self-conscious

"People have been so busy relating to how I look, it's a miracle I didn't become a self-conscious blob of protoplasm. It's not easy being Robert Redford," he once told New York magazine.

"I had really bad acne and I felt really self-conscious."

An outing in Blue - a "pretentious, self-conscious, literary Western without much zest", according to one critic - didn't help.

When I ask her why, she says maybe she feels “self-conscious,” “kind of inadequate.”

In the hands of other artists, these side quests might sound self-conscious or embarrassing.