How to overcome insecurity: 7 practical steps for building self-confidence

Posted 27 Aug 2023, by Isabel Cabrera

Republished on this Blog

Monday, September 04, 2023

We can all have bouts of insecurity from time to time.

There are loads of reasons why insecurities crop up, and they can cause our self-confidence to plummet.

I’ve had loads of points where I’ve been bogged down by insecurities.

Maybe you’re going through a period now where you’re feeling like your self-confidence has dipped?

Get it back on track and learn how to keep it strong with these 7 practical steps for building self-confidence.

1) Don’t seek approval

When we’re seeking approval from others, it’s a fast track to insecurity.

It could be approval about anything – from your choice to study a particular subject, move to a place, or quit a job.

I used to always look for approval before I did anything and it just consistently led to me feeling insecure.

You see, everyone is going to have a different opinion on what you should do…

…Some people are going to suggest you’re crazy for thinking a certain way, while others are going to say they want to join you!

Truth is, you’ll end up feeling highly conflicted if you spend your life seeking approval and validation from other people.

As I say, I used to be this person so I know how the story goes:

You think you’re confident about something, you share it with someone else and then the doubts creep in when they poo-poo on the idea.

Here’s the thing:

There will always be naysayers who don’t get your vision or support your ideas.

People aren’t always going to agree and support you.

Now, these people are entitled to their own opinions and, chances are, they’re not going to budge on how they think.

It’s up to you to decide whether you share certain things with certain people.

Just remember, if you are sharing things with others, you’re likely to get a mixed bag of opinions back and this could trigger feeling insecure if it’s not what you wanted to hear.

The trick is just ensuring you’re not seeking approval through the process of sharing with others.

2) Focus on gratitude

A lot of people talk about gratitude these days.

It’s for good reason!

Gratitude has the ability to change how you’re experiencing a situation, and it can change your entire day, week, or month.

It’s a simple case of giving genuine thanks for your life, and your experiences and opportunities.

If it’s a new concept for you, just taking five minutes at the beginning of your day to journal is a great place to start.

For instance, my gratitude journal entries look something like:

• I am grateful for the love of my family
• I am grateful that I am healthy and able-bodied
• I am grateful that I have the resources to travel
• I am grateful that I have had the privilege of education
• I am grateful for all of my recent fulfilling conversations

You could give thanks to your pets, your work, and yourself for being brave and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone…

…You can give thanks to anything and everything.

If you feel like it, fill up an entire page!

I’m sure you have a lot of wonderful things in your life to be grateful for. We all do.

But what is the significance of practicing gratitude to overcome insecurity?

Well, doubts and insecurities are born in moments when we are feeling bad about ourselves and our prospects.

They emerge when we lose sight of the beauty and abundance in our lives.

What’s more, studies show that gratitude can actually change the brain structure and boost our well-being!

Just simple affirmations can actually change the neural structure.

UCLA’s Mindfulness Awareness Research Centre found that using gratitude makes us feel happier as these changes occur.

In short:You can think of gratitude as a cheat code for happiness and confidence.

3) Focus on self-care

Self-care is also spoken about a lot these days.

It can mean many different things to different people.

For instance, it could mean taking a window of time before you start work each day, saying ‘no’ to an event to rest because it’s what you really want to do, or blocking out an evening to take a bath and get an early night.

My self-care includes going to yoga three times a week, spending an evening pampering myself every week and going phone-free every Sunday.

Yours can be anything that feels good!

Truth is, we all likely need more self-care than we realize.

In my experience, it’s clear when I’m lacking in self-care as I start feeling highly strung and insecure about where I’m at in life.

I might start fretting that I’m not good enough or at the place I need to be in my life right now.

You see, self-care is the cornerstone to keeping our well-being in check, which contributes to our sense of self-confidence.

Without self-care, we begin to lose touch with where we’re really at and what we need.

Yet this is how so many people live.

In our busy, modern world – where it’s so ingrained to be full steam ahead and we’re taught to give so much of ourselves to others – self-care often isn’t something many people pay that much attention to.

I’ve noticed this a lot.

You might be neglecting your self-care more than you realize.

So my word of advice is to not slip into this way of being and to remain conscious about what your self-care practices look like.

Make a list of the ways you’re going to practice more self-care and don’t be afraid to keep adding to it!

4) Adopt a growth mindset

Our mindsets are everything.

Two people can have the same experience, yet experience it differently.

Let’s say person A doesn’t have a growth mindset, while person B does.

Both people get rejected from a job they applied for. They both really wanted it.

Now, person A responds to the news by beating themselves up and calling themselves a ‘failure’ repeatedly for not securing the job. They cannot see anything positive about the experience and they are saddened by it.

On the other hand, person B acknowledges they learned a lot through the process of preparing for the job interview, and they are grateful for the interview practice. They trust that it was training for something else coming their way.

Can you see the difference?

It’s radical.

Now, people who have growth mindsets know it is essential to live from this place to keep their confidence high.

You see, not adopting a growth mindset and not framing experiences as lessons will cause you to feel much worse about situations more than you should.

You will struggle more than you need to.

As I’ve shown, while person B leaves the experience of a job rejection with new learnings, person A feels insecure about their abilities and is left doubting themselves.

Remember, we’re talking about the same experience. It is simply a case of how things are framed.

Simply put, not seeing situations as opportunities to grow will impact your confidence and sense of worth.

So, make a point of finding growth in your next tricky situation that pops up to build on your confidence.

5) Set achievable goals

Goals are a great tool to keep us focused and motivated.

I personally find myself feeling a little lost without any goals whatsoever, whether it’s for the short-term or something a little more long-term.

Truth is, we all work differently and there are numerous ways for us to work with goals.

What’s significant is that we’re able to stick to our goals to build our self-confidence and beliefs around actually doing the things we put our minds to.

In my experience, setting a goal that’s out of reach and failing to fulfill it only leaves me feeling worse.

Your goals need to be achievable and attainable and broken down into actionable steps.

I like to use a SMART framework, where I measure my goals against parameters.

SMART stands for:

• Specific
• Measureable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

But there is something you need to do before you sit down and outline your specific, measurable, and time-bound goals, you need to unpick why this is an important goal.

You need to be clear on your purpose.

Justin Brown’s free Find your Purpose masterclass was my gateway to getting clear and comfortable with my purpose.

What’s more, through the masterclass, I learned the importance of making a commitment to living out this purpose.

His technique isn’t like the usual process of visualization or meditation that we see in the self-help space.

I recommend taking the class before you go about outlining your SMART goals.

6) Spend time around positive people

It might sound simple to suggest you can build your confidence and reduce insecurity by spending time around positivity.

But, sometimes simple works!

Something happens when you spend time around positive people.

You see, it’s amazing what our environments can do for us when it comes to how we feel about ourselves.

They can have amazing or awful influences on us.

If we’re spending time around people who are highly negative and always moaning about their circumstances, you can bet it’s going to rub off.

For instance, let’s take the work environment as an example.

If people are constantly moaning about their work and not finding any gratitude for the fact they have employment and the opportunities it provides, it’s likely they’ll end up doing the same.

I used to be this person who would moan consistently in the office along with my coworkers.

If we weren’t talking about what our boss had done wrong in our eyes, it was another colleague or even a client.

On the other hand, if you’re around people who are talking about consciousness and the beauty of life, you’ll soon notice how you seem to talk about these themes yourself.

You might go into the office and want to tell everyone about a new meditation app you’ve come across or share the details of a yoga studio you’ve started visiting.

Truth is, we are the sum of the people closest to us.

It’s said we are like the five closest people.

Whether we like to think we are or not, we are highly influenced by the people that surround us.

We can take on some of their mannerisms and traits, and even begin to think similarly!

Personally, I’m aware of how similar I am to my best friend and how she positively influences me.

We laugh at life’s challenges and support each other through tough times. We never complain more than we need to, and we look for the lessons and good in situations.

In my experience, it pays to choose your ‘tribe’ carefully and to embrace people who are positive influences.

If you don’t feel like you have this right now and you want to meet more conscious and positive people, make an effort to go to places where you might meet them.

I’m sure you’ll have more luck than you realize, in no time.

7) Take more risks

Something happens when we take risks:

We learn that we are more capable than we realized… We learn that we can do hard things.

In my experience, whenever I take a risk I’m always blown away by the results that follow.

I’m not talking about experiencing a pleasant surprise, but being totally shocked at the shape things take. I mean shocked in a way I could not have imagined.

I’ll give you an example:

After splitting up with my long-term boyfriend, I decided to travel by myself to a new country without a concrete plan of how long I would stay.

I experienced a lot of fear during the first few days and weeks, feeling as though I had made the wrong decision.

You see, I was truly out of my comfort zone. Everything was unfamiliar. I was feeling a lot of doubt and insecurity because I was struggling with the new environment.

But it opened up an entirely new world, where I met more like-minded people, and I learned to deal with problems by myself.

The risk made me overcome insecurities I’d carried for a long time, as I came to learn how capable I was standing on my own two feet.

In short: the risk felt risky and like a bad idea, but it wasn’t.

What’s more, I’d already thought that even if things didn’t play out in a favorable way, I’d find lessons in the experiences as I have my growth mindset.

You see, each time we take a risk, there is a capacity to grow our confidence.

On the other hand, without taking any risks and pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones, we keep ourselves stuck in the places we’re at.

We never learn our full potential.

Being risk-averse doesn’t allow us to grow and develop into new versions of ourselves.

In my opinion, we owe it to ourselves and the world around us to blossom into new versions continuously.

Related Stories from The Expert Editor

SOURCE: https://experteditor.com.au/blog/how-to-overcome-insecurity/

-----------------------------

6) Self Confidence اعتماد به نفس Confiance

http://hasanzadeh-mansour.blogfa.com/category/1

------------------------