People Who Stay Insecure For Life Usually Repeat These 10 Mental Mistakes Over And Over
They want confidence, but their own thoughts keep tripping them up.
Tuğçe Açıkyürek | Pexels It took me decades to realize how many mistakes I’d been making that were making me miserable. No one had taught me this stuff. I picked up this knowledge mainly through a lot of unnecessary anxiety.
After fifteen years of studying mental health and coaching hundreds of people, I’ve seen these same patterns hurt lives over and over again. The coming years will be brutal for most. Mental strength is your greatest asset now.
People who stay insecure for life usually repeat these 10 mental mistakes over and over:
1. Believing you’re broken and need fixing
This is the mother of all mental health mistakes. You’re not an appliance. Yes, it’s counterintuitive, but you reinforce mental weakness by thinking there’s something inherently wrong with you, even if you set out to ‘fix’ yourself.
When you operate from this belief, you reinforce the very problem you’re trying to solve. You become obsessed with your flaws, your past ‘trauma,’ and your supposed deficiencies. Look around.
Realize this: you don’t need fixing, because you’re not broken. You just need to stop believing the story that you are. This is foundational.
2. Tolerating ugly thoughts as if they hold merit
Your mind will produce thousands of thoughts every day, many of them highly negative. Mentally weak people treat every thought as gospel truth, and then wonder why life keeps beating them down with a rusty chair leg.
They engage with worry, catastrophic thinking, and self-criticism as if these thoughts deserve serious consideration. They really don’t. They’re estimations at best. The strong have learned to let them pass through without attachment.
Observe your thoughts without judgment or a need to engage with them. This can help you see the structure of your thought patterns and become less reactive. Research has recommended not getting into an argument with the thought. The goal is to reduce its power, not to win a debate.
3. Avoiding discomfort like the plague
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Life is uncomfortable sometimes. But what if that wasn’t a bug, but a feature? When you constantly seek comfort and avoid anything that makes you nervous, scared, or uncertain, you train yourself to be a weak little leaf.
You become allergic to the very experiences that would make you stronger. Discomfort can be exciting when you see it as a window to a better experience.
4. Living in the prison of your past
Mentally weak people are obsessed with silly things that happened long ago. They allow events from years ago to dictate their present behavior. They carry grudges, nurse old wounds, and use their history as an excuse for current limitations.
Research suggests strategies like cognitive reappraisal, which reframes negative events as learning opportunities, and mindfulness, which anchors you in the present moment. The past is gone. It needn’t have a single iota of influence on your present behavior. Let that sink in.
5. Needing to control outcomes you can’t control
How about relaxing about needing to know every little thing that will happen at tomorrow’s event? You’re not a fortune-teller. When you must know what happens next, when you require guarantees about the future, when you can’t tolerate uncertainty, you’re fighting a war you cannot win.
Life is uncertain. The mentally strong make peace with this reality instead of exhausting themselves trying to control the uncontrollable.
6. Seeking validation from others constantly
Other people do have the power to lower your perceived worth. Mentally weak people are obsessed with approval.
They modify their behavior, suppress their authentic selves, and live in constant fear of rejection or criticism. When you know self-worth isn’t even a thing — that you are healthy, awesome, and whole, just as you are, you won't require external approval at all.
When you think someone dislikes you, for example, take a moment to question the validity of that thought. Research has found that by shifting your focus from external approval to your own inner compass, you can build a more stable and resilient sense of self.
7. Making excuses instead of taking responsibility
Don’t be that guy who relies on excuses to create a false sense of security. You’re only emphasizing your ineptitude. It’s always something, isn’t it? The wrong circumstances, difficult people, and the ‘unfair’ situation.
Mentally weak people have an excuse for everything and don’t take responsibility. This makes life harder, not easier. Take responsibility for everything within your control. Your reactions, your decisions, your effort, your attitude.
Real power comes from directing your energy toward what you can change rather than wasting it on what you can’t. You’re never truly powerless when you know the difference between what’s yours to handle and what isn’t.
Stop making excuses for the things that are actually your responsibility. There are plenty of those to keep you busy.
8. Ruminating instead of acting
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Thinking endlessly about problems does not put you in control. It weakens you. You’re no longer in the world. You’re in your thoughts, mentally fiddling with your trouser worm without anyone else knowing.
Unhappy people get trapped in analysis paralysis. They overthink, worry, and mentally rehearse worst-case scenarios instead of taking action. Action breaks the spell of rumination. That means leaning into things that don’t feel fantastic at first, but you train yourself to create continual momentum.
To stop ruminating, research recommends distracting yourself with physical activity, practicing mindfulness techniques like deep breathing, and restructuring your thoughts by breaking them down.
9. Believing your emotions are permanent states
‘I am depressed.’
‘I am anxious.’
‘I am stressed.’
These statements make temporary feelings into identities. Don’t join the masses of mentally struggling people by thinking this way.
They fuse their fleeting emotional states like they’re unchangeable facts about themselves. This just reinforces the issue. Instead, feel the feeling, but move on. Commit to success, rather than pondering your problems.
10. Waiting for motivation to strike before taking action
This one is highly seductive for most. Strong people don’t wait until they feel like doing something before they do it. They do not expect motivation to arrive like a lightning bolt and carry them to success.
They just start. This one act is extremely powerful and underrated. Motivation follows action, not the other way around.
Remember, your thoughts are wrong. Don’t buy into their seriousness. Don’t identify with your inner victim. Prioritize doing great things, and you'll be fine.
Alex Mathers is a writer and coach who helps you build a money-making personal brand with your knowledge and skills while staying mentally resilient. He's the author of the Mastery Den newsletter, which helps people triple their productivity.
