Have you got low self-confidence? Does it affect your day to day life? Do you not believe in yourself? Here is some useful information you will find helpful.
What is Low Self-Confidence?
Self-confidence is about trusting your own judgement and feeling comfortable with your abilities and powers. It is the means to realise your full potential and be the person you want to be. Self-confidence allows you to feel secure in the world and allows others to feel safe that they know what to expect of you. It is made up of a variety of factors, including how you present yourself physically to the world and how you relate to other people.
Sound self-confidence can bring benefits to all areas of your life, including relationships, career, social life and state of mind. Some people are self-confident in their work-life but not in their social life, we all differ. People feel comfortable with confident people as they are usually predictable and their behaviour is reliable.
Self-confidence differs from self-esteem, but a chance to look at the two traits is helpful to understand its potential. Although the two terms are used interchangeably there are differences which can have an impact on finding a way forward. The word ‘confidence’ comes from the Latin word to trust or have faith. Confident people set realistic goals, learn useful skills and undertake tasks to get to where they want to be. Confidence is linked with the external world and how others see us; how we present ourselves and what we achieve. Self-esteem, however, is more about our own relationship with ourselves and how we feel deep down about who we are.
The two traits are linked but not always connected. A person might work hard and acquire skills and polish to compensate for a deep feeling of low-esteem, and be considered highly competent and successful in the eyes of others. Many high achievers are driven by this compensatory need, but often the hoped-for sense of satisfaction evades them causing them to overwork or seek refuge in some other area. The lives of the rich and famous may hold particular fascination for us because of this trait which emerges in all sections of society; rich, poor, talented, privileged and famous. So, self-confidence may be developed alongside self-esteem or independently.
Self-confidence is a skill that can be developed through realistic goal setting and planning. It is important to note, however, that the pressure you, or others, put on yourself to live up to expectations can lead to anxiety and bruised confidence, so developing self-confidence at the right pace for you is important. A solid foundation of self-esteem may be desirable, especially if previous attempts to improve your confidence have failed.
Signs you have low self-confidence
Your level of self-confidence can be seen by others in many ways; in your body language, your behaviour, how you speak and how you react to different situations. Self-confident people are generally more positive and believe in themselves and their abilities, whereas those with low self-confidence often have negative thoughts about themselves and their ability, which then leads to a downward spiral of under-achievement and disappointment.
If you have low self-confidence you may feel:
- You fail at everything and are unsuccessful
- You have no drive or direction
- Shy and uneasy
- A sense of uselessness and worthlessness
- Inferior to others
- Bitter about work, social and family relationships.
There may be some areas of your life where you feel confident and others where you do not. It is important to assess this to understand that learning and skills can be a bridge to confidence. Maybe you are confident with one or two close friends but not with strangers. It may be that you are confident with animals or children but not with adults. You may be able to cook but unable to sing. Confident people build on what they can do and confront honestly what they are lacking in, accepting constructive criticism and support.
Causes of low self-confidence
Your early environment and influences often have a major effect on how your confidence has developed throughout your early life – along with your own disposition and resilience. Many siblings brought up have very different levels of confidence. Children who are encouraged to speak their mind openly usually retain the habit. Children who have been unable to make their needs understood or have not overcome a learning difficulty might feel there is no way forward or opportunities for them.
Who Does It Effect?
It is possible for anyone to suffer from low confidence. It does not matter how old you are, if you’re male or female, black, white Asian etc, or even what religion you believe in. Confidence can be low in all of us at any time in our lives.
Low confidence is most common in teenage girls who are growing up feeling they have to look a certain way and compare themselves to others. This makes them lose confidence as they will feel they don’t compare to other girls looks, bodies etc. This is also a problem for boys also growing up throughout their teenage years.
Many adults also suffer from a low self-confidence; this could be down to many reasons. Whether it be not having a job, not being successful in job interviews, not having a partner and many more. Everyone is different and will have had different triggers to give them low confidence.
Low self-confidence can also begin from bullying. If someone is being picked on whether it be in school, the work place or in a social environment it can degrade them and make them feel worthless giving them a low self-confidence.
Facts & Statistics
- Over 80 percent of 10-year-old girls are afraid of being fat.
- By middle school, 40-70 percent of girls are dissatisfied with two or more parts of their body, and body satisfaction hits rock bottom between the ages of 12 and 15.
- Over 70% of girls age 15 to 17 avoid normal daily activities, such as attending school, when they feel bad about their looks. Brighten someone’s day by posting encouraging messages on your school’s bathroom mirrors.
- More than 40% of boys in middle school and high school regularly exercise with the goal of increasing muscle mass.
- 7 in 10 girls believe that they are not good enough or don’t measure up in some way, including their looks, performance in school and relationships with friends and family members.
- Among high school students, 44% of girls and 15% of guys are attempting to lose weight.
- 60%of adult’s report feeling ashamed of the way they look.
- 70%of adult women and 40% of adult men report that they have felt pressure from television and magazines to have a perfect body.
Examples of People with Low Self-Confidence
“My story on low self-confidence and low self-esteem.” – Gbemi Shittu – wattpad.com
“I’ve never been a ‘popular’ or ‘pretty’ girl.” – Mariah’s Story – bullyinglte.wordpress.com
“As a result of counselling I feel like I am a different person.” – Liz’s Story – counselling-directory.org.uk
“I had no clue why I was doing this to myself.” – Anonymous – mamashealth.com
How Can it be Treated?
The AoC can help you when it comes to building self-confidence and esteem. We are HCPC (Health & Care Professions Council) registered and also members of BACP (The British Association of Dramatherapists). We have a team of highly skilled, professional counsellors and associate therapists to help you through with the use of creative art therapies.
Creative art therapies involve using arts in a therapeutic environment with a trained therapist. You do not need to have any artistic skill or previous experience of dance, drama, music or visual art to find arts therapies helpful. The aim isn’t to produce a great work of art, but to use what you create to understand yourself better. In arts therapy, your therapist helps you to create something — such as a piece of music, a drawing, a play or a dance routine — as a way of expressing your feelings, often without using words.
Creative art therapies can be offered in group sessions, one-to-one or with family therapy depending on your own preference. We will match you to our best suited therapist/counsellor to help you with any of your issues. All our counselling is strictly confidential and nothing said in the therapy space will leave the room.
There are many different modalities in which creative arts can be offered to you ranging from the following;
Drama/Puppetry
Offers profound reflection on who we are and the roles we play. These art forms are also centrally concerned with how people change people, for better or worse, and the sort of connections they make with each other, e.g. superficial, conflictual, brutal, deadened or deeply enriching. Drama and puppetry can also offer vital insights into ‘situation’: how past situations are still colouring those in the present. Working with puppets is ideal for circumventing a reluctance to speak about feelings.
Sculpture/Clay
Sculpture offers a person the power to speak through touch. Its power lies more in the emotional resonance of substance. Sculpture invites a sensual engagement with the world. Clay expresses qualities and forms of feeling, directly, plainly, free of the clutter of any associations of the everyday.
Poetry
Literal words can misrepresent, underplay, hide rather than reveal and frequently offering only approximations to any recalled experience. In poetry as a multi-sensorial form, ‘amplifies the music of what happens’ (Seamus Heaney). ‘A poetic basis of mind’ (Hillman) can lead to a far more profound experience of life.
Sandplay
Clients choose from a whole world of miniature people, animals and buildings and arrange them in the controlled space of the ‘theatre of the sandbox’. This theatre then offers a profound overview of important life issues. Once feelings are organised and externalised in sandplay, they can be contemplated from a distance, and then assimilated.
Music
The dynamic forms in music are recognisable as vital forms of felt life: the rises and falls, the surges and flooding’s, the tensions and intensities, the changes in tempo, the dissonances, harmonies and resolutions. We know these forms intimately in our emotional experiencing. Music can convey the full qualitative and energetic aspects of an important relationship, atmosphere crucial event, or ongoing situation.
Bodywork/Movement
Forms encapture the complex inter-relations between time, weight, space, flow. We know these forms intimately in our emotional experiencing, so much so that both movement and still pose can provoke all manner of resonance. It is also possible to work with what the body is already communicating symbolically, whether through posture, gesture and gait, or through illness and injury. Movement is integral to the very process of change.
If you would like to receive counselling from The AOC please fill out on of our online referral forms and send to support@theaoc.org.uk You will have a choice of 3 different types of referral forms;
- For individuals or couples
- Family referral form
- Group referral form
Please select the referral form most suited to you i.e. if you would like group therapy, fill out the group referral form.
Simply click the following link to find out more information and complete one of our referral forms:
https://www.theaoc.org.uk/about-the-arts-of-change/self-referral-therapy-forms/
We provide our clients with high-quality, evidence based expertise in the form of personal therapy and counselling. To help anyone suffering with any type of eating disorder.
Here is an example of a creative art therapy from The AOC in more detail;
Dramatherapy
Dramatherapy is a form of psychological therapy/psychotherapy in which all of the performance arts are utilised within the therapeutic relationship. Dramatherapy addresses a wide range of personal and emotional difficulties. Clients who are referred to a dramatherapist do not need to have previous experience or skill in acting, theatre or drama. Dramatherapists are trained to enable clients to find the most suitable medium for them to engage in group or individual therapy to address and resolve, or make troubling issues more bearable. Dramatherapists work in a wide variety of settings with people of all ages:
- in schools
- in mental health
- in general health and social care settings
- in prisons
- in hospices
- in the voluntary sector
- in private practice
Dramatherapists are both artists and clinicians and draw on their trainings in theatre, drama and therapy to create methods to engage clients in effecting psychological, emotional and social changes. The therapy gives equal validity to body and mind within the dramatic context; stories, myths, play-texts, puppetry, masks and improvisation are examples of the range of artistic interventions a dramatherapist may employ. These will enable the client to explore difficult and painful life experiences through a creative-expressive approach. Dramatherapists are trained in both psychological and arts-specific assessment and evaluation techniques. They are committed to generating practice-based evidence and deliver sound evidence-based practice.
The British Association of Dramatherapists (BADth)
We can also offer our clients integrative counselling;
Integrative Counselling
Integrative therapy, or integrative counselling is a combined approach to psychotherapy that brings together different elements of specific therapies. Integrative therapists take the view that there is no single approach that can treat each client in all situations. Each person needs to be considered as a whole and counselling techniques must be tailored to their individual needs and personal circumstances.
Integrative counselling maintains the idea that there are many ways in which human psychology can be explored and understood – no one theory holds the answer. All theories are considered to have value, even if their foundational principles contradict each other – hence the need to integrate them.
The integrative approach also refers to the infusion of a person’s personality and needs – integrating the affective, behavioural, cognitive, and physiological systems within one person, as well as addressing social and spiritual aspects. Essentially, integrative counsellors are not only concerned with what works, but why it works – tailoring therapy to their clients and not the client to the therapy.
Top Health Tips
- Communicate with others – Speak loud and proudly.
- Accept compliments – Say thank you and smile.
- Act the person you would like to be – Play the role for long enough and you will become that person.
- Take up a new hobby or interest – Meeting new people who share this hobby or interest with you. Practise the hobby become good and be proud.
- Do things for others – Help someone out, it makes us feel better about ourselves.
- Learn Mindfulness – Follow the link for more information.
- Contact us – The AOC can help your overcome and put a stop to the sexual abuse you may be experiencing/experienced. Call or email us: 01384 211 168 / support@theaoc.org.uk