How to turn your own insecurity to your advantage

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Tips from a book published by Forbes.

When it comes to self-doubt, most often it is advised to develop opposite qualities: decisiveness, firmness, impudence. But the point is how exactly you try to become confident.

To do this, some belittle others or compare themselves to weaker ones, adjust to cultural norms in order to meet other people's definitions of success. These are unreliable methods (not to mention the fact that some of them are just plain low). They can even cause depression.

It's okay to doubt yourself. Do not assume that you are the only one who faced this problem. Neither popular musicians, nor renowned surgeons, nor talented authors are immune from this. Writer Maya Angelou once said, “I've written 11 books, but every time I think, 'Oh no, I'm about to be revealed. I deceived everyone, and now they will expose me "".

Don't be afraid to doubt yourself. Accept them as a natural opportunity for growth.

Self-efficacy will help with this. This concept was introduced by the psychologist Albert Bandura. His research, published in 1977, revolutionized the scientific community. The American Psychological Association even ranked the author as the fourth most important psychologist of the 20th century. He was overtaken only by Berres Skinner, Jean Piaget and Sigmund Freud.

For Bandura, self-efficacy is the belief in your ability to come up with a plan of action and complete the tasks necessary to be successful. If you doubt that it is within your power to achieve what you want, then you will not want to get down to business or persist in times of difficulty. But if you have a high level of self-efficacy, then you approach goals and life challenges differently. This affects both wages and job satisfaction.

Of course, even highly self-efficacious people doubt themselves. But it helps turn those doubts into motivation. Self-efficacy is especially important for those who achieved heights later than others. Because of their common obsession with early success, they often lack two primary sources of confidence: moments of skill and role models.

We experience moments of mastery when we achieve a goal - for example, passing an exam brilliantly, winning a sports competition, or successfully passing an interview. They increase our self-confidence. Those who developed more slowly or simply found themselves later, usually have fewer such moments. And fewer role models, because in our culture, attention is focused mainly on young talents.

Self-efficacy can be developed in a fairly simple way - talking to yourself.

We do this all the time: we encourage, then we criticize ourselves. In psychology, this is called internal dialogue. With it, we form our relationship with ourselves and learn objective self-esteem. This is especially necessary for those who later found themselves in order to overcome negative cultural signals from others and society.

Psychologists have long studied the relationship between positive internal dialogue and self-efficacy. For example, scientists from Greece tested how it affects water polo players, namely their ability to throw the ball - they evaluated the accuracy and distance. It turned out that thanks to the positive internal dialogue, the athletes significantly improved both indicators, as well as increased self-confidence.

It helps not only in sports. And even how we address ourselves is important. Psychologist Ethan Cross conducted an experiment. At first, he provoked stress among the participants: he said that they have five minutes to prepare to speak in front of a group of judges.

To reduce anxiety, one half was advised to address themselves in the first person ("Why am I so scared?"), The other - from the second or third ("Why are you so scared?", "Why is Katie so scared?"). After the performance, everyone was asked to rate how embarrassed they felt.

It turned out that people who used their name or the pronoun "you" were much less ashamed of themselves. In addition, observers recognized their performances as more confident and convincing.

According to Cross, when we think of ourselves as another person, we can give ourselves "objective and useful feedback." This happens because we distance ourselves from our own personality and seem to be giving advice to another person.

We are no longer inside the problem and can think more clearly, without being distracted by emotions.

There is one caveat: internal dialogue should not be overly optimistic. Don't create high expectations for yourself - just look for something positive in situations. Don't dismiss obstacles and mistakes, use them as an opportunity to evaluate your actions and learn something new.