“Our insecurities are not character flaws in any way, but how we choose to deal with them makes a difference in our character.”

Insecurity is like a permanent chip on your shoulder about who you are and what you do. Not surprisingly, you and many others find it a struggle to deal with your insecurities.

You question yourself.

Am I smart enough?

Am I pretty enough?

Am I interesting enough?

When we feel insecure, we lack confidence in ourselves and how people perceive us. Due to our insecurities, we feel weakened and we feel like we need to be on guard or defend ourselves from other people.

Most of us tend to be ashamed of our insecurities because we think that others will perceive it as a problem like we do. We shy away from them and view them as an ugliness that needs to be hidden away from sight, forgotten, instead of dealing with it.

We sometimes downplay our insecurities because it seems lame compared to other people’s insecurities.

Yes, we are insecure about our insecurities.

Yet, insecurities exist in our hearts and our minds. It is a constant reminder that we aren’t enough.

The faces of insecurity

Insecurity starts with comparison. When we are little, adults around us compare us to the other kids. Did we do better in tests, are we cute looking children. As we grow up, we get used to comparing ourselves, to others, to our ideal version of who we are.

Our insecurity grows deeper as we think about how we do not measure up. Insecurity is a void in our sense of self that gets bigger as the people around us chip away at it.

Insecurity hits us in so many ways, we feel insecure when someone else gets more attention than us, when someone else finds love whilst you feel alone, when you make less money than your friends and when someone else gets promoted for a position that should have been yours.

As a younger woman in my 20s, I used to feel insecure about my capabilities at work. I just didn’t feel qualified enough nor capable enough. As I got older however, I learned that sometimes you fuel that insecurity and sometimes other people did.

If you convinced yourself that you couldn’t do something, naturally you will feel incapable of doing it. However, if someone else reaffirms that belief by questioning your abilities or making jokes about it then it is inevitable that you would feel insecure.

Insecurity also comes from not knowing yourself well. When you do not know what you do well or what you don’t, you assume that you are going to suck at everything. It is simply our psyche’s way of making life easier for us.

When you feel insecure, imposter syndrome sets in and often you start to self-sabotage.

When confronted with a challenge, your mind tells you: “This task requires effort, don’t bother doing it. You won’t succeed anyway. Save yourself the heartache.”

How we deal with insecurities

We deal with our insecurities by ignoring it. Never facing up to your inadequacies meant that you can’t ever be accused of being less than perfect.

We overcompensate by trying to gain approval from others. We become too needy, too pushy, and too much for people to take.

We try to do more but accomplish much less. In the meantime, we still feel insecure.

People add to your insecurities too

You are not the only one causing your insecurity, there are also some people in our lives who sniff out our insecurities and pounce on them, don’t they?

Think of the people who have said that you look like you have gained weight, when you haven’t.

Think of the people who provided their unsolicited advice in anything that you have done, when you didn’t ask.

Think of all the people who have mansplained things to you (even when they aren’t men).

Think of the people who have made remarks about you and then said, of just kidding (when you know they aren’t).

At its core, insecurity is you telling yourself that you have a flaw, that you are not perfect and not enough in a certain area.

Most of the time we can shrug it off because we might feel only slightly insecure and sensitive about something which is normal. Sometimes however, it can get so debilitating that we start to believe and make adjustments in our life to compensate for our perceived lack. Yet again, hiding away instead of dealing with our insecurities.

How does our insecurities influence our lives

Physical appearance

Being insecure about your looks might mean that you dress in a certain way to hide yourself.

It might mean that you constantly criticise yourself for looking this way.

You might also shy away from meeting people socially because you are so afraid of judgment on your appearance.

Being insecure about your appearance can cause you to be paranoid about what people say versus what they mean. You start to double guess what others say and start to see many comments as a jibe at how you look.

Professional capabilities

If you are someone who have little confidence in what you can do professionally, you will simply find ways to not look for any challenges or even find it difficult to go for different jobs.

Being insecure professionally holds you back from reaching higher. It holds you back from creating a better life for yourself because you have no confidence in your abilities.

Relationship

In a relationship, being insecure causes conflicts because you can’t trust your partner and you are possessive and clingy as a result of that.

You feel like your partner will run off with the first attractive person because you doubt what you bring to the relationship and you doubt why he or she is even with you in the first place.

Life

Being insecure stops you from trying out new things and connecting with others because you are in constant fear of what others think about you.

Your insecurities make you focus on your failures and that will make you doubt yourself all the time.

Being insecure makes you constantly try to gain approval to reassure yourself that you are a person of value. That however, pushes people even further from you.

What can you do to start feeling more secure about yourself

It all starts with you.

You need to know yourself better. You need to cut yourself some slack. You need to accept that you are not a perfect human being because none of us are.

You need to know that being insecure is not a flaw. We are all insecure about some things, some of the time. It is only a problem when it starts to seriously hinder you from living your life.

When your insecurities starts to keep you trapped at home and stops you from connecting with people, from building relationships, from aiming for bigger goals in life, it’s a problem.

You need to deal with your insecurities and not just avoid them.

It is easy to just simply say that you should just start feeling better about yourself but sometimes practical steps are needed. Here are the steps to help you deal with your insecurities

Step 1: Acknowledge the insecurity

When you next feel insecure think about what it is that you feel bad about yourself.

What is making you feel insecure? For many of us, our insecurities are things that make us feel small, less capable, less accomplished. It might seem insignificant to others but it is significant for you.

We tend to project our own insecurities by criticising about others in the same aspect. What are you jealous about? What do you envy about others?

If you find yourself dissing about others in a certain aspect, look closer at what you are feeling negative about.

Step 2: Identify the source of the insecurity

Think about what causes your insecurity in the first place. Does it stem from childhood? Constant criticisms from your parents or teachers? Does it stem from your current environment? Friends who make jokes at your expense? Was there an event in your life that caused you to lose confidence?

Step 3: Identify the validity of the insecurity

If you can’t trace it back to any specific event or origins of your insecurity, you need to ask yourself what the rationale is behind your insecurity. We do not wake up one day and decide we are going to be insecure or secure about something. Insecurity is something that grows over time.

Is this insecurity based on reality? What makes you think you aren’t good enough in this aspect? Do you have proof of this?

Step 4: Reframe how you think about your insecurity

Now that you know what the insecurity is, you have also identified the source and confirm whether the insecurity is accurate.

Think about a specific insecurity and then reframe it in a different perspective.

For example, if you are insecure about what your capabilities, think about what exactly you are anxious about. Most of us aren’t great at everything, likewise, we aren’t lousy at everything either.

When you feel insecure about what you cannot do, think about what you can do. Work to your strengths instead of focusing on your weaknesses.

Step 5: Forget about what other people say

Finally, you need to stop giving a shit about what others say because it won’t help you at all. Constructive criticism is using requested and given in a way that helps you improve, not just feel bad about yourself.

Unsolicited advice or comments tend to be destructive criticisms, they are only satisfying their own need to put you down.

For example, if someone comments on my weight in a negative way, I think about how I truly look: have I gained weight or do I look the same?

Next, think about the person saying it. What do they say about themselves and others? Do they tend to criticise how everybody looks anyway?

Most likely, you will find that people who go out of their way to dish out negative comments are projecting their insecurities on the people around them. Meaning, they hate the way they look.

Think about what makes them say such things. What do they really hate about themselves? In fact, you can go ahead and feel a little sorry for them if you are in a compassionate mood. Don’t dwell on their insecurities, deal with your own.

Now, if the person commenting on your insecurity is you, which it usually is. You need to give yourself some slack and again, identify whether what you are saying is accurate and work through why you think so and how you can change how you think about it.

Insecurities are a part of who we are

At the end of the day, insecurities are part of us. We are always striving to be a better version of ourselves and with that comes a part of us that feels less than adequate.

It is only natural to feel insecure at times but insecurity should not be the barrier that keeps you from living your life.

You do not need to eliminate your insecurities, instead you need to deal with your insecurities by looking at them objectively. You need to decide whether you are in control of it or whether you are going to let it define who you are.