How To Beat Your Insecurities And Improve Your Self-Esteem
Self-love isn’t selfish and building your self-esteem is vital for your personal growth. It also improves both your personal and professional life. Most of us find it more comfortable to put ourselves down or self-sabotage ourselves by glorifying our mistakes and insecurities or using self-deprecating humor to minimize the embarrassment, but these behaviors aren’t helping us overcome our insecurities, they only make them worse.
It’s normal to have days when you don’t feel your best or feel a little bit behind but you can’t let that feeling dominate your life. At some point, you have to change whatever is feeding your insecurities and holding you back. But the good news is, you totally can, because they’re easy steps that just require some discipline and commitment.
Changing your mindset in the situations that trigger you is fundamental to fighting your insecurities. We tend to make everything about ourselves, especially other people’s behaviors—the more we care about or love someone, the more we take the way they treat us personally. This is more common in romantic relationships where we are prone to being more sensitive and anxious when we see a behavior change. Feeling insecure about yourself can cause you to overreact or struggle with regulating your emotions when these situations arise.
Owning your mistakes is one thing, but constantly measuring your self-worth and value based on how someone else treats you or sees you will never make you feel good about yourself. By affirming your own value and giving yourself more credit in your relationships, you will be able to look at things from a more logical point of view instead of taking it personally and reacting irrationally.
Another important question you need to ask yourself is: Who are you spending most of your time with? The people you spend time with the most have the greatest impact on you emotionally and mentally. Having a kind, supportive, and loving inner circle can improve your self-esteem and make you feel better about yourself.
Are you surrounded by people who believe in you and your dreams or are you surrounded by people who belittle you and criticize you? Are you surrounded by people who are happy for your success and want to see you shine or are you surrounded by self-absorbed people who want to always feel like they’re doing better than you? Remembering who you were with when you felt insecure the most can help you avoid these people and situations in the future.
Last but not least, learn how to be kind to yourself and patient with yourself in the process. Beating your insecurities and improving your self-esteem doesn’t happen overnight, especially if you’ve been blaming yourself for your shortcomings all your life. Taking small but necessary steps to heal your emotional wounds, changing the way you think about yourself, and filtering your environment will put you on the right track towards being more confident and happier. Prioritize your self-worth and your own needs in every aspect of your life and you will eventually start to see major improvements that keep you moving forward.
If you don’t truly value yourself and practice that daily, no one will truly value you. It’s your choice whether you want to be your own best friend or your own worst enemy. You have the power, so use it to your advantage.