Overconfidence: When Charisma is Not Handled with Care

Confidence and charisma are interrelated – confidence is necessary to enhance charisma, and when you have developed the power of charisma, you become more confident about yourself.

Hence, confidence is really a powerful thing. However, it can also be destructive. Confidence becomes bad when it reaches beyond its boundaries – when you become overconfident about yourself.

There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you can do and letting other people see it. In fact, it can help you build better rapport, as other people can easily trust you with particular tasks. Confidence can get other people to notice you in a positive light, can make you gain more friends, and can help you succeed in all your endeavors.

However, as much as how confidence can make you, it can also break you. Again, that is if you have developed confidence more than you should. This is most likely to happen because many people overestimate their strengths and capabilities. For example, teenagers always complain about the over-protectiveness of their parents. They say that they can take care of themselves and that nothing bad will happen to them. Being overconfident, these youngsters don’t obey their parents and still go out on their own, believing that they can handle any situation they may face. But looking at reality, there are endless reports about teenage crimes, murder, rape, drug addiction, and so on. This happens because people overemphasize what they think they can do.

Similar to the above example (but not as morbid as it is), overconfidence or using your charisma inappropriately can destroy your personality. As what we have mentioned earlier, people make standards for somebody they would choose to like and respect. If they realize that you are way too much for their standards, they will dislike you the same way as those who don’t match their criteria. Instead of being noticed and liked, people would tend to be annoyed with how excessively you carry your confidence.

With charisma, you don’t want to brag; you just want to be recognized. To make this happen, you must apply enough amounts of its elements – smiling, body language, humor, etc. If you give more than what you should, it becomes too much to handle. Instead of looking attractive, you become irritating; instead of sounding wise, you seem boastful; and instead of giving the impression that you are making friends, you might appear to be more like an insincere politician, who gets the hearts of others just to win in the next election without really meaning what he says.
Charisma is a power. It can either be helpful or destructive. Hence, once you have gained such power, you should be responsible in using it. After all, you want to be a better person, right? So use it to make yourself better, and not worse.