Insecurity Vs. Inner Security: 3 Steps For Finding Harmony In Your Life
Insecurities are rampant among people everywhere, young or old, male or female. They can impact our lives to varying degrees, from making us check the mirror, to leaving us feeling absolutely unable to leave the house in fear of people laying eyes on the utter failures we are.
My insecurities reflected the latter. Everything I said or did, the way I looked, the fact that I could never seem to be good enough at anything mounted and mounted until I had diminished any source of security within myself. I hated being me.
A resounding absence of self esteem leads to having pretty shaky foundations of inner security. It makes it impossible to elicit any trust or belief in yourself; there’s no acknowledgment of achievement or success. When insecurities attack every feature of your being, you kind of lose any stable sense of self.
Feeling insecure can be debilitating, and it filters into every aspect of life: relationships, work, sports. It rears its ugly head to put you down as a girlfriend, boyfriend, worker, athlete and student.
Regardless how hard you try, it never seems to lead to the fulfilling satisfaction that you’ve done your best work and you should be damn proud.
Insecurity robs you of seeing yourself for how amazing you actually are; it puts others on a pedestal and you beneath ground, never able to measure up.
But, like anything else that hinders your sense of self, it’s totally possible and basically necessary to shake this off and gain the security and confidence within yourself that you deserve.
First, you must take your enemy head on.
You're the enemy. You must stop speaking to yourself in this way. Stop putting yourself down and rejecting compliments.
Anything that denies you of hearing the positive, beautiful thoughts others think of you needs to be challenged. It’s time to take down that wall and find out who’s behind it.
Who are you? What do you like? What’s important to you? What do you want to do with your life? What are you good at?
When you start to see yourself with something -- anything -- to offer, your worth bumps up a little bit. Finding little things that make you feel good about yourself will allow you to become increasingly more confident in who you are and proud of what you can bring to the world.
There’s something about you that is different, some little quirk that no one else can mirror. And, you have got to start owning it instead of ignoring it.
Then build on that, because practice makes permanent.
Becoming secure with yourself means you have a core of steel, and of course, this takes time to develop. It has to be an ongoing, active process.
You have to question the negative names you call yourself or the reasons you think you’re any less than anyone else.
Ask those questions; call yourself out on your own bullsh*t. After some time passes, your sense of self will be strong, and you’ll know what you’re all about. You won’t be trying to be anyone but you because you’ll finally be enough.
Finally, embrace your newfound security.
Go out and do the things that may have been clouded with fear or doubt before. You know what you’re capable of now, and you have enough self-worth to not let that go to waste.
It’s amazing what can happen when you see the world through more confident, self-assured eyes. Instead of an obstacle course of potential anxiety and self-scrutiny, the world becomes rampant with opportunity. People become less scary. There are no more pedestals.
The journey from insecurity to security is one that can take you from merely existing (regrettably) to thoroughly enjoying living. It removes the shackles of not feeling good enough and catapults you into feeling able to take on your goals and pursue your dreams.
I’m not going to act like it’s easy because it’s definitely not. It’s a fairly huge overhaul of an ingrained habit of thought, but taking the time to continuously chip away at it will make an incredible change.
You are the protagonist of your life, finding yourself, becoming secure about that person and then being wholly confident in your endeavors. These things are the makings of your remarkable story.
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