Self-confidence and Acceptance
Do you sometimes catch yourself overthinking future situations in a stressful way? Thinking and rethinking about what might happen. What you should and shouldn’t say. Even trying to predict how you may act. Or do you find yourself making a plan B… and C, and D for an upcoming event? You may be lacking self-confidence and acceptance skills. Today we will explore the intersections between confidence, anxiety, trust, and acceptance.
Confidence in Self
We can begin by defining what self-confidence is. If we were to search the term online, there would be many different variations of the definition. An overall consensus is that self-confidence has to do with our trust and acceptance of our own abilities and skills, a lack of which may result in self-doubt. Some of the things we can do in order to build confidence in ourselves is become comfortable with our identity, define our strengths and weaknesses, and learn to trust ourselves. Like the phrase “trusting your gut” implies, having the ability to trust in ourselves and our instincts can help us through situations where we might be unsure of ourselves. The instinctual part of us is informed by many centuries of experience. It knows what it’s talking about. Certain experiences in our history might have made it easy to doubt ourselves, therefore losing touch with our gut instincts.
Acceptance
In Acceptance and Commitment therapy, we focus on committing to taking action steps towards the things within our control. This includes changing behaviors to better align with our values, and practicing acceptance towards the things we can’t control, as well as acceptance of our own feelings and experiences. One thing that can be helpful with acceptance skills is practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness is the experience of becoming aware of the present moment, and nonjudgmentally noticing one’s own thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and current experience. This practice of nonjudgement can help us arrive at acceptance by allowing our experience to be as it is, without actively fighting against it. Mindfulness takes practice as well, but is a great tool in strengthening our acceptance skills and therefore our confidence.
The Link Between Confidence and Anxiety
According to a study in the journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, there is a “reciprocal relationship between low self-esteem and anxiety symptoms.” This means that the two factors simultaneously influence each other. In other words, studies have shown that “adolescents who reported lower levels of self-esteem tend to have a higher degree of severity of anxiety”.
Because we are doubtful of our own abilities, anxiety takes over and begins to overly plan for the future. It stands to reason, then, that if we are able to increase our self-esteem or self-confidence, we may be better able to manage anxiety symptoms, because we will be able to trust in our abilities to manage future situations.
Seeking Support
There are many ways to approach low confidence levels in therapy. With the help of a therapist, we can explore the many ways we arrive at low self-confidence, including past experiences, negative self-talk, and trauma. If you are ready for help, give us a call at 832-352-1600 or you can contact us through our website HERE.
