Are you able to just kind of socialize and get involved in stuff without as many second thoughts? Or make and share stuff with less of an imposter syndrome or whatever you might call it when you’re uncomfortable being associated with your work?
Or is it like so many things, where it kind of depends on how things are going that day?
I have a positive self-image but I’d never join an extracurricular club alone for example. Socialization with strangers requires a whole lot of guts and some sort of plan in my opinion.
The positive self-image mostly helps in that it allows me to have confidence in the things I really should have confidence in. (Ex: making a genuine mistake is okay, having an embarrassing moment is okay, getting rejected for something is okay). At its core, it’s recognizing that you deserve to be loved by yourself.
I might be misinterpreting your post but it sounds like you’re talking a little bit more about confidence. The key to having confidence and fighting away imposter syndrome is to find and focus on the positives, how you got to the spot you’re in and all of the times you’ve had to succeed. Forget about the failures and spend time every day reflecting on your accomplishments.
It’s that simple. You don’t even need to believe the stuff you tell yourself, but if you keep repeating it to yourself, you will start the believe it. Confidence requires active effort to build, independent of how good at something someone is. I struggled with my confidence and occasionally still do but had a friend recommend a good book that legitimately changed how I view myself. I can’t remember the name of it off the top of my head but if you want I will look it up and edit my comment.
I appreciate the advice, although that’s not exactly why I was asking. I think confidence is certainly an element of a positive self-image, and probably in developing it, yet I’m more interested in the broader mentality/experience of one with a positive self-image, and in that respect it may be good to ask, how much of that is confidence/self-confidence?
Fair enough, I don’t think I have an direct answer to the big picture of your question but in my own experience improving my confidence and the mentality I’ve adopted to do so has in turn reshaped how I view myself. So as you stated there might be an overlap of the two topics.
I’m not trying to advertise it (I have it as a pdf and would offer to send you a copy if I knew how to do that on here) but the book i was referring to is called “The confident mind” It’s by Nate Zinsser. It felt a little dry but it isn’t trying to be a science fiction novel and makes it points very well. An example being from my last comment just repeating something to yourself over and over leads to you starting to believe it. It also uses pro athletes and their mentality and talk about how one could apply the same approach to everyday life. It’s not earth shattering revelations, but for me it did connect things in a way that helped shift my perspective.
I’ve been going to a psychologist fairly regularly (fortnightly or monthly) for over 2 years, and I do generally have a positive self image, now.
I didn’t start going just to gain better self image, but it came naturally the longer I spent articulating the problems I have and the goals I want to achieve.
When you answer questions about yourself, your thoughts, your ideas and values (specifically when you SAY them aloud to another person), it tends to expose your internal biases; against others, as well, but particularly yourself.
Negative thoughts said aloud, repeated, begin to sound like hyperbole. It’s easier to catch yourself being unfair, mean, critical or thinking with no nuance about yourself, when you have to articulate it.
Even writing my thoughts down worked better than just thinking them. Feelings were no longer vague and undermining, they were nameable and confrontable. Having someone verbally intervene in unfair self judgements- and to highlight and celebrate my personal wins- is infinitely rewarding.
I feel good about myself, overall. I see my good, bad and neutral traits, and the bad is easier to tackle or accept when I know good and bad don’t cancel each other out. Many things can be true at once, and it serves me nothing to fail to see my wins.
Almost no one I know is fully evil, bad, useless or selfish, they always have at least one thing that’s worth celebrating.
I decided that, now that I can see my good, I’m allowed celebrate, enjoy and share it, because the bad doesn’t grow without my permission anymore, and they’re not in competition; it’s just all me. Complex, like everyone.
I have very positive self image.
just kind of socialize and get involved in stuff without as many second thoughts
Yes, this is easy for me. It’s still tiring, but I don’t worry about it before or afterwards. I still get embarrassed if I make a faux pas, of course, but I move on and try to learn from it.
make and share stuff with less… uncomfortable being associated with your work
Not sure I understood this part. If I was uncomfortable with what I made, I wouldn’t share it. I’d try again until I had something worthwhile. Not perfect, but at least interesting.
As I understand it, “imposter syndrome” is a feeling like one is uniquely unqualified compared to everyone else. But the reality is that most people are more-or-less bullshitting their way through life, outside of a half-dozen areas of actual competency. The reality is also that it’s okay to still be learning something you’re trying to do. And the reality is also that no one remembers your mistakes better than you.
Everyone is most comfortable doing things we’re already good at. But it’s okay to not be comfortable, and to not be good at something, as long as the stakes aren’t too high (like, you should be good at driving before taking the wheel of a busfull of schoolchildren, obviously).
Oh, and remember that most people are amoral idiots with no sense of beauty and their opinions aren’t worth shit. If they don’t like your stuff, so what? They know nothing. The people worth impressing are the ones most likely to be understanding and compassionate, because they’re the ones who struggled and strove and valued learning themselves.
Not sure I understood this part. If I was uncomfortable with what I made, I wouldn’t share it. I’d try again until I had something worthwhile. Not perfect, but at least interesting.
To clarify, what I was trying to describe there was not being uncomfortable with what was made, just like…Having to be the one presenting/sharing it because of self-image/confidence issues. Sort of like you could be proud of an essay you wrote, but the moment someone asks you to read it for others or develop it into something more robust that might be published, you just want to totally disappear.
I wasn’t really sure how to put it when I wrote the post awhile ago, but maybe this helps a little.
Ah, so, you’re confident in your work, but you don’t want any attention on you personally? That I can sympathize with for sure, even though I’m a bit of an exhibitionist personally.
Basically, yeah. Not really sure how much it’s to do with self-image/confidence or what (maybe it’s plain ol’ social anxiety? 🤷♀️ ), hence that side of the question.
Imposter syndrome felt like the closest fit at the time, but it’s definitely not an exact match.
Depends. I did manage to build a positive self-image, but I’m still an introvert. Occasionally I jump right into things or manage social situations smoothly, sometimes I hesitate and sometimes it’s awkward. I don’t suffer from imposter syndrome anymore though, in fact I tend to do things I literally don’t know how to do and learn while doing them, and that feels great.
I’m pretty much also in the boat so thanks for writing out a lot of what I was already thinking, lol.
I absolutely do have some imposter syndrome but what I’ve chosen to do about it is be completely open with others about having it (I don’t advise this if you’re a doctor or something like that, I’m in a creative-and-thereby-totally-subjective field). I found that being open about it or anxieties has in turn made others more open in turn, and it’s made the nagging voice in the back of my head a lot quieter.
My best advice for you OP is to learn to really, truly forgive yourself. For little blunders or whatever else, learning to not beat myself up over mistakes or embarrassment was life-changing in terms of being able to curate a sunnier attitude toward my own self.
I wouldn’t say I have a particularly positive self image but I guess I grew too old to keep caring so much about what people think of me in social situations. We’re all just trying to get by and doing our best. And when it comes to my art, my thinking has slowly transformed to “why should I have any less right to people’s attention than anyone else?”
I suspect this is the best answer for someone who is looking to cultivate a positive self image. There are other important factors too, like working on avoiding negative self-talk. But I think the big one is not letting others define how you think about yourself.
Criticism can be valuable but I think it’s important to develop a filter for recognizing when people are just projecting their assumptions onto you and completely ignore those.
It is more of a totally different perspective. Like, if a person is concerned about their self image it is something negative they are self conscious of, but the opposite is not true. People that may seem to have a positive self image just have different things they are self-conscious of. There are narcissistic people, but that disorder is probably not what you’re referring to. I don’t think anyone is really aware of any positive traits within themselves, at least not with 100% confidence. Maybe that is just my perspective, but like, I’ve had lots of people tell me I’m attractive. I still don’t believe I am. I can tell I’m smart based on my curiosity, interests, and accomplishments compared to other people around me. Still there are at least a half dozen times a day I do something stupid, and while I may compare a certain way to people around me IRL, a place like this is full of people far smarter than I could ever hope to achieve.
Just try not to focus on the negative more than is necessary and useful. Feeling dumb about something one did in the past is a sign of growth, or at least the opportunity for growth. Truly stupid people never feel stupid.
I consider myself to have a positive self image. When I walk into a room I try to talk to people in a friendly way and if I feel like I vibe with someone I try to get to know them.
I don’t make and share things commonly. I’m never uncomfortable sharing things I do for work though, more intellectually interested and curious what other people think.
I think a lot of people get into their own heads. Someone might think that everyone is thinking negative things about them when the reality is that most people don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves.
I try to be almost willfully ignorant in a sense. If someone is trying to be subtly rude I’ll just be friendly anyway and pretend I don’t notice. Life is too short.
One of the important things is to not beat yourself up over little things. Everybody makes countless small mistakes when socializing, but it’s only toxic to dwell on them. Often, if you just continue the conversation, the other person may not have even noticed the mistake.
