Insecure about your confidence?

[Jim_Bergerac]

Well, I knew I would hardly get a reply on my other post. I just want to know whether there are others who are insecure about their confidence? i.e. they know they are good enough - i.e. you know you are friendly and well liked and can converse well with people, and that you are intelligent, but you have no confidence in your confidence - you are always take the easy options of avoidance because you are afraid you don't feel you have the confidence to succeed or cope, etc. For instance meeting someone new, making effort to approach someone and chat to them - especially if it someone you would like to know, confidence in taking a new challenge - like a new job, or do something socially that would require having to interact a lot with people, etc, etc. I would love to do these things but I just don't have any belief in my confidence, I have no belief that I have the confidence to cope and perform. I know if I was myself I would do brilliantly.

Are you also insecure about your confidence? Are you afraid of basically not coping, that people will see how unconfident you are, do you believe you will bring humiliation on yourself if you act unconfident? Do you believe if only you didn't have the anxiety that you would do brilliantly - i.e. you have belief in yourself in that you are a very likeable person, but the thing holding you back is that you have no belief in your confidence?

Well that is the point I am currently at - I have desensitised a lot of my insecurities about my appearance - being self conscious and feeling I am not good enough because of how I look, I have almost overcome that now, but my next step is to overcome my confidence insecurities.
I think its a huge problem in overcoming SA - to have that belief in yourself that you can do it. If you don't believe you can, then you will always be worrying, anxious, clouded by negative thoughts and it will effect your performance and you end up not being able to succeed/cope just like you thought you wouldn't. So this lack of belief in your confidence ends up being what causes you to struggle and not be confident. Does anyone else feel that way?

If you agree, do you agree that in order to overcome this and to be confident, we need to desensitise the insecurities we have about our confidence. I mean we seem so aware of how much we lack confidence, we are so aware of how confident we are coming across, etc. Its just I am sure in order to be confident, we would never have thoughts on how confident we are, it wouldn't be an issue. They will just be themselves and do it. I am going to try find out how confident people think in terms of confidence. I mean we need to learn a new mindset with relation to this and understand that the way we currently think - i.e. insecure about confidence is wrong and serves no purpose.

Any comments?

 

[Jim_Bergerac]

41 people have viewed my post before I read it and not one single reply!

Doesn't seem much point me posting here anymore, I like writing about SA and my own thoughts on overcoming it, but I don't know all the answers, far from it, I hope that with me bouncing ideas of fellow SA sufferers, people may help me find the answers I am searching for and others are searching for.

May try and look elsewhere to post from now on! Sorry if it sounds a bit stupid of me, but I think you will understand that its pretty pointless me writing on a forum wanting to have some conversations and I end up just chatting to myself.

Good luck for the future everyone!

 

[nedkelly]

Hey Jim, sorry that no one has replied to many of your posts.
I do believe that most of us get a lot out of your posts. They are very imformative and interesting, and definately make much sense.
I really enjoy them, because they are so accurate about our sp worries, and life in general. Hope you stick around.
Take care Jim

 

[Jack-B]

Jim,

I have overcome my social phobia and a lot of my anxiety. I have thought, why bother posting, no-one is listening, i give from the heart personal advice.
Yet, i have soooo much to learn when it comes to helping people and being an effective helper.

People on this forum have an image of who you are Jim, that image to them is what they relate to or not relate to. The same is true of 'Jack', i wonder what people would think if i told them Jack is in fact a female who is 25, blonde blue eyes, stunning??

What i want to say is that its a part of the learning process of anxiety and how people relate to us, how we connect with others and how we perceive each other.

Keep posting, you have many fans who probably dont thank you but they remember what you have written.

Alternatively, you can email me privately about anything:

[email protected]

Jack

 

[Caillou]

I read your posts as well and I do get alot of what you have to say. I can relate to your topics. I suffered varying degrees of anxiety my whole life. I have always hated the way that I felt so I tried so hard to overcome my phobia and anxiety. It was not easy to do it on my own. Therapy helped tremendously but I still have a long way to go. Even though I tried to be positive and try to do things that I feared I still lacked confidence. Even though I have come a long way over the years and I am doing so many things that I could never do before, I still lack confidence in certain areas. My emotions do not match my intellect. The thing is many people do not know this about me. I'm good at hiding my feelings or I avoid situations that would reveal my true feelings. I really want to change this about myself. I'm going to do my best to knock down the negative feelings that swirl around in my head and replace them. I have been thinking about this even more recently because of my work. I never really understand how much people respect and look up to me. I always focus on what I don't know and cannot do. I hope to change that about myself. It may be a long process but I will have patience.

 

[Jaded_Jester]

Jim, I also get a lot out of your posts. I'll give you my thanks for writing them. You are very articulate (sp?) and you really nail the hammer right on. Unfortunately I have no answers to your questions. I think you are further along the path to getting rid of SA than me, and your posts give me a lot to think about.

I really enjoyed your post on why do we care what others think anyways. I read it often because you write so logically that I hope your wisdom will ingrain itself in my head. Hopefully you aren't too discouraged from posting in here, I think you would be greatly missed.