Feeling insecure, anxious or filled with self-doubt? Do this!

What to do when you are feeling insecure, anxious, or filled with self-doubt?

As a life coach who specialises in confidence and self-esteem, I regularly come across this question. In my experience, you need to go straight to the source of the problem: what is causing you to feel insecure, anxious or doubt yourself?

Dig deep. Then dig a little deeper. Then some more.

If you dig as deep as possible, you will notice that the main cause of your insecurity, anxiety or self-doubt is that you believe you are not enough. This feeling of ‘I am not enough’ shows up in so many different ways, and is the number one cause of your insecurity, depression, self-doubt and loneliness.

The feeling that ’I am not good enough’ is the reason you don’t go after that promotion you deserve or push people who truly care about you away. It’s the reason you find it difficult to date, don’t live up to your true value, and stay up at night worrying.

You’re not alone. Insecurity, low self-esteem and lack of confidence are extremely common, particularly among women. A study published in 2019 found that a staggering 79% of women don’t have the confidence to ask for more senior positions at work, despite typically being more ambitious than our male colleagues*.

So, what do you do? 

Reprogramming your mind

You start by reprogramming your mind - it’s your thoughts that are holding you back. There are many ways you can start to reprogram your way of thinking when you’re feeling insecure, anxious, and doubting yourself.

Here are three simple ways you can do this yourself:

Affirmations

The first one is to read powerful affirmations aloud, stating what you want to believe about yourself. Repeat these daily, with conviction, until you start to believe they are true. Affirmations are statements, and when repeated frequently can be a powerful tool to re-define your internal dialogue.

Guided meditations

The second is to use guided meditations to reprogram your thoughts while you sleep. When listening to guided meditation you enter into a trance. Trance is when the two minds - your emotional and intellectual minds - come together and focus on the same thing. When we are in this state, we have access to the subconscious mind. The positive suggestions from the guided meditation will then enter your subconscious mind. Once a suggestion has been accepted by the subconscious mind - which happens when you regularly feed your subconscious mind – it becomes easier for those suggestions to be acted upon.

So, if you feed your mind confident suggestions regularly it makes it easier for you to think like a confident person, act like a confident person, behave like a confident person, show up as a confident person – become a confident person!

Override limiting beliefs

The third way is to complete one small task, which is in complete opposition to how you feel. Your brain cannot hold two conflicting thoughts at the same time. By doing something that conflicts with how you feel, you will prove yourself wrong and override your limiting belief.
For example, if you think that you do not matter, carry out a random act of kindness whereby someone appreciates your efforts. This would override your limiting belief that you do not matter; or go a step further and list down every time you have affected someone in a positive way, every time you have helped someone, every time you have put a smile on someone’s face, every time someone has reached out to you because they need your help, advise, or comfort.

List down all of your contributions, any time you have given a gift, all the times you have been a listening ear to someone, all your acts of kindness, all the positive impacts that you have made on a person, on a project, or at work – these are all examples on how you matter. By seeing proof of how you matter, it will override the limiting belief that you don’t.

If you'd like further help to reprogramme your mind and swap the negative thoughts for positive ones, you could consider working with a life coach specialising in coaching for personal development. A life coach will be able to offer support and guidance in making changes to your thought patterns and could help you find the self-worth and confidence you've been missing.

References

* My Confidence Matters - Getting to Equal: Career Confidence and the Path to Leadership 2019 Survey Results Analysis and commentary by Dr Geraldine Perriam, Honorary Research Associate, University of Glasgow.