Do your insecurities sabotage your success? Are you struggling to achieve the personal and professional success you desire?
While insecure people share many common traits, I have observed that they have three traits in common, especially when promoting themselves. Often insecure people’s self doubts, fears and limiting beliefs are reflected in the behaviours below. They are usually unaware that they are doing these behaviours; they are on a subconscious automatic pilot. Insecurity is their comfort zone.
Common Trait #1 – They Undervalue Themselves
Your self-worth will determine how much you value and charge for your products/services/skills/ideas. When promoting their products, services, skills or ideas, insecure people undervalue themselves. They often undercharge, give away their services/ideas/skills for free, they resort to high discounting to secure business or undersell their abilities.
People who feel secure in themselves will value themselves; they will charge a fee that reflects their skills and experience. Rather than over discounting, they will happily walk away from a potential opportunity because they have sufficient self-belief to create other opportunities that value what they have to offer. They will find more ideal clients, they will seek out ideal employers, they will negotiate with win-win partners, etc.
Common Trait #2 – They Put Others Down
As a result of their own insecurities, insecure people often put others down. Rather than standing on their own merit and the value that they offer, insecure people resort to putting other people down so that they feel good about themselves. After all, if they can cut someone successful down to size, they themselves see less of a gap to rise to.
This helps an insecure person to feel better about themselves as they no longer need to compare themselves to someone who excels. The other person is now at their level or lower (in their mind) and it is easier to “compete” with them at that lower level. It is less scary for an insecure person.
On the other hand, a secure person stands on their own merit, on their own successes and their hard work. They have no need to compare themselves to others, they simply promote themselves in their own right, based on their hard won and deserved efforts and successes.
Common Trait #3 – They Copy Others
Insecure people copy other people because they lack sufficient self-belief to create something on their own. If they were to create something on their own it may not be good enough, nor be perfect, they may fail or be judged for it. Instead, they stay in the comfort zone of their fears and insecurities, and they copy others and often those more successful than they are.
They inaccurately believe that if they copy a successful person’s marketing or ideas, or take credit for something that someone else created, they too will be as successful. I have seen insecure people do some bizarre copying, from dyeing their hair the same colour as a successful person to copying a successful person’s marketing material word for word. In all the cases that I have observed over the past 18 years, the copycat insecure person did not achieve the same success as the successful person. In most cases, the copycat is no longer in business.
As all successful people know, there is a lot of hard work, persistence, challenge and commitment that goes on behind the scenes for success. What people see and copy on the surface is insufficient for ongoing success.
Are there any insecurities you need to address so that they stop holding you back from having the success you desire?
Dr. Vesna Grubacevic is an author (of the Amazon best-selling book, Stop Sabotaging Your Confidence), speaker, media commentator, and the founder and Performance Transformation Expert® with multi award-winning company, Qt. She holds a PhD, a BEc and is passionate about helping professionals and individuals to improve their confidence, emotional and mental wellbeing and success. For more free resources please visit www.qttransformation.com
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