First off what does it mean to feel insecure? Sure we've all heard that word before, but often I think words get misused and that people have different ways of explaining feeling words, so here is how I define insecure: Feeling fear or anxiety about not being good enough, or that you’re not going to get what you want, or that you will be abandoned, this may cause a racing mind and heart, sweating, feelings of uncertainty or dread. 

Now with that understanding here are 7 ways to feel more secure:

1. Feel your feelings. People try to push insecurities down or to forget them or ignore them. However, there is tremendous opportunity to grow from them, by feeling the uncomfortable feelings and processing them you can deal with them head on, and grow from them. Test out just how real the fears are or if you are simply holding yourself back.

2. Keep a gratitude journal. Insecurities have less power when people understand both their strengths and weaknesses work together to make them unique. Keep a long of what your strengths are, what you feel adds to your life, and what you are grateful for. 

3. Stop comparing yourself to others. From a distance, other people might seem happier, more successful, thinner or wealthier. But often, that is just how it looks. You never truly know what someone else is going through unless they open their whole life to you, its like the old saying "don't judge a book by its cover", what people put out their is typically just a representative of what their real life is.

4. Live in the now. Insecurities often arise when people live in the future or the past. They worry that new things won't turn out positive or that the past will repeat itself. What if you just simply focused on right now, in this moment and lived life as though all you had was this moment?

5. Share your feelings. Often times when we feel insecure we keep it to ourselves, this can very easily keep us stuck. By sharing our emotions with a trusted person we can get the release of letting some of the emotion go, support from someone else, and possibly and objective look on the situation. 

6. Practice doing what you know. If we build on our strengths they can often translate to helping us fight our insecurities. For example if you are really fantastic at fixing things around the house, then practice that, feeling the strength and accomplishment from performing that task, all of those feelings can thing get stored in your mental strength tool box. Then when it comes to the time to give a public speech, all the strength you built up in your mental tool box can get used in to fuel you through what scares you.

7.  Avoid people that make you feel small. You have to protect yourself. That should be your first priority, you are the first priority to you. If you surround yourself with people that empower, encourage and inspire you, then your life will feel more full, safe, and secure.