self-esteem issues ruin my life

I've pretty much always been a perfectionist but I'm having a lot of problems working around my self esteem issues lately. This is a huge issue with me starting my own business. Basically, my default self view is that I am not as attractive, intelligent or competent as others at anything. I pretty much believe that the same as I believe there's a God or the sky is blue.

Because I feel like other people are more knowledgable about things, I under sale my work and allow others to talk me into doing things that I'm not comfortable with. I know what I should say in these instances, I just always fear that I can't WIN. Sometimes I just get paralyzed to make decisions because conflict or the prospect of disappointing another person…or looking incompetent. This is all very exhausting and other than the fact that this causes me to literally do hours and hours of work for free on occasion, this affects other aspects of my life as well.

There are things I would like to do, such as write a book…but I feel like I'm not "good" enough to do it…or since I'm not glamorous and cool people don't want to hear what I have to say. Much of the subject matter I would like to focus on in my work would be a bit unpalatable so negative and severe backlash is also something I don't really feel capable of handling. I think the worse part of the backlash would be from people who know me to be "nice" and used to me censoring myself.

Of course, I don't want to be a whiny brat, I want to be able to face life. The feeling I get when I do things right, I want that to become my default and I want to be able to function in life and assert myself. The things I hope to gain from this thread are:

--Ways to affectively get over my people pleasing ways
--Stories of people who aren't some Donald Trump who are successful at business or "the real world" in general.
--How to assert myself without social backlash

Hi Offthegrid. It's nice to meet you. I know what it's like to have low self esteem. I live with my parents, and I wish I could live on my own. I can't make friends because I am too paranoid. I would be a mess out there on my own. People hate me and I don't know why. That's funny. I want to write a book too. I will do it. I don't care what others say.

I think you are very smart, and you can do anything in life that you want to do.

Check out this link to the self esteem forum.

Steps to Better Self-Esteem - Forums at Psych Central

Sincerely,

Piraeus

Thank you very much. Even though you aren't involved in the situation, this was still comforting. I'm sure that people don't hate you. If they do that's their problem