Ask a therapist > Self Esteem > I feel that my lack of confidence is affecting my personal and professional life, what can I do?

I feel that my lack of confidence is affecting my personal and professional life, what can I do?

I have always been a quiet person, not particularly shy but not extroverted either, I don't have problems talking to people, and I enjoy it when I have a big presentation in front of a lot of people, but let's say that I would rather speak when there's something to say. It has always been hard for me to find people who have the same interests as me, in fact, I have very little in common with my family and friends, most of the time I'm the listener so I was never a conversation starter or texter.

Recently, I noticed that by being that way, my number of close friends has been getting smaller, mostly since the pandemic and remote work started. What worries me is that solitude isn't something that bothers me or changes my mood, I could spend the whole weekend alone and have a blast, I'd enjoy every second of it, but I'm afraid of getting too comfortable with it, and that it ends up affecting my personal and professional life.

Now one thing I noticed lately is that whenever I have to make an important call work-related I always overthink it for hours and end up postponing it until it's the due date, it feels as if I didn't dare to make a simple call. Recently I was offered a promotion in my remote job, I was assigned a task, and I completed it in a couple of weeks, but for some reason, I didn't dare to communicate it to my manager until he called me a few days later asking me for an update, he thought that I was not working on that at all. When I showed my progress to the team they were impressed and received a lot of positive feedback. But then I kept doing the same in the next tasks and ended up not getting the promotion.

What can I do?
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Asked by Alessio
Self Esteem
Answered
01/25/2023

Hello Alessio,

Thank you for your question. I am sorry to hear that you feel you are losing friends and that you were passed over for the promotion due to your lack of self confidence. You actually called it for what it is at the end there. Overthinking; it's the way you think or the thoughts you have that contribute to that low sense of self. From a very Cognitive Behavioral perspective it is important to understand that the way you feel and the actions you take are all shaped by the way you are thinking and processing information. And those thoughts contribute to how you feel and in turn the actions and behaviors you engage in (such as not telling your boss your accomplishments).

If you want to know what to do it is to challenge or reframe the thoughts as they come up. So if you have for example a thought that "no one wants to hear from me". You put it on trial and ask yourself what is the actual evidence of this thought; evidence against it, etc. If there is a ton of evidence against it you directly challenge the thought and remind yourself what is true. If the evidence does, by the rare chance, support the negative thought you can work to reframe it and put it back into context. So for an example, if you have the thought that "no one likes my humor" that may have a lot of evidence because we have flaws, weaknesses, and make mistakes but putting that back in to context means stopping to hyperfocus on that one flaw, weakness, etc. and reminding yourself so you may not be funny, but you are generous or good listener, etc. 

If you challenge and reframe your thoughts then you can begin to change the feelings you have (insecure, lack of confidence, etc.) which should help you to be able to be more open and assertive in all realms (social and work contexts). It's a work in progress though; you have to do this process for every negative and critical thought that occurs to begin to shift the critical thinking overall.

If interested; therapy can help in this process. There are many therapists on the platform, but also through other means who would love to help you sort through your negative and critical thought. I wish you the best in this process. Thank you again for your question.

(MSW, LCSW, CADC)