Dealing with low self-confidence is tough. Not only do you feel stuck in everything that is negative about yourself, but a lack of confidence can completely impact every area of your life. It will be harder for you to make friends, get jobs, and even feel like you are heard, all because your negative self-talk takes over every part of your life.
For example, people who have low self-esteem tend to say things like "always" and "never", which does more harm than good. After all, if you are "always" last and "never" first, your brain will eventually start to believe what you are telling yourself. When that happens, it becomes much more difficult to change the way you are thinking. You need to change the way you talk to yourself (or your 'self talk') in order to change your life. It will take some time, but if you learn to change the way that you think you will eventually realize the amazing value that you have within you.
Here are some of the most common forms of negative self-talk and ways you can change them:
"It will never happen for me, I am never going to get this right"
This is a very dangerous way to think. If you believe that something is 'never' going to happen for you, you will give up. But when you give up, you set yourself up to fail and when you fail you are basically saying to yourself 'I was right, I was not meant to have that', which makes your self esteem even lower than it already is.
It is a vicious cycle.
"No one understands what I am going through"
It might be really easy to believe that no one in the world has ever felt the way that you do, but the world is a big place that has been filled with billions of people for thousands of years.
Do you really believe that not one of those people have ever been in a situation similar to yours?
Do you really believe that not one of those people may have experienced something worse than what you are experiencing now? This is not to say what you are going through isn't hard, it might be very hard. But the second that you start telling yourself that no one else understands your feelings, you are closing yourself off to someone helping you to deal with those feelings.
"I have no value, I am worthless and useless"
This is one of the most dangerous phrases when you are dealing with low self confidence. If you believe that you have nothing to contribute to this world, then you put yourself into a very dangerous place.
You will not only feel like you have no value, but you are also more likely to mistreat those that love you simply because you do not think that your actions have any impact on them.
The common mindset seems to be 'I have no value, so this person is not going to care if I don't return their phone call'. Without realizing it, you could push away the people that realize just how valuable you are, simply because you are not able to accept your value.
"I am nothing but a failure."
Sure, you might not get everything right all of the time, but does that make you a 'complete failure'?
It is a hard thing to do when you are dealing with low self-confidence but you need to realize that no one is a complete failure. No one fails every time at everything they do. You also need to realize that if you don't like the results that you are getting, you just need to keep changing your actions until you start to get the results that you want.
"I could never do that."
Do you see people in your life who are having great fortune and you find yourself thinking that can never happen to you? Do you find yourself thinking that they must have some kind of skill that you do not have or possess some kind of power that is simply not in you? When you have low self-confidence, it is easy to look at others and feel like they have something that you do not have. And if you want it but you are afraid to go after it, then it is easy to believe that other person was just 'meant for that' and you were not.
In reality, that person likely believed in themselves and told themselves that they were successful long before they were actually successful. That person probably worked hard to get where they are.
And yes, they probably failed a few times too. But they did not let those failures drag them down, instead they used those failures to learn and grow and get to where they are.
You can do that too.
How Can You Overcome Negative Mindsets?
If you are looking to raise your self-confidence the first place to start is the way that you talk to yourself. Look at yourself in the mirror every day and just tell yourself that you are valuable.
Remove words like 'never' and 'always' from your vocabulary. Instead realize that it is okay to say 'I might not have gotten it right this time, but I will get it right next time'. It will take time and it will take work to change the way that you talk to yourself. After all, you did not lose your confidence overnight, it was a process. Getting your confidence back will be a process too.
Be patient with yourself and continue to work on the way that you talk to yourself. Eventually you will find that you are able to reprogram the way that your mind processes things and you will be able to realize the true value and endless potential that is inside of all of us.