Defining your self-worth without others
When it comes to measuring our worth, we rarely focus on ourselves and truely ask “Am I a good person?”, “Do I deserve respect?”, “Am I valuable?”. The questions we have in our heads are more like: “Do they hate me?”, “Do they alienate me?” or “Do they think I’m worthless?”.
These thoughts are problematic in a lot of different ways: First, the negativity and doubt that comes with each is almost suggestive and tricks our minds into answering “Of course they do!”. Secondly, the decision makers in the latter questions are they — an entity noone can really define. But for some unexplainable reason, they have a high power over all of us — including the definition of our self-worth. Let’s change that!
Studying Content Strategy comes with a lot of pros and cons. The biggest advantage are the colleagues: People from all over the world sharing their expertise and kindness, creating a space of support and healthy competition. Another one are the teachers, who mostly have a lot of practical experience and are eager to share their knowledge. But with development and learning comes criticism — hopefully constructive one.
Since high school I’ve been hard on myself and devastated if I did not shine in a subject. Getting a B always impacted my mood negatively. But that was high school, I was sixteen and it’s okay to feel that way. What came as a big surprise to me is the fact that this did not change in fourteen years. It’s not only about learning new things and remembering them — it’s still a lot about grades. I am still hurt and doubting myself when I’m not overachieving and shining in a course. But I’m slightly getting better at acknowledging that one can’t be the best at everything, and some things are just important than grades.
What is self-worth? And what not?
Self-worth cannot be simply put together with words like confidence, self-love or self-esteem. Those are all terms with different definitions. It’s
“Self-worth is the internal sense of being good enough and worthy of love and belonging from others.”
So it is not based on achievements or success, not on grades or salaries, not by number of friends or relationship status. Self-worth is not related to external factors, it’s the simple thought that you are important, and a good person who deserves to be treated with respect. It’s something so simple and should be a given. So why is this sometimes so hard to believe?
Finding your self-worth
We often compare ourselves to others when we want to define ourselves: Am I more succesful than her? Am I more likeable than him? Do I get more likes than them? And finally: Am I more important than them?
The truth is that it’s hard to get out of those thought patterns. What helped me getting out of them were the following mantras:
It is okay to have flaws.
It is okay to be different.
It is okay to have weaknesses.
And: All your feelings are valid.
You are not alone in this. Everyone doubts themselves from time to time, as we can see in hundreds of questions concerning self-worth and comparing ourselves to others online.
Being with yourself
I’m still getting to the point where I can say: “I am important. I am a good person. And I deserve respect.” But one thing that helped me tremendously is taking some time off. Off from social media, off from noises, off from friends, off from family. Spending time alone without distractions can be really hard but helped me renew my connection to myself — especially when I remind myself to stay positive with my mantras.
If you want to know more about this topic, I recommend the following links:
What is Self-Worth & How Do We Build it?
What Is Self-Worth and How to Recognize Yours
All images by © pch.vector / freepik.com
