Be warned: this post will be quite personal. Back away now if you’d like to avoid cringing 😄

Last year I made a small exercise. I was dealing with feelings of inadequacy, since I have a tendency to those. In other words: I often feel insecure. I remembered how a friend of mine told me that I don’t value my successes and I delve too much on my failures. So I decided to get external input and I asked some friends and colleagues for feedback. The questions were:

• When was the last time I helped you?
• In which way / doing what?
• What are the 3 things you value most from me?

I was surprised by the result: what these people were seeing was nothing like how I saw myself!

Where they saw a fun, loyal, unjudging friend that cared about them, I saw a guy with boring conversation, that couldn’t return the affection others showed him. Where they saw honesty, I was painfully aware of all the things I didn’t say in the past to avoid hurting someone or because of fear of judgment. Where they saw a critical-thinking engineer and growth potential, I thought back on all the times I was slow to finish a task or that I had to ask for help/learn something new to do my work (as in “I don’t have the knowledge/level I need to do this”). How could it be they were so wrong? And most importantly: what will they do when they find out?

Of course, I knew they all couldn’t be wrong, and that maybe (just maybe) my own self-image was skewed. Since then, I started noticing when I was judging myself and applying a generous serving of doubt to those thoughts.

This allowed me to clear my mind of those intrusive judgements and focus on the real cause of my insecurity. I stopped accepting those thoughts just as they popped up. Instead I questioned them and thought “what would I tell someone else if they were in this position?”. For instance:

• When I’m talking with friends and I think “they look bored, I should leave and let them do something they enjoy”, I remind myself they can leave whenever they want, they chose to come and they’re choosing to stay. Maybe I’m wrong to doubt them. I’m sure I’m wrong for trying to decide for them.
• When at work I don’t understand something and I lose 2h reading documentation, I remind myself this is my first time doing this. No one was born knowing. It isn’t my fault and it’s perfectly fine. I will be better when I’m done reading, and next time I won’t need so much time.
• When I see successful people and think I haven’t done anything with my life, I remind myself of all the people that keep in touch with me, of my career and how much it has made me grow, of all those little projects after work, of all the things I do know instead of the ones I don’t, of this little blog… all those things I care about.

It might seem like I’m constantly defusing bombs in my head, but far from it. Refuting the negative judgements slowly improved my self-image. I was more kind to myself and so the thoughts appeared less frequently. In time it got easier. My fears became smaller and easier to manage. I still have them, but at least I’m not struggling with them. And lately gratitude has been replacing them. Gratitude for friends spending time with me, or for being fortunate enough to learn at work.

If you’re struggling with insecurities yourself, try avoiding judgement and find out where that fear comes from. Then you can figure out (on your own or with other people’s help) if those things are true or not. The story we tell ourselves has a huge impact on how we feel and what we do. Don’t let your fears dictate the narrative. You can tell a much better story! 😉

I saved the notes from when I asked friends and colleagues for feedback. I just saw them today and they brought a smile to my face. If you do something similar, they might bring one to yours in the future 🙂