Pick up any self-help book or scroll though any Instagram therapy page and you will undoubtedly end up with lots of thoughts on self-worth. These sources will tell us that we should value ourselves and embrace who we are. They will insist we are valuable and lovable and worthy. And they want us to believe we are innately these things simply because we are human. Most of us would agree in theory that indeed everyone is innately worthy and we hope that our children and young people find a way to value themselves simply because they exist. That sounds nice. Clear. Obvious.
But let’s be real for a moment. At the same time that our sweet little hearts are being told that we should value ourselves no matter what, we are also told that we should do more. Or do less. Make more money. Get better grades. Be kinder. Be thinner. Be smarter. We are inundated with messages throughout our lives that we are not doing enough. And because we aren’t doing enough, it means we are lacking in something, or doing harm to someone somehow, or missing something, or being lazy, or just somehow wrong. Our culture places a huge amount of weight on our identities in our careers, in our sports, in our financial statuses. Our culture values and rewards performance and doing, doing, doing. Making, making, making. More. More. More. And if we aren’t adding up, then we can't have value.
The voices that say we should value ourselves innately feel like a whisper in the windstorm of screams that tell us we aren’t enough. And then we wonder why we (and I’m especially looking at women here but it really applies to everyone) feel unworthy. The reality is that when we get down to the bones, the things we say only in therapy or to ourselves in our own heads, is that most of us feel self-worth comes when we have the right self. Spoiler alert, it’s a constantly moving, impossible goal. When we have the right job. When our kids are well behaved at the dinner party. When we have enough money in the bank account. When we get the right partner. When we know all the answers. When everyone likes us. When we wear the right size dress. And while we are supposed to be past all this (it’s not the 90s anymore right?) the bare naked truth is that we aren't.
Self-worth is not equal to net worth. And vice versa.
VERY simply put, net worth is the accumulated amount of money I have. And I’m pretty sure we all agree that our self-worth should not be based on this factor. But what if we expanded that definition of net worth to be not just our dollars, but our awards, achievements, trophies, titles, waist measurements, kids’ math grades. Do we still all agree? I think most of us do not want our self-worth to be based on these things either.
So what is left? How do we actually start to feel our self-worth separate from the accumulation of things or dollars, rewards, awards, and relationships. Who the heck am I if I take all these things away and how can I possibly value that person without all these labels? How can I know what my worth is if I can’t measure it?
And to make matters more complicated, the less self-worth I have, the more I make decisions that lead me in directions I don't want to go. As self-worth goes down, so does performance. And if performance goes down, so does success. That makes sense right? But didn’t we just say that self-worth shouldn’t be based on achievements? But also achievements are impacted by self-worth? Ack!
Turns out it’s a one-way street.
Self-worth helps me thrive and if I'm thriving I might have more successes in life. But successes in life won’t circle back to fuel self-worth. Also, self-worth helps me tolerate disappointment and failure. It helps recognize and leave unhealthy situations, it helps me right my ship or pivot when things are falling apart. It helps me understand myself more compassionately which makes me less defensive which helps me open up to learning which helps me get better at accumulating success.
So if self-worth helps us be successful, but success can't define self-worth, what the heck is it really? Spoiler alert, it’s also different from self-esteem, self-confidence, or self-respect. Like net worth, these ways of experiencing ourselves go up as self-worth goes up, and go down as self-worth goes down. We can think of self-worth as the base ingredient, the foundation, that makes all these other things possible.
Self-worth is compassion. It is a soft and gentle voice in our head that tells us it’s okay if we mess up. It’s a tender sense of self that holds our own human experience kindly. It’s the parent voice we all wish we had growing up. It’s the part of ourselves that knows our own existence is wanted, simply because we exist. Self-worth is compassionate and tender, but it’s also fierce. It comes into the room and knows it is allowed to be there. It takes up space in the world and doesn’t need to apologize. Self-worth has nothing to prove. It is the unconditional love that we all want from someone else. It is wise, it gazes at us with love and knowing. Without self-worth, we are seeking this through others. We are seeking this feeling from things or awards or money or sex. We are trying to find it in the way others look at us. We are hungry for it.
Without self-worth, the other things, e.g. net worth, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-respect, don't have a foundation to stand on and they are fragile and vulnerable if they are there at all. With it, they become not only possible, but probable. The nice thing is that since self-worth isn't based on achievements, there is absolutely no reason we can’t have it. It only takes practice.
And maybe therapy.
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