Three ways to start improving your self-worth today
Last month I devoted episode 53 of Unlock Your Confidence with Clare Walsh to self-worth. As I know that not everyone listens to the podcast I thought it about time we covered the topic here too. Read on to find out how we should measure our self-worth and easy ways we can give it a boost!
In my work with a counsellor after I finished cancer treatment it became apparent that I had an issue with my self-worth. Embarrassing to admit as a confidence coach, but unsurprising given what I’d just lived through. It’s also something that comes up regularly in my one-to-one work with clients.
What is self-worth?
Self-worth is being able to feel good about yourself with no influence from another person or outside source.
It’s different to self-confidence. I can have a high sense of self-worth but low self-confidence when it comes to my ability in a particular area. For example, my self-worth is high but my self-confidence when it comes to my ability to throw, catch or hit a ball is almost non-existent!
Self-worth is about how we see our value as a human being. Where this can go horribly wrong is when we use the wrong things to measure this. How many of these do you use to measure your self-worth?
Appearance
Income
Social circle
Job title
What you achieve—exam results, grades in school, business success, promotions, sporting prowess, how far you can run, crossing things off a huge to-do list
Social media following
Age
Relationship status
Whether or not we have what society perceives to be good taste
Comparing yourself to other people – what they’ve achieved or accomplished.
That’s a long list of the ways we often judge our self-worth and yet none of them are valid measures of our worth as a human being.
What matters the most is what you think of yourself and if you’re judging yourself based on one of the ten things above then we have a problem. When our self-worth is low we’re more at risk of poor mental health. We stop ourselves from pursuing opportunities. It shrinks our lives and the pleasure we get from life. Low self-worth can also cause people to find themselves in unhealthy and damaging relationships because they don’t think they are worthy of anything better.
How do we spot when our self-worth is low?
Sometimes it’s pretty obvious. Our inner critic is really loud, constantly telling us that we’re not good enough, a failure, not worthy. You may even hear yourself telling other people how unworthy you are. Other times though it can be a bit sneakier. It took a counsellor to point out to me that my self-worth was low. Usually I’m pretty good at spotting when my inner critic is being mean, but thanks to the fatigue and trying to deal with life being so very different I hadn’t notice the quiet little voice saying things to undermine my sense of self-worth. I now realise it’s not that unusual for a major life event to cause us to have a dip in our self-worth. It could be illness, a bereavement, menopause or even a big birthday with a zero on the end. Life feels different and we have a wobble.
Self-worth is something that many people, including highly successful people, struggle with. According to one news report, 85% of people struggle with having good self-worth. That’s a scary statistic but thankfully there are things that you can do to improve your self-worth and to help others do the same.
What can we do to improve our self-worth?
The only measure we should be using is what we think of ourselves – that we are worthy and valuable no matter what.
You can help any young person in your life to build a healthy sense of self-worth by offering them unconditional love. Ensuring that they know and understand that you love them because of who they are, not because of exam grades or how well they behave, or how good they are at sport or drama or art. And you can do the same for yourself. Remind yourself daily that you are worthy of love and space in this world because of who you are. Not your dress size, your salary, job title, exam grades, distance you can run or amount of money in the bank.
Affirmations After my treatment I was struggling with a lot of things but one that really was getting me down was my increase in dress size thanks to steroids and fatigue. It was a tough one so every morning I looked myself in the eye just before I cleaned my teeth and said, “I love you Clare, I really, really love you, just as you are right now.” Cringy, yes. But the truth is that through daily repetition I began to mean it and then I began to believe it. Affirmations work. So if your self-worth is low pick an affirmation and start using it. You need to choose something that is positive and believable to you. Doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. It could be the one I use or perhaps, “I am enough exactly as I am right now.”
Deal with your inner critic Recognise when your inner critic pipes up and learn to challenge what she says. If she’s busy telling you that you’ll never be this or you’ll always be that tell her she’s wrong. She lives in the part of our brain that was designed to keep us safe so sometimes I just thank her – “thanks for trying to look out for me but I’m going to be fine. If I don’t get it right this time, I’ll learn something so I’m better next time.” Or, just show her the door, tell her where to go and get on with your day! That voice in our head is always there but it doesn’t mean you have to believe what it’s saying.
Remember you are the only one who determines your self-worth. If you believe you are worthy and valuable, you are worthy and valuable. Even if you don’t believe you are worthy and valuable, guess what? You still are worthy and valuable! If you grew up in a household where you weren’t told this, or in fact were made to feel the opposite, this is going to take some work but you can do it because you are worthy and valuable.
Another way of improving your self-worth is to–
Remind yourself of the list of things that do not determine self-worth and then consciously stop and think about the things that do actually matter like kindness, compassion, empathy, respect – in other words the qualities about yourself that you hold dear.
Write down the things you do value about yourself. When I did this recently my list included things like loyalty, honesty, being a good friend, integrity, creativity, being loving and caring. These things you value will be individual to you and I bet you go out of your way to be all those things for the people in your life. So, if you value honesty, you’re honest with people. If you value love, you’re loving with other people. If you value compassion, then you’re compassionate to other people. That’s how you measure your self-worth. Am I showing up in my relationships in a way that is in line with my values as a human being?
The next step is then to ask yourself am I showing up in my relationship with myself in alignment with these values? This is important. If I highly value my kindness and compassion do I show myself kindness and compassion? Do I show myself love? Or is how I treat everyone else more important than how I treat myself? Ask yourself how you can show yourself more of the values on your list? When you start to do this, you will be showing yourself, not just telling yourself that you are worthy.
Let’s stop measuring our sense of self-worth according to the standards of a highly capitalist society. We are not our number of followers, our job title, our age or bank balance. Our worth is so much more than that. We need to learn and remember that and help teach the next generation too.
I hope this has inspired you to check in with yourself about how you measure your self-worth. And if this is something that you realise you are really struggling with remember that there is never any shame in seeking some professional help in improving the situation.
