How to address and overcome the feeling of insecurity?

Youth MInistry

Insecurity

Feeling insecure happens to everyone, despite your family background, profession, education, experience or position you may feel insecured. The issue here is there’s no benchmark that you can compare your insecurity to. You may hardly find any one what is normal and what needs a conscious intervention. It is difficult to know if it’s something that affects everyone or if it’s just your personal insecurities on that particular time of life.

There are three most common forms of insecurities;

Insecurity due to rejection or recent failure: Recent events in our lives can greatly affect both our mood and the way we feel about ourselves.Research on happiness suggests that up to 40% of our “happiness quotient” is based on recent life events.Since unhappiness also influences your self-esteem, failure and rejection can deliver a double whammy to your confidence.^[1]

How to tackle it?

Understand, rejections and failures are natural and happen to everyone. Comprehend that without failures there is no victory. Everyone has a bad day and if there’s a particular instance of rejection that bothers you, take a bird’s eye view of the situation.

Apostle Paul says in Phil 4:13 “I can do all this through him who gives me strength”. Don’t forget this verse while you are under pressure of insecurity. Failures and rejections are not the end of the road. In fact, it is the start of a better journey. Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob, who was having visions and dreams about his future, ended up in a pit and then in jails, but it was not the end. As God was with Joseph, it was just the start of his journey. Joseph was knowing it, even in the darkest part of his life, he was truthful to God and to His commandments and Joseph reached to his dreams.

Putting people in anxiety and keeping them to continue to be in worries is a great plot by Satan. Satan keeps people worrying and makes them too anxious. Understand, the “Present” is the precious gift from God where you should be joyous for His grace. Anxiety takes out the present and forces us to live in a troubled past or expected future where we don’t have any control.

Insecurity from social anxiety: Another most common fear of insecurity is the fear of being socially judged. Many of us may have this type of fear of insecurity. The fear of being evaluated by others—and found to be lacking—can lead you to feel anxious and self-conscious. As a result, you may avoid social situations, experience anxiety when you anticipate social events, or feel self-conscious and uncomfortable during them.

How to tackle it?

Understand that nobody is holding you back as strongly as your negative thoughts. Next time you have these thoughts that it is not going to end well, then beat the Negative thoughts by saying “I can do all this through him who gives me strength”. Confidently reply to your thoughts that you can handle things with the help of your God.Be affirm, affirmative and relentless in talking back to that negative voice.

2. Insecurity due to perfectionism: Some of us keep the quality scale on very high and look for extreme perfection in everything which we do. This mindset can lead you to constantly worry about falling short of those expectations. You may worry that the last presentation you made it for your class is far from perfect, or the car you just bought isn’t the best, or the meal you just cook is away from the best etc., You don’t like it, because you have set an imaginary scale which you think is perfect and you don’t reach to that level!! While part of it is the internal standard of perfection, it could also be external. You may worry that others may not like what you do because it’s not perfect.Along with this exaggerated fear of external assessment, there’ll be crippling self-doubt that will incrementally bring down both the quantity and quality of your output. While the standards are unattainable, you’ll still feel that you should be able to achieve those because you see others doing so effortlessly. So, losing 10 kilos in two months is nothing to be happy about since someone managed to lose 20 kilos.

This constant comparison is bad news for your mental health. Unfortunately, social media has only made it worse.If you are constantly disappointed and blaming yourself for being anything less than perfect, you will start to feel insecure and unworthy. While trying your best and working hard can give you an advantage, other aspects of perfectionism are unhealthy. Beating up on yourself and constantly worrying about not being good enough can lead to depression and anxiety, eating disorders, or chronic fatigue.

How to beat it?
Understand that perfectionism is just an illusion.Even the greatest business solutions are not perfect, which will go through a number of revisions.
Remember, God chose imperfections not perfect things, God chose fools not the wise, God chose the weak not the strong. 1 Corinthians 1:27 “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong”.
The Bible emphasizes the efforts which we make. Focus on efforts, which are in our control and leave the outcome to God and remember God has a purpose for every move which we make and let Him alter the outcomes according to His plans. Only, we should bring out our efforts 100% with prayers and rest leave to God.

God has a great plan and purpose with you… Put your efforts and let God lead its outcome!!

References

^[1]Guy winch, Emotional First Aid: Healing Rejection, Guilt, Failure, and Other Everyday Hurts, Psychology Today,2014

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