day, after sharing this idea with my coworker, he did something and followed it up with “I’m just owning my inner badass.”

I was so proud.