Having low self-worth is an excruciating existence. It’s like being stuck in a tiny body-sized room for (your age) years with a person that hates your guts. Who in their right mind would put up with that? When we consider our self-worth so literally, it seems completely absurd that we have lived all this time disliking our own selves.
When you navigate the world (and relationships) searching for any ounce of evidence to validate your self-limiting beliefs, you essentially put yourself on trial and may sentence yourself to an entire lifetime of self-criticism. This means you end up pushing away the very things you actually want because, deep down, you feel you don’t deserve them.
You are 100% responsible for your own emotional and mental well-being. If you have given someone else the power over your life for either of these things, it’s time to immediately take back control. We wish we could announce that there is a magic wand you can wave to instantly make you believe you are worthy. What we can tell you is that it takes consistent effort and awareness to unlearn a lifetime of negative repetitive patterns. The only way to build anything of real value is with consistency. Our intention is that you learn from our experience and dare to truly love yourself. It is your journey, and without your support, you are not going to get very far.
“Your dignity can be mocked, abused, compromised, toyed with, lowered and even badmouthed, but it can never be taken from you. You have the power today to reset your boundaries, restore your image, start fresh with renewed values and rebuild what has happened to you in the past.”
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Self-worth is your ability to appreciate, accept, and value yourself independent of success, failure, or the opinions of others. It means having an overall favourable opinion of you, believing in your right to feel good and, therefore, choosing thoughts, actions, and expressions based on the belief that you’re worth it because you matter. Self-worth essentially comes from three things: self-awareness, self-love, and self-acceptance. We will focus on each of these over the next three articles as we provide you proven methods and processes for increasing your self-worth.
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is crucial for the simple reason that you cannot love someone you do not know. Every moment of every day, whether you realise it or not, you are making a decision on how to spend your time, what you pay attention to, and where you choose to direct your energy. Right now, you are choosing to read this article. There are an infinite number of things you could be doing, and right now, you are choosing to be here. Thank you. Let’s say you receive a text message 30 seconds from now and you stop reading. This means you are making a simple, values-based decision that your phone is more valuable to you than this article. Your behaviour will then follow that valuation accordingly.
“If Cinderella were given a single shining epiphany (instead of a fairy godmother), she would have realised: “This is my father’s house. This is my father’s estate. I am the rightful heiress to everything here!” then she would have said: “Get off of my property, take nothing with you, and never show your faces to me again! You ugly, bitter, insecure, envious witches!” And I’m sure she would have been happier, sooner!” ―
One of the keys to increasing your self-worth, and living a more fulfilling life, is to identify and honour your personal core values. If you haven’t determined your own core values, you will live your life based on the things that other people have decided are important. When you do that for long enough, you begin to feel angry and resentful. Eventually, life begins to feel meaningless and wholly unsatisfying.
To know your worth, you must know what it is that you value. Identifying and understanding our personal core values helps us prioritise what is important and where to spend our time and energy. So, what is most important to you? What lights you up? Are you investing your time, energy, and effort into those things?
Your core values reflect how you consciously choose to show up in relationships, at work, and in the way you navigate your inner landscape. Values are typically defined with single words or phrases like these:
Pure Love
Connection
Acceptance
Freedom
Courage
Integrity
Most people have in between six and ten values that are very important to them. At the heart of those six to ten values, you’ll typically find three or four core values. Your core values are the things you prioritise above all else. As you move through different seasons in your life, get to know yourself better, and change and grow, your values may also change.
We encourage you to revisit your values at least once each year. When you live in alignment with your core values, you feel a profound sense of meaning and satisfaction. Your self-worth increases. More specifically, knowing and aligning with your values will improve your life in the following ways:
Effortless Decision-Making.
Your values provide a boundary container in which aligned decisions can be made. Instead of looking at the pro’s and con’s of each choice, you measure how each option aligns with your values. The best choice, for you, becomes clear when you examine your options in the context of your values. You instantly know where to invest your time, energy, and resources. When we aren’t clear on what it is that we value, we tend to prioritise the things we ‘should’ do, or things we are ‘expected’ to do, and that often leaves little room for the stuff that actually matters. When you become clear on your values, you can begin investing your precious time in the things that are important to you which builds your self-worth.
Pinpoint Your Blocks.
Once you define your personal core values and compare them to how you’re showing up in your everyday life, it is highly likely that you will discover some places that are not in alignment. Show yourself some compassion. Identifying misalignments is not reason to beat yourself up or freak out; it’s an invitation to heal the root cause so that you can move forward with deeper integrity.
Maybe there’s something you’re afraid of facing or perhaps your time isn’t balanced in a way that allows for what makes you happy because you think that carving out time for yourself is selfish. Use any misalignments as doorways into healing so that you can move forward in a way that truly satisfies you and increases your self-worth.
Demonstrating Your Worth
When your personal core values are clearly defined, and you take consistent and sustainable action towards living in integrity with those values, you feel more confident and alive. Because you know who you are, managing self-doubt becomes infinitely easier. Plus, you are literally showing yourself through your actions that you are worthy.
Getting to Know You
Who you are and how you see yourself are keys to understanding your true value. There are those key life moments that bring you the most joy, passion, and happiness. These are the things that help you unlock the value you bring to the world. However, it’s not all rainbows and lollipops; this process involves being honestly raw and genuinely real with yourself. Here are some questions to assist you in diving deeper into yourself.
What were you passionate about as a child?
What did you play for hours? Can you still relate to that? If you can, how can you incorporate that into your adult life now?
What are you really good at?
What makes your heart sing?
Who do you look up to? What is it about them that inspires you?
If you didn’t have a job, how would you choose to fill your hours?
What brings you the most passion, fulfillment, and joy?
What makes you forget about the world around you?
If you had a dream, could you make it happen?
What issues do you hold close to your heart?
Who do you spend time with and what do you talk about?
What are the feelings you desire right now?
Where do you struggle most?
Where do you need to improve?
What fears often hold you back?
What habitual emotions hurt you?
What mistakes do you tend to repeat?
Where do you tend to consistently let yourself down?
Let’s get real and accept the fact that we’re all human. We all have our weaknesses and face our own personal struggles. As such, we must be real and honest in our assessment of ourselves. In this way we are able to build a high degree of self-worth over time. Only in this way do we gain the depth of understanding we need to move forward through this process.
“They are called, “SELF-worth” and “SELF-esteem” for a reason… we can’t let others decide what we are worth, that is so dangerous! Empower yourself!”
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How to Define Your Core Values in 4 Easy Steps
- This is significant work and deserves devoted and focused time. Remember, you’re worth it! So, in a clear, quiet space make a list of all the values that are important to you. Don’t hold back.
- Refine your list down into 10 values. It’s helpful to group similar words together so you can see if there is a word that captures them all. For example, you may have words like integrity, honesty, and trustworthiness, and decide that integrity captures them all.
- Refine the ten words into six. At this point in the process, focus less on weeding out similar words and more on discerning which ones are the most important to you. If you had to choose {word one} or {word two}, which one would you choose? You’ll ‘feel’ which one in your body.
- Refine the six words into four. These four values will now be known as your personal core values.
As your list of personal core values gets smaller, know that you aren’t saying that the other things are not relevant to you. You are simply defining what is MOST important, which is what is going to give you that profound clarity and decision-making power.
We suggest writing your core values on individual post-it notes and allowing yourself to sit with them for a while. As you tune into the energy of each word, you’ll feel whether or not those words actually encompass your personal core values. Trust yourself here and adjust as necessary.
“An amazing thing happens when you stop seeking approval and validation: You find it. People are naturally drawn like magnets to those who know who they are and cannot be shaken!”
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When you know what you value, you can live in accord with those values. This leads to greater fulfilment. When you don’t know your values, you violate them every day. This creates internal tension which triggers destructive habits and regressive behaviour that lowers your self-worth.
Once you have defined your personal core values, it can be helpful to see how in alignment you are with each value and then begin making adjustments in your life. Depending on how far off you are, it may take some time to get into full alignment, so show yourself some compassion and choose to be kind and patient with yourself, which is also demonstrating self-worth.
