Does this resonate with you? – “I don’t have self-confidence because I am afraid.” If so, then this exercise may be valuable to you.
Self-observation on why I don’t have self-confidence
- I always fall back.
- I always question myself. I become anxious.
- I am just afraid I will screw it up.
- This has to do a lot with how I relate to people. Even if my lack of self-confidence shows up everywhere.
- Right now I am angry. My anger has to do with someone abusing my limits.
- Sometimes I just feel like giving up. Then it is not anger. But sadness.
- I don’t dare to confront.
- I try to convince myself that I am worthy.
- And I am trying to convince others that I am worthy. In all kinds of ways. Sometimes I am trying by being overly kind and ‘forgiving’. Sometimes I am trying with aggression.
- Many times I just lose my consciousness when the situation gets too tense. I mean when I am trying to convince the world around me. I either overachieve or underachieve.
- I just don’t know what causes my lack of self-confidence.
- This works! I need to find what causes it.
- What is the real root cause?
- Am I not good enough? That is hardly the answer.
- …
- It is not because I don’t trust myself. Indeed, I don’t trust myself but it is not the cause.
- This is the real root cause: I don’t have self-confidence because I am afraid to lose my sense of safety.
- This sounds strange but it is true.
- In other words, I don’t have self-confidence because I am afraid!!!
- I am afraid of what others will say.
- When I really think about it deeply, this is what I see in myself: When I look at myself in times of lack of self-confidence, I see that I start to question myself because I start to think about what others will think. And this is why it is the real cause.
The above is a possible flow of thoughts, emotions, and associations that come up in the mind when doing self-observation on this thought. It is meant to help you go deeper into this thought and stimulate you. By no means it is implied that it is the only one or it is the same for everyone.
(If you are new to the concept of self-observation or looking for some practical guidance then maybe read this article: How Self-Observation Works)
Notes
- If you are new to the practice of self-observation then here are some ideas that can help: It is very powerful if you write down your thoughts (like with an old-school diary). It is also very powerful if you phrase your thoughts and emotions in a short and basic way.
- Self Chatter is a self-development tool and one of its major goals is to help with self-observation as a major tool to raise your consciousness. Thus you will find these types of self-observations on Self Chatter.
(None of the articles on Self Chatter are generated by AI.)