Self-confidence is the belief in your ability to make decisions, express ideas, and navigate challenges. It’s the internal sense that says, “I can handle this.” When self-confidence is low, it becomes harder to trust ourselves. We second-guess our actions, avoid risks, and often shrink from growth opportunities.
This often overlaps with low self-esteem – how we view and value ourselves as people. While self-confidence is more task-specific (Can I do this?), self-esteem is broader (Am I good enough?). They influence each other, and when self-confidence drops, self-esteem usually follows.
How Low Confidence Affects Mental Health
Low self-confidence often feeds anxiety and depression. It shapes our internal narrative with thoughts like “I’m not good enough,” or “I’ll never succeed.” These beliefs are often emotionally charged – they FEEL true, which gives them a lot of power, even when they’re not entirely accurate. This leads to coping mechanisms that, while natural and understandable, are not always helpful long-term approaches to dealing with difficult thoughts and beliefs.
How We Cope: Common Defenses Against Low Confidence
The emotional charge of these unhelpful narratives is painful. So, naturally, we build defenses – some conscious, many automatic – to protect ourselves from the discomfort. Maybe you recognize some of these defense mechanisms:
- Intellectualizing: We analyze and rationalize our problems to avoid feeling them. “If I’d just gotten that promotion, I wouldn’t feel this way.”
- Avoidance: We stay away from situations where we might feel exposed or inadequate. “I won’t go to that event; people won’t want me there anyway.”
- Blaming: We attribute our struggles to others (“It’s my dad’s fault”) or to ourselves (“I’m just lazy”), which often leads to stuckness, not growth.
- Minimizing: “I’ve made it this far, who needs confidence?” This defense masks the real issue while quietly reinforcing it.
- Deflecting with sarcasm or perfectionism: We may hide behind humor, passive-aggressiveness, or the pursuit of perfection, hoping it earns acceptance or masks vulnerability.
- Numbing: We turn to substances, scrolling, or distraction to dull the discomfort of our inner critic.
These strategies make sense. They’re our attempts to survive emotional pain. But while they might help in the short term, they ultimately maintain the suffering we’re trying to avoid. The thing about this is that in life, pain is unavoidable, but the suffering part is optional.
Why Facing Our Feelings Matters
Avoiding emotions doesn’t make them disappear, it just buries them. When we stop fighting or numbing them and we get more comfortable acknowledging them, we gain clarity. And clarity allows us to take meaningful action. This doesn’t mean diving into pain without support. It just means choosing to face it with intention and curiosity.
As a therapist, I see low confidence not as a flaw but as an entry point for change. It offers a clear and fertile starting point for us to illuminate belief systems you’ve built, often over years, based on painful experiences, feedback, and fear. These negative self-narratives are sticky not because they’re necessarily true, but because they’re tethered to powerful emotion. But we can reshape and change these beliefs by working to untangle the emotional charge from the thoughts, breaking its grip.
Therapeutic Tools to Rebuild Confidence
Here are three approaches that can help you reshape your self-beliefs and build lasting confidence:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT helps us identify and challenge inaccurate or unhelpful thoughts. It encourages us to ask questions like:
- Is this thought true?
- What evidence do I have?
- Is there another way to view this?
By questioning these narratives, we loosen their hold. Over time, we replace self-defeating thoughts with more realistic and empowering ones. This changes not only how we think but how we feel and act.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT shares CBT’s recognition of the link between thoughts and emotions but shifts the focus from accuracy to usefulness. Instead of asking, “Is this true?” ACT asks: Is this thought helping me live the life I want?
Often, the answer is no. ACT helps us “defuse” from these thoughts – not by arguing with them, but by noticing them, naming them, and letting them pass without getting hooked. This weakens the grip of emotion and builds psychological flexibility: the ability to stay connected to our values even when self-doubt arises.
Strengths-Based Therapy
In early sessions, I often ask clients, “What are your strengths?” Most people struggle to answer – not because they lack strengths, but because they’ve stopped seeing them.
We are biologically wired to notice threats and weaknesses. This helped our ancestors survive but can be mentally exhausting today. Strengths-based therapy helps shift that focus intentionally by consistently shedding a spotlight on your strengths. It involves naming your skills, achievements, and positive qualities – not in comparison to others, but as they exist in you.
Strength-based therapy fits seamlessly with both CBT and ACT and is something I regularly bring into session with clients.
Final Thoughts
Low self-confidence is painful, but it’s also workable. It doesn’t define who you are – it reflects patterns you’ve learned. By understanding how these patterns formed, recognizing your defenses, and applying intentional strategies like CBT, ACT, and strengths-based therapy, change is not only possible, it’s likely.
Pain is part of life, but long-term suffering doesn’t have to be. When you start to change the way you relate to your inner voice, confidence can grow – not as a performance, but as a grounded belief in who you are becoming.
