There is only one answer to – why you’re so ugly. It’s a simple one. I don’t need to think twice about it. All of the research points to one straightforward conclusion.
And it’s not what you think.
The reason why you’re ugly is not because of the huge pimple on your chin, the scar on your forehead, the long nose, or the crooked smile.
It’s not even the fat belly or you being bony, the freckles on your cheeks, the colour of your skin, the lips being too thin or thick, the eyebrows being too bushy or scanty, or the white hair or the lack of hair on your head.
The reason why you’re so ugly is only because you believe you’re ugly! No, I’m not faffing my way through this. Read on, there is research to prove this.
Trust me, there is no other reason no matter how the voices in your head convince you otherwise – your appearance does not define you.
Understanding What is Ugly – A Perspective
Defining ugly
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the word ‘ugly’ describes something or someone as “unpleasant to look at” or “unattractive”.
Some other words used as synonyms of ‘ugly’ are horrible, unpleasant, nasty, disagreeable, grisly, hideous, displeasing, grim, unattractive, unsightly, and unlovely.
Are you Ugly or Do You Perceive Yourself as Ugly?
Are you all those harsh things? Do the words ‘horrible’, ‘nasty’, hideous’ describe who you are?
If you thought for more than 3 seconds to answer the above question, let me confirm that you don’t embody these traits.
A recent study found that self-esteem changes are guided not only by whether other people like you but are especially dependent on whether you expect to be liked. Your ugliness is, therefore, a result of distorted perception.
I know that we’re all different. Something that seems okay to me may not to you. We all deal with emotions differently and process circumstances differently on our timelines.
But let me ask you, are everyone’s body temperatures different?
Yet, you know when someone is down with a fever because it’s above a certain threshold temperature. Even then, for a day or two, you’ll observe. You’ll see if the temperature goes down. If the condition doesn’t improve, you’ll escalate and deal with it differently.
Let us apply similar criteria to this as well –
- Okay is when you feel unattractive on some days but not all days.
- Okay, when you can bounce back to feeling happy and confident again on the bad days.
- Okay is when you have a bad hair day and feel a bit underconfident about it but it doesn’t hold you back from putting your best foot forward.
- Okay is when you know you’re not looking like the best dressed in the room to attend a meeting but you’re able to remind yourself of why you’re there and don’t let it affect your performance.
It’s not okay for this feeling to stick and influence each aspect of your life. That’s when it’s time to escalate the matter and pay special attention to the feeling.
It’s not you, it’s them!
Celebrities, movie stars, models and rich people look blemish-free (literally) but do you think that’s how they look in real life without the three layers of makeup on?
The beauty standards set by the beauty industry are odd and narrow but the marketing budgets for such standards are huge because they are all for-profit organisations. These standards have been manufactured to play on your insecurities.
They are designed to make you believe that you need to look a certain way to be beautiful so they can make money.
Don’t believe me?
What makes people prettier?
This is what people had to say when asked – what is the one thing they swore made them prettier:
- Being happier and radiating joy from inside because that’s when I’m most confident and it shows! (Repetitive one)
- Living in an environment that helps me blossom and having access to my hobbies.
- Doing small things for yourself every day.
- Quitting drinking. (Repetitive one)
- Limiting contact with dysfunctional and unsupportive people.
- As cliched as it sounds, feeling confident. (Repetitive one)
Why do you Feel Ugly: Uncovering the Root Causes
Feelings are by-products of circumstances and experiences.
This feeling also emanates from some instance in your life, your experiences with people around you and your environment.
Comparison trap set up by social media and the beauty industry
The Internet is full of people who are making themselves look like something they’re not.
Yesterday, you saw the supermodels fit a certain size bracket so that was beautiful. Today, it’s the Kardashians and the curves, so that is beautiful.
While all of them go around filling their pockets by getting your attention and money; here you are, stuck in a comparison loop and beating yourself up to match up to fake and unreal standards, which interestingly, change every three months.
Trauma response to past experiences
- Were you bullied as a child?
- Were your parents emotionally immature and expressed their unhappiness with how you turned out while you were just busy being a kid?
- Did someone outrightly tell you that you’re ugly?
- Has anyone called out the so-called flaws/imperfections with a negative undertone?
In each of the above circumstances, the other person has been at fault for trying to protect their brittle sense of self. But you’re the one responding to their actions and continue to suffer from the lingering effects of the traumatic experience.
Cultural and societal expectations
Sometimes, you want to be included in a group so you try doubly hard to stay on top of what you think the group expects of you.
It could be culturally expected of you or would be considered better to look a certain way and present yourself in a way that society expects you to. If you cannot adhere to it, you feel that you’re lacking something.
For example, in the Indian context, fairer complexion is often considered better than wheatish (medium/dark skin tones).
Many people with a wheatish complexion feel inferior and use fairness products trying to make themselves look fairer in the hopes that society will appreciate it.
Regular hormonal or physical changes
As much as we hate the transition from being a carefree child to an adult with responsibilities, ageing will happen!
This is especially true for teenagers and adults who have difficulty accepting the process of ageing. You and I can do nothing about it.
We will get wrinkles, our hair will become white someday and our teeth will also most likely fall out. It’s going to happen. But does it make us ugly? HELL NO!
Influence of the beauty industry
It’s funny how we know that we all have distinct features and the society/beauty industry calls these distinct features imperfections.
What is perfect and what are flaws? Whose word will you take on this? Whose word is worth your peace of mind?
Ironically, the beauty industry tells you to own the imperfections and flaunt them, but by calling your distinct features imperfections, it also tells you that these features lack something and aren’t perfect!
Signs of mental health concerns
Persistent feelings of feeling bad about your looks can be linked with mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and body dysmorphic disorder, all of which can distort self-perception.
At the same time, if you suffer from these conditions, they create more space for negative thoughts about how you look and could as a result, cause you to feel unattractive.
How feeling ugly impacts your life
When we talk of this, we often hear of only the surface-level issues related to this. It’s hard to imagine the practical implications of this feeling on your social life, mental and physical health, and your general approach to life.
Effects of feeling inadequate on social life
If you constantly feel inadequate, it’s hard to comfortably be doing things that otherwise may seem normal – hanging out with friends, standing in front of a class to give a speech, going to a party, or speaking up in a meeting.
This fear of getting judged for your appearance makes you want to hide. As a result, you may end up isolating yourself.
Difficulty coping with setbacks
This feeling spills into other aspects of your life and although you’re capable of so much more, your self-limiting beliefs hold you back.
You’re scared about others’ opinions of you because you’re not sure of yourself and it reflects in how you tackle problems, how you handle criticism and how you cope with setbacks.
Effects on mental health and emotional struggles
Neither withdrawal nor loneliness fare very well in life. It adds to your troubles and may also lead to other mental health concerns like social anxiety and depression.
Overcompensating to cope with life
Sometimes, to cope with the feeling of inadequacy, you end up going out of your way to feel like a part of the crowd, to feel like you truly belong.
Overcompensating and buying clothes that everyone else thinks are better, talking like them, and looking like them even though it doesn’t resonate with your core self.
As a result, you’re stuck in the wrong crowds feeling utterly lonely in rooms full of people pretending to be someone you’re not.
Practical Steps to Cope and Overcome Feelings of Inadequacy
So I may not know where you get this from or who told you this but I do know this – you can change this feeling about yourself without changing any physical trait or aspect!
You can alter how you experience things by training yourself to change your perception.
Acknowledge the issue and accept you need help
Peeling off the layers takes time and patience but most of all, it takes acceptance that you need help. If you even refuse to believe that there is a problem, you’ll never get around to beginning your journey of finding any solutions.
Little do we realise, that sometimes, it takes a little bit of effort for a lot of good to happen in life.
Explore the insecurities underlying feelings of ugly
Yes, it’s time for some self-reflection.
Like I said, feeling ugly is just the result. To change the result, you need to deal with the multiple layers that feed this feeling. We need to know where this is coming from!
In the sections above, we’ve talked about the many reasons that could be the reason for you to feel this way.
Go over each one and ponder over it for a while and then, write your thoughts on it.
Pro tip – Highly recommended that you write this down because science says that writing letters and sentences (not typing) helps the different regions of the brain connect better.
Effectively, your brain functions better and you have improved memory because writing gives you time to process information. No wonder, if you took notes in your class, you understood and retained more than the people who didn’t.
So, I hope you’ve picked up your pen and paper to have a better chance at recalling your thoughts, getting back to them later without missing the details and sorting through them when you need to.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What are my triggers?
- What feelings do these triggers give rise to?
Work your self-perception: Reprogram how you value yourself
You’ve read this long article and you’re almost at the end. This shows:
- You have the patience to go through the whole damn thing (I know it’s long!).
- You are an open-minded person looking for solutions.
- You are done feeling like shit and ready to do what it takes to change your mindset and turn your life around.
- You are a forward-looking person who is hopeful and hasn’t given up even though it hasn’t been easy at all.
- You can read (:p).
There is so much to be grateful for and so much to be proud of yourself for. If you want, you can start clearing the mess in your life right now and start noticing each negative thought and correcting yourself.
I know it’s easier said than done. It’s not a day’s job. But if you start working at it today someday, it will not take you so much effort to remind yourself to feel good.
It will, with time, get easier to look for something good in yourself and be happy with yourself instead of hunting for the so-called “ugly” features.
Audit your digital information consumption
Like I said, one of the majority of the reasons for feeling unattractive is because the beauty industries with their massive marketing budgets are targeting people like you and working hard to make you insecure.
Figure out what exactly is resulting in you comparing to the faux threshold. And where are you hearing about it from?
In a recently conducted study, 82% of the people claimed to have bought beauty products after they saw influencers rave about them. That is a huge number.
Is it the social media posts by influencers, Instagram reels by make-up artists, models and movie stars, or fashion magazines?
The problem with the internet is – it shows you more of what you generally spend time on and not what you need to spend time on. So if you follow content that will bring you down, the internet is going to through loads more at you.
The exercise you need to do is – unfollow all accounts and pages that contribute to this feeling and replace them with content that helps you be a better version of yourself, relax, achieve your goals, and stay happy and healthy. Follow self-improvement, personal growth and development content (shameless plugin – don’t forget to subscribe).
Also read – 7 Strategies to Break Social Media Addiction
Learn to deal with the spotlight effect
This is a psychological concept that describes how we tend to overestimate what and how much other people notice about us as if we’re under a spotlight and the world can see each minute movement.
Because we’re scared of judgment, we over-analyse each of our mistakes and assume everyone else is doing the same.
In reality, however, everyone is too busy dealing with their own lives. Nobody cares.
And even if they did notice it, so what? Is the world going to crash? If the answer is no – then it doesn’t need your attention.
Practice a self-care routine
We’re all very busy in our lives. On some days when I get back home from work, all I want to do is watch a meaningless show, scroll through some Instagram reels, or better yet, stare at a wall. I know it gets hard to make time for yourself.
But I’m not asking for an hour or even 30 minutes. You just need 5 to 10 minutes a day to gather yourself together and do something small for your brain to register that even on a busy day, it matters how you feel about yourself.
- Listen to the music you love.
- Watch 10 minutes of a feel-good show (I recommend Schitts Creek, Friends and the Office).
- Do some hair care or skin care.
- Spend some time journaling.
- Use your favourite perfume.
- Wear clothes that make you feel good about yourself.
- Sneak in a quick dance routine.
- Go for a walk and listen to your favourite podcast.
- Go to the gym (I don’t relate to this one, but I know people who swear by it).
If you spend 10 minutes for 365 days to do this, you’d have done this for 3650 minutes i.e., 60.83 hours taking care of yourself.
Cut out the negativity
As cliched as it sounds, the people around us influence us – our actions, moods, and thoughts.
As a rule, keep your healthy support system close because when someone who cares about you criticises you, they’re helping you to grow. But if someone is simply putting you down time and again, why are you leaving space for them in your own life?
You don’t want to be around people who pull you down and don’t wish you well, who take and take from your vessel but don’t give.
Learn to draw healthy boundaries with such people and create a safe space for yourself to flourish.
Build your self-esteem
I’m hoping you still have that pen and paper in your hand and take notes because this is the most important section of this article.
Your sense of self-esteem defines how you perceive and value yourself. If your self-esteem is low, you’re more likely to doubt yourself, take a hard hit when someone questions you and feel unworthy.
On the other hand, if you’re secure, comfortable, confident, and believe in yourself, you will return stronger when you’re stuck in a problem situation.
It’s pretty simple – if you don’t believe you’re worthy, you won’t try to achieve it. But when you know and truly believe you deserve what you’re aiming for, you will do everything to see it happen.
If you think, no matter what you do and how much you work, your life will never change, trust me, you also want to read – 13 Signs that Your Life Will Never Get Better.
Don’t let the stumbling keep you down
While you’re doing so well, feeling like you’re getting somewhere, something might happen. Something that may feel like you’re right back where you started.
But if you push through these few days, you’ll realise you can come back faster than the last time. Things will happen again because life continues.
Each day will be different, some will be good and some will be bad. But you’ll see that the lows are neither as hard nor as long each time. You’ll bounce back quicker to feel like yourself again.
Self-Esteem Worksheet
You can read it and forget all about it in the next three minutes but if you have it written on paper, you WILL come back to this again for sure.
So, please, please, please pick up a pen, write down today’s date and get started with what we’re going to call – your ‘self-esteem worksheet’.
Self-reflection using the self-esteem worksheet
Answer the following questions in detail. Take as much time as you need. Don’t rush through the process. Ponder over each question!
- Make a list of 5 things that you think are wrong with your looks today.
- What if you fixed each of these 5 things? How would that affect your life as it is today?
- Read the answers you wrote above and notice what causes you to make these negative observations about yourself. Is it a life experience, your friends, social media, or movies?
- What are you trying to achieve by fixing what the beauty market calls imperfections but honestly, they are just features?
- What are the 5 things that you would never change in your physical appearance?
- What are the 5 things apart from your physical appearance that you’re proud of?
- Name any 2 good things that happened today.
- Name any 2 good things you’re glad you did today.
If you can’t find any, just scroll up to the ‘Self-Perception’ section and then return to this.
If you’re feeling low again two days later, return to this self-esteem worksheet and answer the questions again. Then read what you wrote in your previous worksheet and I promise you, something internally will shift making you more alert to all the good that you offer and all the good that is happening to you.
Treat your greatest resource well
No extra marks for guessing what (or who) is your biggest resource. In case you still haven’t guessed it, it’s YOU! 🙂
You can’t expect others to be kind or compassionate with you if you’re not going to be that with yourself. This is a move that has to come from you because even if someone else were kind to you, you’re most likely to reject it because you don’t think you deserve it.
So stop putting yourself down, cut out the self-deprecating humour. Be grateful for wherever you are in life, for your ability to read this, and for working on yourself. If you’re still having trouble relating to this, please go back to the Self-Esteem section and restart!
Next steps
- Be kind and considerate with yourself.
- Be patient with yourself.
- Stay consistent with the practical tips.
- If you don’t put in the work, don’t expect any results.
- Following the practical tips consistently will rebuild and solidify your sense of self – giving it the strong foundation it needs.
Final thoughts
- You are beautiful. Don’t let media, society or your past define it for you.
- A 1000 people could tell you how beautiful you are, but if you don’t feel it, you’re not going to believe a single person.
- Your happiness and your self-worth are your responsibility. No one else is going to be able to maintain this for you. Even if they’re helping you temporarily, good for you, but it’s not sustainable.
- So start small, but get started – you need to believe in your beauty!
