Low self-esteem doesn't always look like someone who obviously lacks confidence.
You may be successful, capable, and someone other people rely on. You may make difficult decisions at work, manage a busy life, and appear pretty confident from the outside.
And still, you can spend a surprising amount of time wondering whether you said the wrong thing, made the wrong decision, disappointed someone, or should have handled something differently.
Sometimes low self-esteem shows up less as “I don't like myself” and more as having a hard time trusting yourself.
When You Don't Trust Your Own Judgment
Second-guessing can happen with big decisions—whether to leave a relationship, change jobs, move, or make another major life change.
But it can also show up in really ordinary moments.
You might replay a conversation and wonder if you talked too much. Rewrite a text several times before sending it. Ask friends what they think before making a decision you probably already know how you feel about. Or immediately question yourself when someone disagrees with you.
There's nothing wrong with thinking things through or asking people you trust for advice. But when you find yourself doing it over and over, it can become hard to tell whether you're carefully considering something or simply having trouble trusting your own judgment.
Looking to Other People for Reassurance
When you're unsure of yourself, other people's reactions can start to carry a lot of weight.
If someone seems disappointed, irritated, or distant, you may immediately wonder what you did wrong. You might change your mind to avoid conflict, apologize when you're not even sure you've done anything wrong, or spend a lot of energy trying to make sure everyone is okay with you.
Reassurance may help in the moment. The problem is that the relief often doesn't last. Before long, there's another decision, conversation, or reaction to analyze.
When Self-Doubt and Perfectionism Get Mixed Together
Sometimes trying to get everything right feels like a way to avoid all that uncertainty.
You prepare more. Think through every possibility. Check your work again. Try to say exactly the right thing. Make sure you've considered how everyone else might feel.
Of course, there usually isn't one perfect decision or exactly right thing to say. Trying to find it can leave you spending an enormous amount of energy on choices that other people seem able to make and move on from.
It can also make it harder to know what you actually want.
How Therapy Can Help With Self-Doubt
Individual therapy can give you a place to look at where some of that self-doubt comes from and why certain situations make it especially hard to trust yourself.
For some people, anxiety or perfectionism is a big part of it. For others, it may be connected to relationships, people-pleasing, past experiences, or being very used to considering what everyone else needs before asking what they want.
Becoming more confident doesn't mean you'll never second-guess yourself. But you can get to a place where every decision doesn't require quite so much analysis, reassurance, or worry about whether you got it wrong.