Insecurities hold us back and keep our lives on pause when we ought to be moving forward. We all feel insecurities. I don’t care who you are; if you come across as super confident or the quiet person in the room, each of us has hangups and struggles. Some talk about them, some don’t. We all do it. We cave in to those insecurities if we don’t know any better.

The “know-it-all” has the biggest insecurities because they are creating a smoke screen that makes them seem great in every way, so you cannot find any flaws in them. If you see someone as perfect, whose life appears perfect, and you want to emulate that, or worse, feel badly that you don’t have it, fret not, you are only seeing the tip of the iceberg (remember the real iceberg is underneath the water and we cannot see it).

Don’t assume that what you see is real. We are all dealing with and struggling with something. Some of us just hide it better.

 

Let’s Get Real

The real folks who know their limitations and still love and honor themselves have either risen above their insecurities or have been blessed with an upbringing that supports that mindset.

There is no in between. You are either real about your feelings, or you are not.

When we are able to show our feelings and not give a hoot what anyone else thinks of us, we have mastered our insecurities. We no longer care about how we appear to others. What’s most important is how we care about and show up for ourselves.

 

Our Childhood

All insecurities stem from childhood and how we were treated. Children need to know that it’s safe to express themselves, that their words will be met with support and not harm. For too long, beliefs and attitudes have been passed down through families that some children don’t deserve respect. Bullies thrive in that mindset. All children deserve respect. It’s time we end that cycle.

Please note, the respect I write about is not entitlement or giving children whatever they want. It is listening to the child, paying attention to their lives, and honoring their safety. Every child deserves that. And when children get that, they grow into adults with few insecurities. If we had more adults like that, we would live in a much better experience with a lot less emotional (and sometimes physical) pain. Adult bullies are still suffering from their childhood insecurities.

 

We All Do It

I’m a writer sharing my personal experiences and what I observe to be true. I used to feel very insecure about myself and did not love or care about myself. Outside influences dictated what was right or wrong with me. I have since stopped that. But for a while, social media got its claws into me, and I thought someone else knew better for my life than I did (remember the minimalism phase I shared when I kept getting rid of things?).

That’s why the people who do that are called “influencers.” They are influencing people to do or buy something. I see these blog posts as shining a light on the issues we as humans face, so we can overcome what keeps us in the dark. I am not here to influence, but to share light.

We’ve all had a moment when insecurity took over our ability to think rationally. Not going after your dream, following a hunch, or listening to your gut all happen because of an insecurity. We are essentially afraid of ourselves. How sad, right?

 

Getting Over Our Insecurities

A therapist once told me that action is the best cure to overcome fears. We must do what it is we fear to overcome the fear. Insecurities are just fears – irrational – made up – learned from someone who had their own insecurities – fears are a figment of someone’s imagination.

Knowing that, it seems easy to overcome them and just do the action, and everything will be better, but it still takes some work to rewrite the old messages that made the fear stick to you. But hey, we’re worth it.

Sadly, there are just too many folks who “live lives of quiet desperation” as Henry David Thoreau wrote in his 1854 book, Walden.

For the rest of us, who want to evolve and live the big life, the one that makes us giddy, and we need to pinch ourselves to know it’s real, we need to overcome our insecurities first.

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1. Retrain your mental focus. This means that we need to be consciously aware of our thoughts. I know it’s tough to do all of the time. Just like building muscular strength in a body takes time, so will this ability.  Give it your best shot. Aim for most of the day and don’t beat yourself up if you struggle with this. I know I have. The more you do it, the easier it will become. Once you have a handle on paying attention to your thoughts, you can move to step 2.
2. Acknowledge the programs in your mind. What was once given to us, in words or actions, by people close to us when we were children, became the script for our lives. For many of us, the things we learned as kids did not prepare us to live happy lives as adults. We were “influenced” (There’s that word again.) by our families, friends, clergy, teachers, schoolmates, or a mean cafeteria lady who scowled at you for no reason and made you feel shameful and sad (that never happened to me, it’s just an example of how even strangers could affect our self-worth.)
3. A new and better mindset. After some time of paying closer attention to our thoughts and acknowledging the reason why we are thinking as we are (learned negativity, feeling low emotions like anger, resentment, jealousy, envy, and the like, or harboring a sense of low self-worth), we are ready to begin to think new, better thoughts.

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The way we do this is the same method we learned the old stuff: through repetition.

You can do this through affirmations, watching or just listening to personal development YouTube channels (some of my favorites lately are Inspire Force, which features                                                Denzel Washington’s eye-opening and motivational philosophies and Stoic Journal, using Stoicism to master your mind, but there are so many other great ones, just find something that                    resonates with you), using visualization and following an action plan. If you want to learn more about these ideas, I’m going to write a blog post that delves deeper.

Overcoming insecurities that keep us stuck is challenging for sure, but doable. First, we need to believe we’re worth it, then do the work to make the changes. Every one of us deserves to live a life that feels right. We all have different dreams and ideas, and we need to honor whatever that is for ourselves.

Choose yourself. What do you want? If it’s material possessions you crave, you haven’t done the work. They will only offer a temporary solution to your pain. We need to let our wounds air out, expose them to the light, and do the things necessary to allow them to heal. Then you can answer the question honestly, and without the stronghold of insecurities, what do you want?

Thank you for reading this. I’d love to read your thoughts. Please comment.

To Stopping Doing It,

Francesca

 

Written by a human for humans.

 

© 2026 FrancescaME | All rights reserved.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

 

*DISCLAIMER: FrancescaME is not a therapist or doctor, and any information shared is from personal experience, learning, and research.

If you’re suffering, please consult a mental health therapist for help. Just as our bodies need to see a doctor when we’re not well, our minds need care, too.

Call 988 if you’re in crisis. (Languages: English, Spanish -Available 24 hours)