In his latest book, one of Australia’s leading life coaches JAEMIN FRAZER equips readers with the tools, skills and confidence to build closer, stronger and happier relationships. In this edited extract he shares his seven ways to eradicate insecurity so you can show up to life unhindered by doubt, fear and self-limiting beliefs…
Personal insecurity is without a doubt the biggest inhibitor of human performance and potential. The fear of being found inadequate means all energy must be given to defending and proving, instead of growth and leadership. I have discovered that there are seven essential practices for overcoming insecurity.
DEFINE THE PROBLEM
(Your own opinion of yourself)
Understanding insecurity in its most accurate form reveals it as simply a problem within your own opinion of yourself. The problem is not the fear of failure or rejection. On closer inspection, the deepest fear is always about the personal implications of failure, rejection and being found out as somehow fake or inadequate. It is what these things would reveal about you that really terrifies you. As such, the problem is your own opinion of yourself. The great thing about defining the insecurity problem this way is that an opinion is the lowest form of knowing and can therefore be altered as soon as you are ready.
Take responsibility for creating the problem
(You formed this opinion)
Rather than positioning yourself as a victim and imagining your self-limiting opinions were created by what has happened to you, you must know the truth: you are not the actor in the story of your life written by someone else. You are the storyteller. We are sense-making creatures who tell stories about our experiences from the time we are born. The issue is that childhood stories originate from a very limited viewpoint. As such, negative and painful experiences are often given meaning in a way that implicates and diminishes us personally. When you realise your insecurity was not created externally, you stop looking outside yourself for it to be fixed.
SEE THE TRUE COST OF THE PROBLEM
(This opinion is costing you greatly, even if you are not currently aware of these costs)
Negative and disempowering opinions of yourself can only undermine and weaken you. In fact, unresolved insecurity inevitably causes you to show up at your worst where it matters most. However, just as it is possible for the true costs of running a business to be ignored even to the point of insolvency, the same is true in the way you run your life. You don’t have to face the truth; but, if and when you do, the acute pain of your reality will create significant motivation for change. That is the gift of pain.
KNOW WHY YOU MUST SOLVE THE PROBLEM
(If you don’t solve the problem, you will never achieve your true potential)
Facing the painful truth and then making the necessary changes to move away from this pain only forms half of the required motivation to genuinely solve the problem long term. It is also essential to be drawn forward by pleasure. Having a strong desire for what you really want in life, coupled with the conviction that your poor opinion of yourself is the main thing locking you out of this desire being realised, is the only thing powerful enough to keep you motivated to overcome insecurity.
GET HELP FROM SOMEONE OUTSIDE OF THE PROBLEM
(As Einstein said, “You can’t solve your problems with the same thinking you used when you created them.”)
The great challenge to solving the problem is that you think your opinions of yourself are true because you’ve lived with them for so long. It is very hard to get out of your own head to see what is real and what is not. Therefore, you’ll need the objectivity of someone who is not in any way impacted by your problem and so has no vested interest in solving it for you. At some point it is essential to get help to solve this problem, but you require someone who is not going to get in the way by making it all about them.
SOLVE THE PROBLEM
(This is about your opinion and only you can change it)
You can talk about the problem, observe the problem and scope out the solution to the problem, but eventually the problem still has to be solved. This means facing your own opinions of yourself all the way back to the very first time you decided they were true. The only way to change your opinion is to face your deepest fears about yourself and to review all the storytelling data to see if they are accurate. No-one is coming to save you, and no-one can do this work for you. Remember, this is a problem with your own opinion of yourself.
CREATE THE DESIRED FUTURE WITHOUT THIS PROBLEM
(Form new opinions and reinforce them until they become true – just like the old opinions)
Now that you’ve solved the problem and freed yourself from your limiting opinions of yourself, it is time to create new and improved opinions to take their place. Be clear about what you’d need to believe about yourself to achieve your biggest goals, and then go and write that story to live out of. Those who succeed in life do so largely out of the quality of their opinions of themselves. They just tell better stories than everyone else and live as though these stories are true. ■
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JAEMIN FRAZER is a TEDx speaker, author of multiple books, the voice behind the popular One Minute Coach radio segment (heard by over 750,000 listeners daily) and widely regarded as one of Australia’s best life coaches. He is also the founder of the Insecurity Project and specialises in helping entrepreneurs, leaders and business owners eradicate insecurity to improve their lives. Find out more at www.jaeminfrazer.com
LEVERAGE – HOW TO CHANGE THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE AND GET THE RELATIONSHIPS YOU DESERVE (Major Street Publishing, $32.95rrp) by Jaemin Frazer is out now
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