Welcome back to the Sabby Psychologist. I'm Dr. Ellen Hendrickson and every week I'll help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based research, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

So this week was a big week at the podcast because my first book How to Be

Yourself, Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety, hit the shelves.

Yay! So to celebrate we will do the fifth of a six week

special series on all things introversion, shyness, and social anxiety and talk about feeling insecure.

Because if your confidence is the consistency of jello,

if you feel like a dandelion in a sea of orchids, if you walk through the world with an

existential trombone accompaniment of wah, wah, wah, the good news is you are not alone. Whatever you call it, self-doubt, insecurity, inadequacy,

it is a universal phenomenon. We can all relate to feeling as insecure as a newly

launched cryptocurrency. Insecurity even causes a unique form of amnesia.

When we're stuck in the throes of insecurity, it's hard to remember ever feeling confident.

Our memory becomes selective and any sense of ourselves as strong, self-assured, or capable,

disappear as faster than freshly baked cookies.

So how to salvage our confidence? Luckily, there are lots of things we can do.

So this week, we'll walk through three things to try when you're feeling insecure.

Plus, we'll address two common go-tos that actually backfire.

So let's start with what not to do. Number one, it's gonna be great. I can do it. I'm amazing.

All the generic phrases we mutter to ourselves to try to psych ourselves up,

end up psyching us out. Why? Because they feel like a lie.

Now, this will sound remarkably nerdy because it is, but think of it in quantitative terms. If you don't believe your

self-affirmation at least 75% it's probably not going to work. Even worse,

according to a study out of the University of Minnesota, if

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