“Until you cross the bridge of your insecurities, you can’t begin to explore your possibilities.”
-Unknown
Hi everyone! Welcome to Goals & Good Vibes! It was requested by a friend that I offer some ways to overcome insecurities. Let’s face it, we all have atleast that ‘one thing’ about ourselves or our abilities that we don’t like or wish we could change or be better at. Nobody feels confident 100 of the time. You can feel insecure in any area of your life when you lack self-esteem and have a negative self-image. You might avoid mirrors, or being captured in a family photo. You may feel anxious in social situations, because you’re worried about what people are thinking of you or you might compare yourself to others, and feel like you don’t measure up. You may even feel you don’t deserve to be loved.
To overcome your insecurities you have to know what causes them in the first place. You can learn to shift your mindset and how you percieve them, because insecurities stem from our beliefs and our perspective of our circumstances. Here are just 5 Ways to Overcome Insecurity. I hope they are able to help you and if you would like to read about the ’10 Ways to Practice Self-Love’ that was my last post, so if you keep scrolling it should be right there! 🙂
1. Challenge your limiting beliefs
Our Beliefs start forming the day we are born. Our upbringing, our surroundings, education, and experiences in life all come together to create who we are today. We have positive experiences that add to who we are, but we also go through negative experiences that leave us with deep emotional wounds and we put up walls within us for protection. Forming new beliefs takes time. Rewiring our beliefs is a vital part of overcoming insecurities. To do that, you need to change your environment. You can start by removing yourself from negative people. It’s not easy to grow, when you’re surrounded by negativity, complaints, put downs, or people who blames life for their problems. Instead, surround yourself with like-minded people who embody the new belief you want to form and see life as an endless stream of possibilites! Instead of seeing others as competition, see them as a reflection of what you’re capable of! Start reading or listenining to content that will reinfoce the new belief, like a self-help book or an inspirational podcast.
2. Adopt a Growth Mindset
People who have a growth mindset don’t look at shortcomings as setbacks, but rather as opportunities to make improvement because they know they will eventually reach their goal. If they set a goal and they don’t acheive it, they look it as a way to do better next time and keep trying. Make everything a learning experience. It’s essential if you want to learn how to stop being insecure, to be confident in your ability to acheive anything you set your mind to. Try to set realistic goals, and accomplishing them will help boost your self-esteem.
3. Change your story
Put a stop to those repetitive negative thoughts. It might be hard to notice we’re doing this if we’ve been listening to negative self-talk for awhile. Our inner voice can be pretty critical sometimes. Becoming aware of our thoughts, is the first step toward detatching from the negative ones and make space for new positive thought patterns to create a more empowering story for ourselves. One easy tip is to start with daily affirmations. Conciously feeding your mind positive self-talk and uplifting statements will help it to become a more natural thing over time, more of like a habit.
4. Remember your positive qualities
When you only focus on the insecurities you have about yourself, you tend to neglect the positive qualities about yourself that make you – YOU! Figuring out what your good qualities are and what you love about yourself can be hard for you if you have low self-esteem, because your negative thoughts will distort your view of yourself and trick you into overlooking the positives. To identify your good qualities, you need to get to know yourself, and become self-aware and focus on who you are as a person. Make a deliberate effort to pay attention to the good things you’ve done each day, reflect on anything good that happens, and do the things that make you feel like you.
5. Take care of your physical health
Physical health is mentioned a lot by me, being that I’m a fitness coach.. but I truly believe exercising, getting good sleep, drinking enough water, the foods you eat have a huge impact on your mental health status and self-esteem. If you suffer from a mental illness, I’m not down playing it’s seriousness. I myself, am a very anxious person, mostly socially anxious and my insecurites have expressed themselves in many ways throughout my life. I notice a difference in how I feel when I make an effort to take care of myself though. So just start by making some small changes in your day to day routine and you will build habits and consistency over time. When you’re physically healthier, you tend to become mentally healthier as well because it all comes together.