People so often conflate arrogance with extreme self-confidence. In many of those misattributed players, we actually see the perfect balance for their “inflated egos” in humility.
While judging a player’s actions, we see truly whether they are arrogant or just supremely confident. The latter does not settle for being a great player and cannot wait to train again to improve further. They may well be aware of their flaws, but choose to exercise developing them in private over publicly self-flagellating.
With any success comes a handful of pride. The majority take this high and latch onto it as if it were a fixed state. As a result, they become complacent and soon the wins turn into defeats. Just as the success was self-attributed, so will the losses and soon we see a negative-cycle psychologically.
Wins while enjoyed, should not come as a source of pride. So long as you can be a better player tomorrow than you are today, there are imperfections to develop. A healthy dose of humility to root you to the ground even when success tries to lift your pride, will allow for more consistent and longer-term success. Although rising in confidence with each win, this is accompanied by that strong desire to continue improving, remaining diligent through practice. A player does not always need to state publicly what critical self-reflection reveals, especially when it is not pertinent to do so. That said, provided they know and act on these, they are not arrogant and are able to conquer pride.
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