"Insecurity"- Is it a Reality or a Perception or a Notion or a Myth?

‘Insecurity’ is primarily a phenomenon of fight with oneself. Source of Insecurity happens from wide ranging reasons like ‘Fear of Losing’, ‘Lack of Confidence & Conviction’, ‘Jealousy’, ‘Superiority and/or Inferiority complex’, ‘wrong notion about self and/or others’ abilities/capabilities…

The cause of Insecurity may arise across discipline in one’s life, including not limited to professional, Intellectual, Social, Cultural, Family, Personal or … background.

It may be interesting to go back to childhood. The symptoms of Insecurity can be observed bang from childhood itself. With arrival of second child in the family, first child start showing traits of Insecurity. First child start feeling

• as if his/her everything being shared
• neglected
• to lose attention or not getting same level of attention

The real situation in case to case basis may differ; however, the response of first child is pretty much same in most cases. Possibly, person gets into ‘Insecurity from Childhood’ itself.

This doesn’t stop here. Parents marry their kids. Like it or not, mothers develop insecurities as bride arrives home. At this point of time, mother’s feelings are quite similar to first child with arrival of second child. This may be a subject of separate discussions all together; right now, it is more to set context.

Insecurities do prevail among people in Social circle, reasons and purposes may differ.

In professional World, this is all over; this can be seen all over visibly and behind the curtains. Degree may vary for different people at different point of time across situations, but this is one undisputed reality in professional world.

As person moves up the ladder/ ranks across discipline in life, typically higher the Insecurity one gets into. One of the key reasons: persons getting loner at highest level and among fewer otherwise. The space shrinks for one’s survival and/or growth.

Insecurity is very natural phenomenon in one’s life. This is not found among one in millions, it is more often. However there are few people, who learn the art of managing Insecurities.

Managing Insecurities is both ‘Science and Art’, when it comes to dealing with Insecurities.

First and foremost, person must know and be aware of the need to deal with Insecurities of self and not of others. This needs to be known to self and recognize as among most Critical Success Factors. This is a contest with self, fight with self, win over or defeat with self. ‘Being Positive’ about most things in life is yet another critical success factor.

Let’s look at some of the beliefs and realities that one needs to believe and practice consciously and/or BAU (Business As usual), while working on Insecurity Management (consciously and/or BAU):

• Believe in Self, Respect Self, and Love Self. There is a very fine line between believing in self and complacency & over-confidence. Latter could be killing and makes people Arrogant. Understanding, accepting, and practicing ‘Margin of Error’ is art part of managing Insecurities.
• Mutual Trust & Mutual Respect. Among all, this is most significant & critical aspect to manage with one’s self Insecurities. From birth till any given moment in life, we all learn everything from each other & our ecosystem with very little explicit contribution of others and mostly implicit way through our engaging together & interactions. Learn to acknowledge the contribution of one’s ecosystem and develop a habit of paying back one’s 2cents back to society with all humbleness and sincerity.
• Have an attitude and courage to learn from others. More importantly, these days, to learn from our youngsters across span of life at home, work, society, … One simple reason for this, their exposure is far different than one’s own times. Their perspective may be more contextual and relevant in today’s times covering Technological, Global, … scenarios. This makes people humble and helps develop mutual respect & mutual trust.
• I don’t know everything and NOT supposed to know everything. It may be good to know something about something/ everything, but not necessarily knowing everything about even few/certain things in life. Even if one is Champion/ Master of something, still may not know certain aspects of same thing.
• In continuation of previous point, learn to accept & respect ‘Point of View’. ‘Life and World is Grey’, there is no absolute Black or White in most aspects of life. Point of View comes with the background, situations, context, and many more factors. Any two persons at same time may have different Point of View on same subject for different circumstances/ state of mind of theirs. Point of View does change as circumstances/ situations change. Learn to accept & respect Point of View, in fact this can be real learning point in one’s life.
• All the times, people talked about half glass as half empty or half full till someone saw empty part of glass as opportunity. Seeing empty glass as opportunity never proves ‘half full-half empty’ theory wrong, it is another perspective.
• One shall be ambitious & aspirant. Again there is a very fine line between being ambitious/ aspirant and over-ambitious, latter can push one in negative gear to achieve something at any cost.
• Stay Focused. It is so natural to be everywhere & allover. Everyone has certain strengths and weaknesses. There is another dimension in life: one may not be good at certain things. Not being good at certain things does not mean weakness. In either situation of not being good at and/or weakness, it is critical to look for sources to complement and supplement to emerge as complete. Nothing wrong on working on two aspects and keep building. This can help remain focused and keep growing/ build oneself.
• One must accept, everyone has a role at given point of time in a given situation at home, work, society, … Everyone cannot do everything or would not like to do everything, hence it is significant to recognize this reality and extend due respect to everyone in whatever one is doing at a given point of time. Time changes, situation changes, scenarios changes … it remains to easy to walk through situations if one has not created massive legacy for self.

A successful CEO is who believes in and practice to hire people in each discipline, who knows respective subject more than self. Each of the hire shall be Champion of respective subject matter. Here comes the role of CEO, his/her wisdom to create wonderful music/ tune from piano by pressing right keys with right intensity in right combination. I recently met one such CEO of a US-based Multinational, who acknowledged his style of operations very close to this.

To reiterate, Insecurity Management is a factor of working on oneself. Coaching, Training & Orientation, Workshops, Counseling … can help; but fight with self can be won by fighting oneself with conviction, humility, honesty, sincerity, and genuineness.

People who continue to struggle manage their insecurities are mostly noisy, negative in their behavior, irritating & remain irritated, argument nature, have opinion on anything & everything, sometime backbiters/ environment spoilers, and so many traits. All will never all the traits, but combination of factors will reflect in their working, interactions, and behavior.

People who are able to manage their insecurities, by far, contribute significantly in their ecosystem without making noise.

Some and most of all this may look ‘common sense’, however ‘common sense is most uncommon’. Enjoy Reading!!!