My Secret to Overcoming Insecurity Confidently
Do you ever feel uncertain, unsure, or anxious when faced with a new situation and higher levels of responsibility are expected of you? When I talk with especially women starting out in leadership, one of the recurring themes I hear is that they feel insecure. It’s not surprising at all though! For some, new situations and increased responsibility can be invigorating and motivating and acts as a catalyst forward. Or you might find like many people that it has the opposite effect on you and holds you back. The great thing is, it doesn’t have to! Let’s go behind the scenes of insecurity and discover what the opposite can look like for you.
In order to see new successes in our life, we have to name what’s holding us back. So, if you find yourself struggling to make progress in an area of your life or work, dreaming about how things could be but not seeing any traction to get there, or genuinely feeling paralyzed by fear or anxiety you might be struggling with insecurity in an area of your life (or in general).
What exactly is insecurity?
The word insecurity is so commonly used, but what exactly does it mean? Webster defines insecurity as “not confident or sure, uncertain, deficient in assurance: beset [affected, overwhelmed, overcome] by fear and anxiety.”
Here’s the deal, you don’t have to be insecure about every area of your life to be held back by insecurity in one area of your life. You could be fully confident in your ability to maintain nutritional health and yet be uncertain when it comes to your physical health. Or you might be super confident about motivating people but feel really anxious about helping people work through conflict.
So, if there’s even one area of your life or work where you’re struggling with insecurity, it could be holding you back from achieving the success you know you’re destined for. Let’s get to how you can overcome your insecurity so that you can confidently achieve your goals and mission!
What's the opposite of insecurity?
First, let’slook at what the opposite of insecurity is: assurance, self-assurance, and confidence.Again, from Webster, this looks like “easy freedom from self-doubt oruncertainty, characterized by certainty or security, confidence in oneself andin one’s powers and abilities, a feeling or consciousness of one’s power or ofreliance on one’s circumstances; the quality or state of being certain (as in:“had perfect confidence in her ability to succeed”; “met the risk with brashconfidence.” This is exactly how we want to feel about every area of our life sothat we can achieve all that we set out to!
Confidence not Arrogance
When we talk about confidence, let's make sure we know what we're not talking about. Confidence is not arrogance. Arrogance is defined as “an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions” (Webster). Confidence is also not the same as the pride that so many seek to avoid. Pride (in a negative sense) is having an “inordinate self-esteem” or being conceited, having an “excessive appreciation of one’s own worth or virtue,” (Webster) above all others.
To be confident is not the same as being arrogant or prideful, which none of us wants to become. And yet, the fear of becoming arrogant or prideful so often gets in the way of being a truly confident person. You can be confident and avoid being arrogant and prideful!
My Secret to Being Confident
Having confidence in yourself means you know your abilities, you trust that you can rely on yourself to show up, and you know that you can accomplish what you set out to do. So, knowing who you are is crucial to having confidence. Overcoming insecurity in an area of your life involves shifting your mindset about who you are and who you’re created to be.
As someone who follows Jesus, I truly believe you and I were created to be co-creators with God. God created each of us in God’s own image to co-labor with God! You and I were created uniquely the way we are for a reason. Our gifts, our passions, our strengths, our dreams, our personality--all of it has a purpose and is specific to who we are. Having assurance about who God has created me to be is the foundation of my confidence!
Overcoming insecurity also involves changing our mindsets about who God is. Often insecurity emerges when we’re being stretched, and we start to feel uncomfortable because we find ourselves in new situations that we haven’t been through before. And then we start to question if we’re even supposed to be here or if we should quit. When we get to this spot, we have to remember that God is always with us, God is faithful, God is good, and God can do
No one ever becomes great at anything without having to push through some measure of insecurity, some measure of uncertainty, fear, or anxiety. Those that do fulfill their destiny know that somehow someway they’ll be able to figure it out despite how they feel. They know that being unsure or uncertain isn’t going to kill them. In fact, they see it as a sign that they have something new to learn, so they set about learning and getting better as they go! If you're insecure in a specific area of life or work, what's your insecurity telling you? Comment below and let me know!