Believing in Yourself

This old conversation (from 2013) with former world chess champion, Magnus Carlsen, was thought-provoking. I could see the point Carlsen was making while also seeing the risk (in fact, he admitted the same himself).

 

Before you read further, keep in mind that Carlsen was not yet the dominant force he would soon become. He was great then, but nothing close to invincible. Yet, even then, Carlsen felt that:

“It’s always better to be overly confident than pessimistic.”

Why?

“If you’re not optimistic, if you’re not looking for your chances, you’re going to miss. You’re going to miss opportunities.”

Conversely, he said:

“There are plenty of players in history who have been immensely talented, but they’re — they’re just too pessimistic. They see too many dangers that are not there and so on so they cannot perform at a very high level.”

Interesting point – they see too many dangers that are not there.

 

Being the best, Carlsen said, requires supreme self-belief:

“You need to have that confidence, you need to have that absolute belief that you’re — you’re the best, and you’ll win every time.”

 

At this point, the interviewer asked whether the two feed into each other:

“You have confidence, and once you had the skills, the confidence served your skill, and your skill served your confidence.”

Carlsen agreed – but admitted that having too much confidence too early is (obviously) dangerous:

“I would lose several games because I would constantly overestimate my chances and so on…”

Until:

“… my playing strength caught up to my optimism.”

 

Having undue confidence in oneself is, clearly, a road to disaster. But being too pessimistic, like Carlsen says, prevents you from pushing yourself and realizing your potential. As if knowing which is which isn’t hard enough, there’s another challenge to this: not all risks are the same, some can be catastrophic, others barely matter. Most of us understand the danger of underestimating a risk, but not everyone realizes that cost of overestimating it.

 

While there is no clear answer here, there is a lot of food for thought in all this.