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Earlier this year, Forbes.com released a report detailing an expert’s take on the crisis narrative within college mental health. This report highlighted a general tendency for society to pathologize normal human experiences, including emotions. Though significant struggles with emotions can result in clinical concerns, human emotions are neither positive nor negative, but rather how people adapt to the environment. For example, according to a 2022 report on ChoosingTherapy.com, insecurity is defined as a feeling of inadequacy, uncertainty, and fear about one’s abilities and worth. Though this emotion doesn’t feel good, it’s still associated with advantages, such as the ability to challenge negative core beliefs, fostering a growth mindset, and reflecting personal values.

Insecurity And Core Beliefs

The emotional experience of insecurity is often driven by negative cognitions about the self. However, there’s an important distinction between thoughts and beliefs. Thoughts are mental events that are currently in a person’s conscious awareness. Thoughts can be context specific but also random and irrational. According to a 2022 report by Healthline.com, the average young adult has over 6,000 thoughts per day.

Beliefs are intentional decisions that people accept as reality. Beliefs are influenced by personal history and not always active in one’s conscious awareness. For example, a student might believe that purple is the best color but will not always be thinking about this.

Many insecurities represent thoughts and not beliefs. For example, some college students have thoughts that they’re stupid, but when asked if they believe that they’re stupid, they will say no. In situations where thoughts don’t reflect beliefs, these thoughts can be easily disputed because the person doesn’t believe them.

Some beliefs can be negative (i.e. students who believe that they’re stupid), and insecurity detects these negative beliefs. This detection is helpful because humans can then challenge these negative beliefs or, when needed, develop a growth mindset.

Insecurity And A Growth Mindset

Insecurity is often a signal that improving upon a limitation is warranted, and this signal represents an opportunity to foster a growth mindset.

According to a 2024 report by Purdue Global, a growth mindset represents a prevailing attitude that skills, talents, and attributes can be improved upon with effort and practice. This mindset is vital to avoiding self-criticism while responding to negative self-belief. For example, some young adults might have a need to improve their physical fitness. For such individuals, insecurity might motivate them to start a process of improvement, and if these individuals view themselves as being in such a process, then insecurity is beneficial. However, if these young adults view themselves as being a final product, then they’ll likely dwell in self-criticism.

Insecurity is not the same as self-criticism. Insecurity is an emotion, and self-criticism is the inability to cope with this emotion. The motivation to foster a growth mindset is an advantage that humans have over other species, and insecurity provides this motivation.

Insecurity And Personal Values

Individuals feel insecure about things they value. Young adults who feel insecure about appearance, money, and friends are likely to place a high value on such things. Self-criticism is assuming that one’s insecurities are permanent and that certain values are unobtainable. However, as stated, insecurity is an emotion and emotions are never permanent. The emotion of insecurity motivates people to strive for their values and highlights what these values are.

A 2024 report on BrainzMagazine.com emphasized the importance of embracing insecurities to live authentically, find inner peace, and achieve personal goals with greater speed and efficiency. Insecurity should not be confused with concepts of maladaptive coping, such as self-criticism, low self-esteem, negative comparing self to others. Learning how to cope and regulate the emotion of insecurity can help young adults challenge negative beliefs, strive for growth, while highlighting their values.