A very common problem people face are their insecurities. Insecurities are those areas of your life or your personality that sneaks up on you. They hide in the background waiting to pounce and make you feel awful. Perhaps they cause you to behave very badly. This is the essence of insecurity.
How can you tell if someone is insecure? The person will hide something. Leaving out bits of truth or details about the subject matter, typically indicates they are insecure. Why hold back if you are comfortable with the subject matter? Some people are great at identifying insecurities in other people, but don’t seem to have the slightest handle on their OWN insecurities. Interesting how that works…. However, it does make sense because its much easier to observe others than it is to observe yourself.
Do you ever feel like you get extremely uncomfortable during certain daily activities? Maybe when you are interacting with friends, you find that certain subject matters come up in discussion, and you suddenly feel a bit off. This can be anything really. An example from youth and teenage years, had to do with girls. I was very insecure about my inability to talk to girls that I found attractive. Whenever other guy friends would bring up this type of conversation concerning their girlfriends or girls they were looking to talk to, I would get very uptight and uncomfortable.
Now this can be something relate to, or you could be insecure about many different things. Another good example is money. Lots of people do not want others to know how much money they earn, or how much debt they are in. They feel as though this might be considered an area of weakness, or or are worried people will look down on them. Regardless, this is an area of insecurity.
So we all have insecurities. But it is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. How insecure we are about an insecurity also plays in a role in how much discomfort or pain it brings when confronted with it. So the question I would ask is NOT: “How can I eliminate those insecurities?” but instead: “what can I do to lessen the impact of those insecurities?”
So what can you do? Well you can address each insecurity on its own of course. You single out a specific area of your life, or rather a subject matter that gives you problems, and dig into the origins of it. It is often useful to understand the nature of your insecurities so that you may find a way to address the reasons why they continue to be a problem. However, if the insecurity is leading you to undesirable behaviors, you only need to develop a new response/reaction and behavior as it relates to the issue that causes it. Such as, you become frustrated and angry when you detect that someone is not listening to you during a conversation. You don’t need to go back to your past and relive the days when a parent or authority figure ignored you because you were a child. Instead you can understand on a cognitive level that someone’s attention may wane not because they don’t value your input, but instead because they simply got distracted. How many times have you been listening to someone, and got sidetracked by your own thoughts? You can influence this behavior by simply putting yourself in the shoes of the person across from you, and you’ll likely restrain your anger, versus your typical frustration.
Another technique I like to use to lessen the sting of insecurities are by addressing them on the whole. I’ve learned that for myself, insecurities typically stem from a likening to what other people think of me. I let the opinions of others have a profound effect on my behavior. This allows any truthfulness of my insecurities push me away from opening up to people about them. The trickle down effect is exactly what I stated earlier, in that I will suddenly become uncomfortable when conversations or subject matters come up. In response to this, I recommend working on coaching myself (and others) on focusing your thoughts away from the opinions of others. How often do the opinions of others have a direct impact on you? How important is the opinion of another person on your current state? What you think the person’s opinion about you may be incorrect anyway?
By discarding emotional baggage dedicated to worrying about other’s opinions, you can empower yourself greatly. Insecurities across your entire life, can simply dissolve when you stop allowing yourself to worry about the opinions others have about you. The goal is not to entirely remove or destroy insecurities, but you can greatly diminish their impact, if you don’t mind what others think of it. Give yourself the space to live without ridicule. This is a powerful way to minimize the pain of insecurity. Sometimes others are actually dealing with similar problems and can offer their support?
Remember that a problem is not a problem unless it’s SOMEONE’s problem…and that’s usually you. You have to view a situation as a problem in order for it to be one. If I’m insecure about the fact that I don’t have a car and need to ride the bus or train everywhere, well then I’m in good company since there are MANY people who also do not have a car to drive places and are just fine with it.
Trust in your ability to deal with your insecurities. By addressing them instead of avoiding them, you can empower yourself to new levels of confidence and ultimately happiness.