A popular book by Dr. Joe Rubino says that 85 percent of people suffer from low self-esteem. That means 85 percent of people are living with a horrible side effect: lack of confidence.
Do you find that statistic alarming, even hard to believe?
I don’t, and here’s why.

In the forty-plus years I have worked as a therapist and life coach, I have learned that many people have life experiences that leave them doubting themselves. They are afraid to make decisions and take action.
Why?
The most common reason is that our teachers, friends, and parents often let us know that we aren’t “good enough.” It seems that everything we do is somehow not right. Even after we are grown and have a home of our own, we still face disapproval at work, in our close relationships, and in or social interactions.
Approached correctly, low self-esteem and lack of confidence are often “fixable.” I can show you a simple path to get your life on a steadier, happier path.
Sources of low self-esteem and lack of confidence
Here are three of the most common sources of disapproval leading to low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence:
- Others often tell us what we have to do and how we have to do it, then let us know (verbally and physically) we didn’t do it “good enough”
- We are often told we could have performed better if we had done it “this way”
- Sometimes we don’t get any feedback at all … good or bad … so we assume we must have underperformed or someone would have liked what we did
When we face more disapproval than encouragement, we learn to doubt ourselves and fear the consequences of our actions. This doubt and fear turn into anxiety, and we eventually become continually anxious. We are anxious about the things we have to do and anxious about being what others will think of us when we do it.
How to overcome fear and anxiety
One way we often try to deal with anxiety is to make excuses. We cite our reasons for not getting more done. Our excuses can be something like “I would have been to your party, but I had so much to do that I just couldn’t make it,” or “I would have made the cake you asked me to bake but I didn’t have the cake mix and had too much to do, so I couldn’t go to the store.”
Our excuses can be brief or they can be quite lengthy, and it doesn’t matter which. What matters is that our excuses keep us from facing the fear of others disapproval … or even of the disapproval we heap on ourselves!
So, how do we change this? How do we stop the fear and anxiety? How do we build trust and joy instead?
The first thing we have to do is acknowledge and accept that the root of anxiety is fear. We must face the REAL problem squarely. The problem doesn’t get forced on us by others. We remain anxious due to the fear of our past losses and underperformance, felt in our now, and projected into our future!
Once we understand the real nature of anxiety (doubt and fear), we can learn to look at our life situation, determine the results we want, and then decide what actions we need to take to get those results.
Once we have taken the necessary steps, we can evaluate the actions and the outcome. If our results are what we wanted, we can say, “Hey, I am good enough!” And that realization produces joy. Real joy.
As we continue this process over time, we will ultimately replace our doubt and fear with confidence. This confidence will increase our self-esteem. As we increase our self-esteem, we will also increase our self-worth by crediting ourselves with our positive results – whether anyone else notices and tells us how well we did or not.
Remember – You, too, can learn to stop looking to others for approval and begin providing it for yourself. I can show you exactly how to do that. And we can meet in person at my office in Madras, Oregon … or via Zoom. Your choice.
For more information use my Contact form or call (541) 325-2118.
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