3 Reasons You Feel Inferior (And What To Do About It)

Do you secretly feel inferior to others?

Are you constantly creating reasons that you aren’t as good as everyone else around you in your mind?

Do you sometimes believe that you are a loser?

If you answered “Yes” to any of the questions above, then stick around, because today, we’re going to discover the three reasons this happens to you . . . AND how to shift this mindset so that you can turn your life around.

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Why do I care so much about guiding people toward greater self-assurance and previously unseen levels of confidence? Because I dealt with this issue for years, myself.

For people with confidence and anxiety issues, we tell ourselves deceptive stories that can keep us in a constant state of inferiority and self-doubt.

Nobody understands this truth more deeply than I do. For more of my life than I care to admit, I lived in a state of inferiority. No matter who I saw, I would create a negative comparison of myself whether I knew them or not: if I saw a man, I’d only see that he was better dressed or stronger or taller or more charismatic than I was; if I saw a woman, I’d only see that she was too beautiful or successful or popular for me.

The problem with this way of thinking is that these stories are not real or true. Inferiority is not about metrics—it’s about linking your self-worth to them.

All or Nothing Mentality

When you see someone with more money, more fame, or more ANYTHING than you, you only feel bad about yourself because you are allowing that lack of money, fame, or WHATEVER to define you:

• He’s taller than I am, so he’s more worthy of attention.

• She’s more famous than I am, so she’s more worthy of praise.
• He’s more intelligent than I am, so he’s a better human being.

Our personality, lovability, self-respect, and overall sense of worth are diminished because of the cognitive distortion that we’re either the best or we’re nothing.  

This is an illusion that we MUST delegitimize.

When we notice ourselves engaging in this “all or nothing” mentality, we must stop ourselves in our tracks and call it out for what it is: a delusion that we’re choosing to buy into.

Life is not lived in black and white, and our worth cannot be defined that way, either. After all, if only the “best” were appreciated, then every character in every movie would be played by the same actor, all governments would be dictatorships, and sports just wouldn’t exist.

The spectrum of color is what makes life beautiful, and the spectrum of talent is what makes life interesting, so never downplay your worth, no matter where you are on it.

Win Blindness

This topic is so important to the nature of self-worth that I am actually planning on doing an entire post dedicated solely to it.

So, what is “win blindness” and why is it so important? Win blindness is when we become blind to our own successes and literally anything else about us that makes us great. Win blindness is such a sad state of mind because it’s not as if the qualities that make us great have disappeared—it’s just that we’ve stopped recognizing them.

When someone is color blind, the colors haven’t vanished—the person just doesn’t see them. It’s the same with your wins.

When you take away your wins, you are even more likely to engage in the “all or nothing” mentality. At that point, your comparisons are even more baseless because you’ve taken away all of the gifts that make you uniquely wonderful in the first place.

These two habits combined can be deadly to your confidence and overall sense of self-worth.

Self-fulfilling Prophesy

Because of confidence suckers #1 and #2 (all-or-nothing mentality and win blindness), many of us often create ridiculous stories about who we are (and what we are and are NOT allowed to do):

• My ideas aren’t as good as Stacey’s, so I can’t speak up in that meeting.

• I’m not good-looking—I can’t just walk up to someone and ask for a date.

• My siblings are funnier than I am—I should just keep quiet when the family gets together. 

We tell ourselves these bogus stories, and then we act in accordance with them: we don’t speak up; we don’t ask for the date; and we act like a wallflower, even in front of our own families. We take all of the actions that perpetuate the stories that diminish our value.

We buy the story that we’re inferior and then we never break out of it—we become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Once we’re in this negative cycle, we go through life expecting and receiving the same low-quality results.

The truth, however, is that you are better than those stories in your head. You are not bound by the fake limitations you’ve been putting on yourself.

But you do have to be the one to tear them down.

If you really want to increase your confidence, reframe your sense of self-worth, and change the direction of your life, then you must be the one to challenge the old beliefs and do the work to set yourself free.

Regardless of what anyone in your life has told you or what you may have told yourself, the things you believed in the past do not have the power to define your future. You can change.

Today is the day that you can decide to do things differently. What if you KNEW that you were equal to everyone you see? Would you approach life differently? Would you show up in ways you never have before? I want to challenge you right now to create an action list of all the things you might do differently if your sense of self-worth were instantly maximized. Get as specific as possible, and then take those actions one by one and make them a reality.

You have the power to change your life—you simply have to be willing to take the risk.

Please take a moment and share your thoughts and questions in the comments below. How have you applied these concepts in your daily life? How has this work helped you transform? We learn best when we learn from each other, so please keep engaging with this fantastic community.

Until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you’re awesome.