Low self-confidence makes you feel full of self-doubt, be passive or submissive, or have difficulty trusting others. Sometimes you may feel inferior, unloved, or be sensitive to criticism. For instance, you cannot feel confident in all the situations, you may feel confident in academics but lack confidence in others like relationships or public speaking.
“Confidence isn’t walking into a room thinking you’re better than everyone, it’s walking in not having to compare yourself to anyone at all.”
Low self-confidence stems from various experiences like growing up in a critical environment, being separated from family or friends for the first time, judging themself too critically, or being afraid of failure. So people with low self-confidence often make mistakes in their thinking.
Self-confidence and Self-esteem
Self-confidence is an attitude about your skills and abilities. Mostly accepting and trusting yourself along with the sense of control in your life. Lack of self-confidence occurs due to some factors like negligent parents, disapproving parents, physical insecurities, past trauma, anxiety and depression, bad friends, negative self-talk, and comparing themselves with others. The level of self-confidence is different for each person based on genes, cultural background, childhood experiences, and other life circumstances.
Self-esteem is about whether you appreciate and value yourself. It changes as a result of your life experiences and interactions with other people. Here in the curvilinear model, it is clear that low and high self-esteem can be emotionally and socially harmful to you. If you maintain optimum self-esteem then it is easier to balance the emotional aspects.
If you have high self-esteem then you will evaluate yourself to be extreme in praising too much or you expect others to do the same. This leads to being overconfident and overestimating your abilities, attributes, and skills. You may suffer from relationship problems, problems with socializing, lack of improvement, and inability to deal with criticism. On the other hand, if you are having low self-esteem then it causes negative feelings, fear of trying, perfectionism, fear of judgement, low resilience, lack of self-care, and self-harming behaviors.
Association of 3rd Chakra to Self-confidence
If you are struggling with low self-esteem, then it has a huge impact on all aspects of your life. It causes the nagging feeling in your relationships, jobs, and daily work. Sometimes the affirmations and self-help books might not help you. Perhaps it’s time to look into the chakras that help to regain your self-esteem. The third chakra known as Solar Plexus or Manipura chakra located in the navel, and is associated with your self-esteem, self-confidence, personal power, ego, self-discipline, and sense of worth. It is where your feelings and beliefs about yourself are stored. When your third chakra is balanced, making decisions and acting on them is easy, as you do everything because of your self-love. But when the third chakra is underactive, it does have some negative impacts.
Following are the 9 signs of low self-confidence :
- Self-criticism: It is considered a very common sign of low self-esteem, and arises due to poor self-evaluation or self-criticism. In that case, it leads to a lack of acceptance, causing negative thought patterns and beliefs.
- Not feeling confident enough to put across your points: If you are trying to stay in your comfort zone with little risk of failure, it leads to a lack of confidence. In turn, it affects your career and relationship. Therefore, if you want to grow personally and professionally, better take risks and make mistakes. Try to be more curious and expand your horizons.
- Worried too much about what others think of you: Worry is the distorted thought that creates anxiety and negativity. It is the major factor that triggers you to imagine what others might think about you. It will bring insecure feelings about yourself, making you think that your worth depends on the approval of others. Sometimes, it even forces you to be accepted, included, and loved in all situations.
- Seeking approval from others always: It is important to note how often we take approval from others. If it is more frequent, then it means that you are not trusting yourself or your perspective. So, always be aware that you don’t need to take someone else’s approval to feel good about yourself.
- Getting defensive during a debate or discussion: It is better to analyze yourself when you are getting defensive or how often you are pushed into that situation. If you are defensive with your loved ones, it will create a negative environment in your home. In the same way, if it’s in your workplace, it causes problems with your coworkers and supervisors.
- Giving up too soon because you feel you can’t pull it off: People often consider that there are only a few ways to achieve their target and they give up so easily without trying. Based on this others judge the person is not capable of doing it. It all happens because the person has doubt, fear, lack of self-confidence, and lack of self-belief.
- Not able to take up leadership roles: It is alright when the leader feels a lack of confidence at times. But when it becomes a routine, it causes chaos to the people around the leader, leaving a bad impression about the leader’s ability.
- Constantly comparing yourself with others: Don’t ever compare yourself with others. In fact, it will make you feel destructive about your self-esteem and can stop you from learning. You may be too hard on yourself by comparing with others’ abilities. Firstly do consider your uniqueness to stay away from negative influences.
- Being unhealthy and not feeling confident about your physical appearance: Having a healthy body image means identifying your strength and qualities that make you feel good. Mostly when a person does not feel good about themselves, it turns them down to stay away from friends and family. This causes them to lose their self-confidence and self-acceptance.
Ways to Improve Your Self-confidence
- Try to avoid negative self-talk: When you start to convince your subconscious mind that you can’t handle something, then it becomes too hard to do it. In fact, accept yourself for what you are. Don’t expect to be perfect, but try to be more gentle. If you are valued by your friends and colleagues for whom you are, then you must value yourself the same way. Only when you try to lessen the self-judgment and stay mindful will result being self-compassionate. The more you know about yourself, the more you can explain your compassion to others.
- Stop asking for approval from others all the time: Everyone has their own ability to make decisions, whether it’s difficult or not. In fact, decision-making will help you to overcome fear and nervousness. It can improve your self-confidence by challenging yourself even under stressful situations.
- Take up more responsibilities that boost your confidence: Try to leave positive feedback and love notes for yourself, so that these notes will make you feel better and will boost your self-confidence. Being self-disciplined is one of the ways to achieve your goals. So prioritize it by giving time to yourself first. By making this a habit, you can work on meaningful goals and thereby boost your self-confidence.
- Don’t back out in putting your thoughts across: You should be ready to face your fears head-on. Always remember that making a few mistakes and moving forward will help to gain more confidence in yourself.
- Start exercising and try to stay fit: A fitness routine can make you feel more focused and encourage you to face challenges. When you do exercise it makes you feel more comfortable in your body and will increase your self-confidence. Moreover, it makes you feel better and stronger, helps to gain a sense of accomplishment, improves your self-image, rejuvenates your confidence, and increases brain power.
- Spend more time accessing your thoughts: You should always be grateful for who you are. Make sure you introspect more about yourself and admire your qualities. This will help to improve your self-confidence.
- Start meditating: Even though you feel relaxed, along with relaxation, meditation is required to boost your self-confidence. It helps you to recognize and accept yourself. Meanwhile, it stops negative self-talk and disconnects you from unhelpful mental chatter that interferes with your confidence.
- Start laughing at yourself and take jokes about yourself more lightly: It mostly depends on the way you choose to use humor that can cause positive or negative effects. Laughing at your embarrassment relieves your nerves rather than making you feel threatened.
- Well-defined boundaries: If you practise setting boundaries then you are supporting yourself in many ways. It helps you to stay away from others’ attempts to abuse you either intentionally or inadvertently. So creating a boundary that reflects your needs will strengthen your self-esteem. Having healthy boundaries with others can help to improve self-worth.
- Overcoming trauma: As it takes time to clear the rubble and repair the damage caused by disaster or traumatic events, it will take time to recover from painful emotions and to rebuild your life. But there are some ways to cope with emotional trauma like accepting the feelings, challenging the sense of helplessness, getting moving, reaching out to others, and making stress reduction a priority.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Low self-confidence is the root cause of different internal and external experiences like growing up in an unsupportive and critical environment, being separated from friends or family, judging yourself too harshly, being afraid of failure, etc. For internal factors, you can get suggestions from the professionals like counselors and psychologists who help to develop a strategy to build up your confidence. But for the external factors, it’s not in your hands to avoid certain circumstances unless you can set boundaries and stay mindful throughout to make yourself feel more confident.
