Why Do Women Have Low Self-Confidence?

It is so easy for women to lack self-confidence. We are taught to put others before ourselves from an early age. So taking time out to learn some self-development skills may not come as naturally as we’d like.

We as women have also been raised in the past to be passive, less daring and confident than our male counterparts. We are also bombarded on so many levels by examples of how women should appear. No wonder our confidence to be just ourselves gets a knock.

For many women, a lack of self-confidence may be built upon worry, anxiety and procrastination. Women who tend to ruminate also tend to feel uncomfortable in new situations. They may find they can’t relax easily and are reluctant to seize opportunities when they arise.

The good news is that self-confidence isn’t something we are born with. It is something we can very much learn at any stage in life. You can build it by learning more about yourself, the way you think and by understanding that you have the resilience to pick yourself up after a knock. You can also practice responses to what might happen in certain situations until you find out what works and what doesn’t work for you.

What Is Self-Confidence?

Self-confidence is simply a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgment. Most adults can have a hard time with feeling this way about themselves. Self-confidence doesn’t mean you act in an arrogant manner or feel superior to others. In fact, people who feel self-confident accept and value themselves and others as they are. They are proud of their achievements. They can make mistakes and have the courage to try again. Plus they know they are worthy of respect, friendship, and they understand their own strengths and weaknesses.

But one thing is for sure you can’t think your way into confidence. You have to act also. You have to build a set of skills that enable you to feel better about yourself. But first let’s look more closely at what are common self-confidence destroyers for women.

What Are Self-confidence Destroyers For Women?

Anxiety (or any mental health illness): Firstly if you suffer from any form of anxiety (social/general) or mental health problems please reach out for help. I’ve linked two blogs with some self-help tips for you, but also taking some of the steps below will also help. When we suffer from a mental health illness our self-confidence, or what little we did have, will take a severe knock. So getting help is vital on many levels.

Past Trauma: Whether that is from a car accident, a birth trauma, sexual or domestic violence. It doesn’t matter where the trauma came from we can all have trauma that has certainly demolished our confidence.

Stress including over committing ourselves or taking on other’s responsibilities will destroy our self-confidence.

Procrastination or paralysis by analysis: Contemplating can lead to creativity which has many beneficial factors and rewards for us. But when we get caught up in over analysis we head down a road of inaction and anxiety. Thus leading to low self-confidence.

Catastrophising: We can often get caught up in the negative outcome challenge. We are faced with a new experience and our thoughts immediately go to having a negative outcome instead of a positive one. It’s 50/50 chance either way on the outcome here.

Negatively ruminating/thinking: Our own way of thinking will destroy our self-confidence very quickly I share a blog on how to delete this way of thinking here. This way of thinking will only lead to misery, anxiety and inaction on our part. We need to turn this around to build our self-confidence.

How Can You Build Self-confidence In You?

Good basic self-care is essential. I’ve written a blog about this and you can find it here. Essentially a good basic self-care list will include taking care of your body. So making sure you eat a healthy diet, exercise, drink enough water and get enough sleep. But for me these are just the start of what I consider a good basic self-care to do list. If you are not looking after your basic needs then your self-confidence will certainly not be good.

Build healthy boundaries. There are 2 blogs on this subject including one on setting boundaries in relationships you can find them both here and here. Again if you are not setting healthy boundaries with yourself and others your confidence will be low. As you can see from the list of self-confidence destroyers over committing ourselves and taking on other’s responsibilities will knock your self-confidence. If you are not setting boundaries with yourself and others you are most likely doing both of these everyday. 

Stress reduction techniques are required. There are a number of techniques I suggest you can try to help reduce your stress. You can find this blog here. Some ideas to get you started could be building in some form of relaxation (see below), completing a nightly brain dump, disconnecting from technology at a reasonable hour and using a problem solving strategy. 

Relaxation: Developing a daily relaxation habit will help you notice your emotions, your posture etc., at other times too. It is completely normal to be nervous before an event, speech, or new interaction with people. Many famous actors will often speak of being sick before a performance no matter how experienced they get. Taking up some form of relaxation will help with this. This can include yoga, tai chi, and meditation.

It is good idea to practice a visualization technique where you image the event, etc., going off as planned and as positively as possible. Many professionals use this type of technique to help them relax before giving speech or presentations. We may not be able to predict the outcome, but we know that feeling relaxed releases the thinking part of the brain to get on with the job in hand to the best of our abilities. Remember preparation and having a positive mindset are key here to building your self-confidence.

Take responsibility for yourself. This is the most important step as only you can make things change for you. Yes you can ask for assistance. But please realize that the path toward self-confidence is one that you will have to travel and no one can do these exercises for you. Remember, they are exercises they may feel tough at first but in no time you will become the expert and your confidence will be boosted.

Make a list of the qualities that you have. So that next time you feel you can’t do something you can remind yourself you can and do great things regularly. Remind yourself you can’t see or predict the future either.

Build a positive outlook: I’ve written a blog on how to do build a positive outlook here. But we as women do tend to notice facial gestures and voice intonation more. It’s a very useful trait to have. But we sometimes get it wrong. Sometimes it can trigger our “what ifs”, “should/could haves” or other negative thought patterns. So before this happens have a few strategies I’ve list in my blog on how to stop over thinking to combat these. Plus work on developing you power of optimism and gratitude.

Start to notice when rumination starts for you. Confident women have one thing in common they notice when rumination starts. Notice I didn’t say they don’t get rumination. But they notice it when it starts and they take action. When they get nervous inside they turn their attention to other things and don’t dwell on the negative self-talk.

Understand the 6 stages of change. This is so you’ll know what to expect as you change things for the better. Change is happening all the time but it can still be scary when we make more of a conscious effort to change things up. Knowing these 6 stages of change can help eliminate some of the fear. I’ve outlined a 9 step plan to help you make change a little easier for you. 

You Do Need To Develop An Action Plan.

1. Identify your comfort zone first. What can you do already that feels okay or you do as part of your normal everyday to do list? Are there things here that other’s wouldn’t be able to do? Look at all areas of your life: family, work, friends, health, spirituality, etc. What you are looking for here are ways in which you already succeed and that you do well. Most of the time we don’t even realize we are doing these things. We take ourselves for granted. It sometimes takes us making a list like this to realize we can and do succeed already in many areas of our life.
2. Identify the edge of your comfort zone. What are the things you just about do? You may feel a little fear but you know you can still do them? Make a list of these. Again you are looking at what you fear. But you can also see you have overcome this fear and succeeded.
3. Identify what you don’t feel confident in. This is the list you will work towards getting more confident in. Firstly are they things you really want to do? If they are not then you will sabotage yourself, so let these go. Now keep this list somewhere it’s easily accessible.
4. Identify what you can do within the next week to help you see you can do things that step you outside of your comfort zone. Yes this is the scary bit for most of us. Don’t take a big item off your to do list, you’ll only fail. Start small, as this will help you succeed in the future. Now plan it into you diary, yes even if it’s just speaking up at a meeting or saying hello to a complete stranger. Perhaps prepare something to say in advance and then make your contribution. Small actionable steps each day is what we are aiming at here.
5. Take time to notice what happened in response. Not just someone else’s response but how you felt. Don’t worry about looking stupid you’ll learn from what you did and how people responded to it. Journal it out and tackle any negative comments you hear coming up in your head. Really question them. Don’t let these comments bully you into taking a step backwards.
6. Repeat. Now you have to do it all again. Remember small actionable steps here. So if any item on your to do is big break it down into manageable smaller steps. Ask for help if you need it. Sometimes we can gain a lot of confidence by simply asking for help.

Act as if. If you put off taking action until you have confidence, remember you’ll never do it. Psychology teaches us that when we change our behaviour we can also change our feelings. So by taking the small actionable steps above what is perceived as outward confidence will soon find itself turning inside to a true feeling of confidence.

Find a mentor. Most successful people have a mentor. Someone they can confide in and ask for feedback from. This mentor won’t do the work for them but they do support and encourage them no matter what. You need this too. Find someone you can confide in. Someone you know what judge you, will give you good advice when asked for it and will support you no matter what.

No matter how far we go in life there will always something that steps us outside our comfort zone. We should be always willing to strive to take that challenge and grow as human beings.

Work With Me.

Remember you are allowed to ask for support. No one is an island. If you need extra support then you can also work with me. We all struggle with stress and overwhelm from time to time. If you find this has become a problem for you and you’d like some support then schedule an appointment with me.