How to stop being self-conscious: Strategies to feel more confident

Feeling self-conscious can get in the way of having positive thoughts about yourself. No matter how hard you try to build yourself up, self-sabotaging beliefs bring you back into a negative mindset.

You might feel that everyone is judging you this way. It’s like a magnifying glass is examining every aspect of your behavior, appearance, and speech. This feeling can be all-encompassing, and it’s difficult to confidently make decisions or take on challenges since you don’t believe in yourself and don’t think anyone else does, either. 

But there are ways to break through this fog of negativity. You can learn how to stop being self-conscious to better understand your worth and move through the world more confidently.

What does “self-conscious” mean?

To be self-conscious is to be highly aware of your appearance and actions — and to feel that others are just as aware. 

You might give a presentation and feel very in tune with the fact that there’s an audience watching you. This makes you adjust your tone of voice if you notice you’re speaking too fast. Or this self-awareness might make you worry about your appearance and fear that the audience is judging you.

Self-conscious emotions like embarrassment, worry, and insecurity typically develop during childhood when defining your sense of self. And cognitive scientists theorize that self-conscious emotions are an evolutionary trait. Understanding how others perceive you helps you adjust your behavior to suit your audience and get what you or your community need. 

This is also a valuable skill in the workplace. Self-awareness helps you better understand the nonverbal cues coworkers give you so you can adjust your behavior to match each setting. You’ll brainstorm with teammates without overtaking the conversation, for example, and stay out of people’s personal space.

But too much self-consciousness can cause social anxiety, self-doubt, and shyness. If you hyper-fixate on your appearance and actions and think everyone else does, too, you might avoid social situations, lose confidence, and suffer from a skewed self-image.

8 signs of self-consciousness

If you feel like you might be overly critical of yourself and often worry about others judging you, you might be experiencing high self-consciousness. Here are eight common signs: 

1. Rumination: You rehearse potential social interactions or replay conversations. You struggle to control your mind’s repetitive scene setting, and these self-conscious thoughts fill you with gloom, stress, and anxiety.

2. Self-criticism: You find it difficult to turn off your inner critic and pick apart your every behavior and interaction, from a laugh to a goodbye. And you frequently feel embarrassed or ashamed when you make a mistake, thinking other people are laughing at or disappointed with you.

3. Social measuring: You compare yourself to other people — acquaintances, colleagues, friends on social media — to assess your appearance, capabilities, and successes.

4. Difficulty accepting feedback: Because you think everyone judges you, feedback and rejection feel especially painful because you assume everyone has negative intentions. If a manager gives you feedback about your work performance, you reframe it as a criticism of your worth.

5. Anticipating the worst: You imagine the worst from people or social interactions. When your boss schedules a meeting, your automatic negative thoughts are that they’ll fire or reprimand you. 

6. Low self-acceptance: You experience low self-worth and feel like nothing you do is ever good enough and you have nothing positive to offer. 

7. Avoidance: You feel so overwhelmed by the way others might perceive you that you opt out of social interactions to avoid rejection. Social self-sabotage leads you to miss out on important connections or relationships in your career. 

8. Helplessness: You feel incapable of making the right decisions, and this learned helplessness means you take less control over your life and don’t go after what you want.

5 causes of feeling self-conscious

For the most part, humans develop self-consciousness as children. If your parents often nitpicked your appearance or grades, you might feel more aware of how others could judge you. But the following health issues and experiences can also trigger or exacerbate your self-consciousness: 

1. Depression

2. Anxiety

3. Low self-esteem

4. Bullying

5. Traumatic or difficult childhoods, including abuse or maltreatment

How to be less self-conscious: 8 tips

Feeling self-conscious all the time is exhausting. Your mind is constantly considering what you’re doing wrong or whether someone’s judging you. But you can alleviate this pressure and live a more carefree life with the following eight strategies.

1. Identify your triggers

The first step to feeling less self-conscious is understanding the source of your negative thoughts and emotions. Here are a few to consider:

• Social situations
• Reminders of traumatic childhood experiences, abuse, or bullying
• Negative people in your life
• A toxic work environment
• A specific person you feel judged by
• A failure you can’t let go

A mental health professional can also work with you to determine your triggers.

2. Stop comparing yourself to others

It’s common to feel threatened or envious of coworkers who seem to have it all. But it can decrease your confidence because you think you should be where these people are at, even though you’ve accomplished so much yourself. Your personal and professional development should be your marker for success, not theirs, because that’s the only thing you understand well and have control over.

To shift your point of view, try starting each day noting a few things you feel proud of. And celebrate other people’s wins to teach yourself yours are worth celebrating, too. You can also use their success as inspiration rather than a source of jealousy. 

3. Talk yourself up

There’s nobody quite like you. Your ideas, experiences, and skill set make you a unique and valuable person. To convince yourself of this, write a list of your strengths and achievements. When you’re feeling particularly self-conscious, you can pull out this list and fill yourself with positive thoughts and self-love.

Here are a few tips to help you make this list:

• Ask a close friend or family member to help you brainstorm your best traits

• Reminisce on your personal and professional accomplishments

• Think of compliments your manager and coworkers have given you, and look for any common threads

4. Look outward

Self-consciousness occurs when you spend too much time looking inward focusing on your thoughts and emotions. And adjusting your focus can lessen this compulsive thinking. 

Taking control of your thought process requires patience and practice, especially if you’ve developed inward thinking as a coping mechanism for social anxiety. Start small, like noting five objects you see around you or trying to find something of a certain color or shape.

Over time, you can shift your focus to other people without focusing on their judging thoughts, instead considering how their day is going or how well they’re working on a project. This practice will slowly get you out of your head more often to avoid feeling stuck in a cycle of self-conscious thoughts. 

5. Cut the negative self-talk

When you’re stuck in a loop of negative self-talk, stop, take a deep breath, and reframe your inner dialogue. Here are a few examples:

• “I’m going to fail” → “I’ve prepared myself to succeed” 

• “No one likes me” → “My friends see and appreciate me” 

• “I’m in over my head” → “I’m capable of learning” 

• “My colleagues are better than me” → “They hired me because I’m good at what I do”

6. Practice positive affirmations

Take your positive self-talk a step further with a daily affirmations practice. Positive affirmations are statements in the present tense you use to cultivate a positive mental attitude. Consider repeating them to yourself daily, either aloud or in a journal. 

This practice decreases automatic negative self-talk and stimulates a more positive way of thinking because affirmations activate the brain’s reward centers. Over time, your positive self-talk becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

7. Give yourself a reality check

People aren’t thinking about you as much as you think they are. They focus on their own actions, behaviors, and emotions. Studies even show that, in social situations, people prefer to talk about personal experiences and relationships instead of criticizing or advising those they’re around.

When self-conscious thoughts overcome you, comfort yourself with the reminder that everyone has complex and fulfilling lives they’re focusing on. They likely haven’t noticed or don’t care about your small mistake or awkward slip-up.

8. Accept all of you

Humans make mistakes — it’s unavoidable. If you can truly embrace this inevitability, you might have an easier time letting go of your self-consciousness. You’ll understand that it’s okay (and expected) to be imperfect, so who cares if you spill your coffee on your shirt or fumble your words in a meeting?

The path to self-acceptance won’t happen overnight, especially if your inner critic’s very chatty. But the hard work is worthwhile. You’ll drop the emotional weight attached to your flaws and develop self-awareness to improve your relationship with yourself, and that’s priceless. 

Show up for yourself

Feeling a little self-conscious is par for the course. It means you know how your presence and behavior affect those around you. But if you constantly feel inadequate or worry about what others think of you, learning how to stop being self-conscious will help you live a more carefree and confident life.

Now you’ve got several strategies to try out and, in the end, you'll love yourself for putting in the hard work.