How to overcome overconfidence and cockiness

During my last year in grad school, I got a big reality check that taught me a lot about overconfidence.

Topics Discussed:
- overconfidence
- vasovagal syncope (fainting)
- Dunning-Kruger effect
- growth
- Bellevue Hospital

Learn more:

THE PSYCH SHOW! Weekly adventures in psychology, the brain, and behavioral sciences with Dr. Ali Mattu!

[akshaynaresh]

Going through this now during my internship application process. One of my mentors has a saying, "stay humble, stay hungry".. something I like to use. Life always has a way of humbling you when you're least expecting it.

[transformpsych]

With one of my very first clients I was listening to them talk and suddenly I thought to myself "Wow this guy really needs to see a therapist." Then suddenly it occurred to me that I was the therapist. You think your ready when you first get out there but all that theory means nothing until you get a sense of what it is like live and in person. Thank God for clinical supervision!!

[ashirakhter]

I just recently failed a test worth 15% of my mark for a course I took too lightly. This course is otherwise not hard, I could see myself getting a 100 on that test if I had just put the work in as oppose to being too overconfident.

[ABetterLoveProject]

Ha! Same experience at the beginning of my internship. Thats the unique part of this training, especially for PsyD's who are immersed in clinical supervision from day one, the feedback and reflection is nonstop! Glad to see you up and running.

[aishwaryasolanki]

I'm a psych major myself and I often get this feedback that I'm "overconfident", which is odd as I experience borderline crippling social anxiety in social situations, especially if it's something academic in nature. I also want to know how you deal with cocky people, that would help my everyday clinical experience.

[capsfox]

Good video! Thanks for sharing your experience. I definitely went through this with teaching. I guess it's a phase lots of people go through!

[jenniferswann]

Just crashed and burned being overconfident with my abilities in a new area. Thank you that was EXACTLY what I needed!

[starabrargaming]

I am suffering from overconfidence as a student, plz tell a way to avoid it.

[billiepotts]

Indeed, faux confidence for me is a red flag that I don't know enough--real confidence feels complete different.

[anniea]

God you're incredible!! I want to do this!!

[mentos]

I'm a student and I am suffering from overconfidence because I have first time studied this much can you please tell me how to deal with it because I'm not able to move forward please reply soon I just want to get rid of it I know it's bad but I'm not able to run out of this situation I want to get out from this situation and want to run forward in my subjects please reply

From INDIA 🇮🇳

[exazalexa]

I took one compliment (epic ness) based on me pretending not to know how to use a row boat with another person, and made it last until now. DON'T DO THIS.

[doyouknowtheway]

Hey, so over confidence is a problem I have... I started drawing las December (abou 7 ½ months back) and got pretty good at it. I'm no art genius but in that short time I was able to even make a couple of bucks using my skill and that from what I heard is not something that happens everyday. Through this i developed an over confidence and now it sorta started to affect social life as i start to devalue others, (even though I'm not that great either). There are probably some other reasons for this but that's what i feel like is a reason. I rejected art advice from even some of my clients as I thought "they don't get it" to later find out that they were correct.

So basically I think myself as better than everyone else and that feels like a bad thing that could lead to not having friends and stuff.. what should I do?

[gabriellechapin]

Sometimes it depends on the situation; even when you're inexperienced at something you can still provide new ideas about it and then get the experience or find someone who has it to implement them, kind of like Nash, a famous mathematician with schizophrenia, did. He was overconfident, but it got him far in the end. I also have a question: How can you tell the difference between anxiety and a vasovagal response?

[Defhrone]

Can the opposite also happen? I lack confidence horribly and actually going thru some therapy for it now. But over the course of the last few years I've noticed a pattern where I think I'm going to fail a particulair test or be horribly bad at some game my friends want to play and I turn out to great at it. Or in case of the test I got a perfect score. I've even sort of put it to use. As because I think I'll lose, I become very non-competative in games and just play to enjoy myself and never look at the score and it seems to improve my game alot. Also something interesting I've noticed is that when my opponent mentions that I'm in the lead and I take notice of that fact, by game get worse. I've wondered if it could be to do with trauma (which I won't go into) and resulting in me trying to avoid winning because I don't like standing out at all as I associate that with becoming a target for anger and violence. My question is: is this assessement plausible, can this happen? And does it have a name?

[joanalbano]

Ugh. My 12 year old son. Since he was born. All the time. Seems like he doesn't learn from one painful lesson to the next. Somehow it all comes together eventually. Drives his daddy crazy.