15 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You Still Struggle With Self-Love

You hide your insecurities so well. Most of the time, no one would ever imagine the battles you face on a daily basis. Without discrediting the progress you’ve made, you can still admit that you have a long way to go on the path towards total self-love. These little things that you do on a daily basis to cope often go unnoticed by others:

1. Brushing off compliments.

No one wants to seem cocky, so many people shrug off flattery with awkward, self-deprecating humor or embarrassed chuckles. When you do the same, it’s easy to assume you’re also just trying to be polite. Deep down, though, you know that it’s because you don’t feel comfortable accepting praise when you aren’t sure it’s warranted. No one else would ever guess the truth behind your casual dismissals.

2. Avoiding social situations.

Sometimes you just don’t feel up to interacting socially. You aren’t in the best mood or you have no energy to expend on others. It’s easier to stay home and nest than to pretend you’re feeling confident and fun. Your reasons are entirely valid, but even your closest friends may not realize why you don’t show up to events all the time.

3. Counting calories.

If your self-love issues involve your physical being, you may very well obsess a bit over controlling your diet. It’s difficult to stay away from the stigmas involved with body image in our society, and your insecurities make the demons even tougher to ward off. Counting calories can be an informative and functional way to pay attention to what you put in your body. Unfortunately, your anxieties may lead you towards unhealthy fixation instead.

4. Working out constantly.

For some, it’s easier to focus on exercise and burning what you put into your body instead of micromanaging your nutrition itself. Friends who don’t understand your true motivations may be envious or admiring of your incredibly sharp focus on fitness. They think you’re just really committed to health. If you’re talented at hiding your insecurities, no one sees that you’re actually feeling badly about yourself.

5. Trying to please everyone.

You just want people to be happy — that’s not such a bad thing, right? It isn’t… until it depletes your own emotional capacities. Being a people pleaser isn’t that great for anyone in the end. Everyone else assumes you’re fine, but underneath it all you are getting resentful and frustrated. To make it worse, you really can’t blame anyone else. If you thought more of yourself, you’d know when you need to take space for your own health and say no.

6. Giving up on dating.

There are so many reasons to avoid getting out there and looking for love. That’s why it’s so easy for you to conceal the fact that you dread dating because you don’t always feel like you have value as a person. Your family and friends love you, so they can’t imagine you thinking that you aren’t good enough to find a partner, but you aren’t always as confident and assured.

7. Losing touch with friends.

Life gets busy for everyone, so it’s easy for the casual onlooker to miss the fact that you finally gave up on maintaining friendships because you felt like others just weren’t keeping up on their end of the bargain. This is tough on your sense of self-worth, because a sneaky little voice inside you says you aren’t good enough to warrant importance to anyone. That must be the true reason they don’t put in effort.

8. Working too much.

When you’re feeling down on yourself, sometimes it’s simpler to focus on something external to distract you. Others say you have a strong work ethic, or they think you’re simply trying to get the bills paid. They hardly ever suspect that you bury yourself in your job in order to avoid facing some of your deeper issues.

9. Drinking frequently (and alone).

It’s one thing to go out socially and drink often, though that can be a way to cover up anxiety in itself. If you’re at home drinking by yourself every night, it’s no longer about needing a way to open up to others. It’s about drowning your worries. It’s unlikely you run around telling the world about your couch-and-wine-bottle habit, so even your inner circle doesn’t suspect what’s going on.

10. Passing up opportunities.

You can make every excuse in the book to justify not taking a chance, but usually it’s because you’re not where you need to be with your personal confidence. It’s so much simpler not to try at all than to make an attempt and end up failing. You think that because you don’t have a lofty opinion of yourself, you’re destined to mess it all up. The outside world never has to know the truth behind your excuses.

11. Responding to everything with humor.

It’s a classic method of deflection, and yet so many are oblivious to your coping mechanisms. You use humor to take any focus away from the insecurity or anxiety you’re feeling in any given moment. Everyone thinks you’re hilarious, but they don’t understand the reasons behind your behavior.

12. Dressing casually.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wearing whatever you’re comfortable in — it’s your body, your style, and your life. Sometimes, though, you dress down because you don’t feel good about yourself. You aren’t in the best mindset, so you hide behind your clothing. If you do this often enough, no one recognizes it as a sign that you’re having a hard time. They just think that’s your thing.

13. Trying overly hard to look nice.

Conversely, sometimes you put a painful amount of effort into your appearance because you think you need a mask to shield your true self. This isn’t such an odd occurrence, so you’re likely to slip under the radar. It’s easily seen as behavior that means you take pride in your looks. People don’t always understand that it can just as well be a way to compensate for perceived deficiencies.

14. Going above and beyond for others.

You’re a great friend and partner. You move mountains for the people you care for, but in the end, you’re sometimes left feeling like no one appreciates you. This vicious cycle is born of the wrong motivations. Because you’re insecure, you are going out of your way for selfish reasons. You can’t win the affection and attention of others by throwing your own needs aside. You’ll never feel better if you keep going into relationships with this need for approval — and they don’t know what’s going on anyway.

15. Treating others with the utmost kindness.

This is a compassionate byproduct of your subpar feelings towards yourself. You know what it’s like to be unhappy, so you don’t want anyone else to feel the way that you do. The kindness you bestow on others every single day is born of your own struggle with self-confidence and sense of worth. It’s a strangely beautiful result springing out of something not so pretty. Others appreciate this lovely quality of yours, but not many suspect its real origins.