Do you want to know how to overcome confidence issues?
If you do, then come along with us.
Confidence is an essential quality for success and living a happy and fulfilled life.
It makes you bold and willing to tackle situations and do things that will help you grow and succeed.
So, when you lack this quality you have confidence issues.
You can also struggle with success when you are over-confident.
Over-confidence blinds you to the truth and makes you do things you shouldn’t do.
Hence, if you are over-confidence, you also have an issue to overcome.
So, how do you overcome these issues?
Here, we guide you on how you can overcome confidence issues with some great tips.
However, before we get to that, let’s take a look at what confidence is.
What Is Confidence? – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Confidence is the belief that you can rely on something or someone.
You can have confidence in people, things, and yourself.
It is a belief that is secure and realistic.
That is, it makes you feel safe in yourself and your abilities, or the people or things you have confidence in.
Furthermore, it is realistic in the sense that it is based on something you know can be done by you and your ability, or by the people or thing you have confidence in.
You don’t over-hype yourself and your ability, or the people or thing that you have confidence in.
Rather, you know and understand what they are capable of and rely on that.
When you have confidence in yourself it is called self-confidence.
It is not about making one feel superior to other people.
Rather, it is a quiet and self-understanding and knowledge of what you are capable of.
This is what sets self-confidence apart from arrogance.
If you are self-confident, you will not feel insecure about yourself.
In this discussion, we will not only be looking at self-confidence but also at the confidence you have in people and things.
This is because you can have issues related to the confidence you have in people as well as you have self-confidence issues.
Self-Confidence Versus Self-Esteem – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Self-confidence has often been confused with self-esteem.
This is often because self-esteem can affect one’s self-confidence.
However, to overcome self-confidence issues, you need to understand the difference between self-confidence and self-esteem.
So, what is the difference?
To answer that, we have to look at what both of these concepts mean.
Self-esteem is defined as the feeling, thought, or opinion you have of yourself.
It is how you see and place worth yourself in general.
Your self-esteem can either be low or high.
If you have low self-esteem you will see yourself in a negative light.
This will make you have a low appraisal of your worth.
The opposite can be said when you have high self-esteem.
Meanwhile, self-confidence has to do with an aspect of your life and how you see yourself being able to achieve your goal and success in that aspect.
Hence, one can be confident to do one particular thing, and not be confident about something else.
For example, you can be confident to work as a salesperson but not confident to own a business.
So, the confidence you have in doing different things varies based on how you know, see, and understand yourself and your abilities to perform.
Whereas self-esteem affects your general view of yourself, self-confidence only affects your view of yourself and your ability in doing certain things.
As different as these two concepts are, self-esteem still has an impact on your self-confidence.
This is because if your self-esteem is low you can likely develop a low confidence in everything you do.
If this is the case, then overcoming low self-esteem is essential in overcoming low self-confidence issue.
What Are Confidence Issues? – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Confidence issues can be defined as having unbalanced confidence in yourself or people and things.
They happen when your confidence becomes insecure or unrealistic.
In other words, when your confidence stops being secure or realistic, it loses its balance and will be considered as someone who has confidence issues.
Types of Confidence Issues – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Having confidence issues is not only when you lack self-confidence.
A person can have confidences issue if they have low self-confidence, or they have high self-confidence, or over-confidence in other people or things.
So, confidence issues refers to those imbalance such as low, or excessive confidence people demonstrate.
To be confident without any issue one has to feel secure and still be realistic.
Once your confidence in yourself, others, and things stop being secure or realistic, then you have a confidence issue.
To overcome confidence issues, regardless of what they may be, one has to learn to balance their confidence in both themselves and others.
So, below are the types of confidence issues:
Low Self-Confidence – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
When you have low self-confidence or lack self-confidence you have a confidence issue.
This is because you are no longer secure about what you are capable of doing.
As a result, the security that confidence provides has been lost to you.
When this happens, you will be unhappy and struggle with several things.
So, you need to avoid this by overcoming low self-confidence.
Signs of Low Self-Confidence – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Sometimes we might not know when we have low self-confidence.
If you don’t know you have low self-confidence, you will not be able to work to overcome it.
So, here are some of the signs of low self-confidence:
- You are unwilling and scared to take on challenges
- Accepting compliments are difficult for you
- You often worry about other people’s thoughts of you
- Your anxiety level is high
- You cannot trust your judgment
- Constructive feedback and criticism are hurtful to you
- You hardly speak your mind
- People’s validation makes you feel better about yourself
- You are often pessimistic
Consequences of Low-Self Confidence – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
You need to overcome low self-confidence to avoid the following consequences:
- Negative Feelings
- Self-loathing
- Lack of self-care
- Inferiority complex
- Obsession with perfection
- Inability to make changes and positive impact
- Lowered resilience
Over-Confidence
High self-confidence or over-confidence is when your confidence is too much that it bothers on arrogance.
Yes, it is good to be sure of yourself and your abilities.
However, when you start thinking too highly of yourself outside of what is real, then you have a confidence issue.
This is because you have left the balance and gone beyond being confident.
As a result, it can be difficult for you to listen and learn from others.
Signs of Over-Confidence – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Most times when people are over-confident, they cannot tell because they feel that it is normal.
If this is the case for you, then you will struggle to deal with and overcome this confidence issue.
So, to avoid this, here are some signs of over-confidence:
- You are noisy and loud
- To prove your point, you often speak forcefully
- People’s opinions and appreciation matters to you
- Even after getting people’s approval, you still feel empty
- You display bravado or make others feel inferior to compensate for your feeling of inferiority
- Jokes about you make you upset
- You hardly listen or learn from others
Consequences of Over-confidence – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
When you are over-confidence you will also struggle to achieve success and be happy.
This is a result of the following dangers of being over-confidence:
- Poor decision making
- Taking on projects or responsibilities beyond your abilities
- Destroying relationships and losing people’s trust
Over-Confidence In People and Things
When you are someone who has high confidence in people and things every time, then you have a confidence issue.
This is because you might likely be placing your confidence on people and things that might not have the capacity to accomplish your expectations.
Yes, it is good to have confidence in people and things.
However, you have to ensure that your confidence is well placed.
You have to ensure that it is realistic and secure.
If it is not, then you are only setting yourself up for disappointment.
Tips on How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Below are some great tips to overcome confidence issues:
1. Work On Your Self-Esteem
Your self-esteem can have a huge impact on your self-confidence.
If you have low self-esteem it can make you have a low confidence level.
Also, excessively high self-esteem can make you develop overconfidence.
So, first, you have to identify if your self-esteem has caused you to develop a confidence issue.
Are you lacking self-confidence because of your low self-esteem?
Or are you overconfident due to your high self-esteem?
If your confidence is not balanced, then you should look at your self-esteem and work to better it.
2. Consider the Consequences – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
A great way to overcome overconfidence issues is to consider the consequences of being overconfident.
Think of all the things that could go wrong if you overbuild your abilities to what it is not.
For example, if you are faced with making a decision, don’t be quick to make it.
Rather, look at all the pros and cons of the choices you have.
Don’t allow yourself to get in your head about how good you are.
Get to know what can go wrong if you make the wrong decision.
When you know how badly things could go, you would gain a reality check that will ground you from being overconfident about your ability.
Check here to discover how to identify decisions’ consequences and make the best choice.
3. Be Sincere With Yourself
To overcome over-confidence issues, you need to be sincere with yourself.
In other words, you need to identify your abilities and limits.
Most times, over-confident people hardly know what they are capable of.
They tend to think that they can do anything without giving thought to their limits.
As much as it is good to have the mentality that you can do anything, you also need to know your limits.
So, be sincere with yourself.
4. Focus on Your Strengths – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
To overcome a lack of confidence, you should focus more on your strength.
Dwelling on your weakness will make you form negative thoughts that will make you less confident in yourself and your abilities.
Instead of doing this, focus on those things that you are good at.
Work on making yourself better at those things.
When you do this, it will help you overcome your confidence issue and also increase your confidence.
5. Know The Difference Between Realities and Fantasies
Being overconfident can make you take fantasies for realities.
This can build your confidence more than it should.
So, get to know what is real and what a fantasy is.
When you are sure of what is what, it will help you beat overconfidence.
6. Set SMART Goals – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Setting goals is a great way to boost and build one’s confidence.
So, if you have low confidence, you should consider setting goals for yourself.
As you work to achieve your goals, your confidence will keep increasing.
When setting goals, you have to ensure that they are smart goals.
That is, they should be:
- Specific
- Manageable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Time-bound
When your goals are smart, you will find it easier to achieve them and overcome low confidence.
7. Be Realistic With Your Expectation of People and Things
One major reason for having too much confidence in people and things is because you have high expectations of them.
This can blind sight you to the truth of what those people or things are capable of.
So, instead of that, you have to be realistic with your expectation of them.
Know and understand people’s capacity before you place your confidence in them.
This will help you to overcome having too much confidence in people and things.
8. Stop Comparing Yourself With Others – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Both overconfidence and lack of confidence can be caused by comparing yourself with others.
If you have low confidence comparing yourself with others will make you feel worse about yourself.
Meanwhile, comparing yourself with others when you are over-confidence will make you try to depreciate other people’s abilities to make yourself feel like you are better.
This does not help you overcome your confidence issue.
So, appreciate people and move on instead of comparing yourself with them.
If you have low self-confidence, build and focus on yourself to become better.
Meanwhile, if you are over-confident, stop deprecating others, and focus on being a better version of yourself.
9. Be Modest
Modesty is a quality that will enable you to keep your confidence balanced.
It will ensure that you’re confident but not over-confidence.
So, if you lack modesty, you should work to become modest.
You can learn to be modest by doing away with your ego, being realistic with yourself, and striving for selflessness.
10. Visualize Your Goals and Success – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Another thing that can help you to overcome low confidence issues is by visualizing your goals and success.
If you lack the confidence to do something but can effectively do that thing, you should focus and envision yourself doing that thing.
This will help you to still any fear or doubt that will make you lack confidence.
When you have done it in your imagination, you will be more confident to do it in reality.
So, visualize that goal or success you are pursuing.
11. Listen to Constructive Feedback and Criticism
Both overconfidence and lack of confidence can make someone unable to listen to and accept constructive feedback or criticism.
Over-confident people find it difficult to accept feedback or criticism because they feel like they know everything.
They are unable to learn or listen to other people’s opinions.
Meanwhile, people with low confidence find it difficult to listen to and accept feedback or criticism because they are sensitive.
They feel that everything said to them is personal.
So, they take everything personally.
This does not help them to become better.
Hence, to overcome over-confidence and lack of confidence, you have to do the opposite of what you would naturally do.
And that is to listen to constructive feedback and criticism from people.
Constructive feedback and criticism are not to hurt your feelings or ego.
Rather, they are for you to know where you are lacking and do better.
If you can work with constructive feedback and criticism, you will become a better version of yourself, and overcome that confidence issue that you have.
12. Be Kind To Yourself – How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Another thing that can help you overcome lack of self-confidence is by being kind to yourself.
In other words, don’t beat yourself too much if you find yourself struggling with something.
If you beat and judge yourself, your confidence will keep going low and you will not be able to do that thing.
So, rather than judging yourself, say nice things to yourself.
Be your motivator, and challenge yourself to do better.
Conclusion on How to Overcome Confidence Issues
Confidence issues can make you unable to achieve success, and be happy and content with yourself.
So, if you have a confidence issue you have to work to overcome it.
There are different types of confidence issues which include lack of confidence, over-confidence in oneself, and over-confidence in people and things.
To effectively tackle and overcome confidence issues, you have to know the one you have.
Once you have you can then take steps to overcome them.
To overcome a lack of self-confidence, you need to learn to appreciate yourself, set smart goals, visualize your success, and focus on your strength.
Meanwhile, if you have over-confidence in yourself, you can overcome it by being sincere with yourself, being modest, and considering the consequence of your actions.
Finally, if you want to overcome over-confidence in people and things, you should learn to know people’s ability, and stop having high expectations of them.
