What is self-worth and how do you measure yours? According to dictionary.com, self-worth is defined as the sense of one’s own value or worth as a person; self-esteem; self-respect. It is basically YOUR opinion of yourself, not other’s opinions. Of course, some people base their opinion of themselves by what other people have said or do, which is extremely dangerous! Don’t fall into this trap.
How you see and feel about yourself affects every part of your life. If you feel lousy about yourself, you may become depressed or anxious. You may not even try to accomplish tasks, or better yet your dreams, because you won’t think you are capable or good enough. If you have a high level of self-worth, you will feel confident enough to go get that promotion you want. You will do everything possible to achieve your dreams because you will know you can! Your confidence level will be high and you won’t be knocked down. Think about the factors you use to “rate” yourself. Many things contribute to how worthy or valuable you think you are. Unfortunately, there are many mixed and negative messages society sends us. Don’t listen to those! Listening to society’s twisted ways they decide a person’s value can be very damaging, especially if you are a woman.
Below is a list of common, yet worthless things people use to determine their self-worth.
Beauty
This is an extremely shallow way people judge others which gives us the completely wrong idea of what is important in a person. Hollywood is the worst when it comes to beauty. Do you know how long it takes and how much work is put into looking like a celebrity? Hours and hours and tons of work! Those people don’t get out of bed looking like that and when not on camera, I swear I would have mistaken some celebrities as homeless. A person’s beauty truly comes from within. I’m not saying you should not care at all about your hygiene or appearance, but there is no good reason to spend $200 a month on high-end makeup and thousands on a wardrobe to try to look like a celebrity so you can go to your job at WalMart, the office, or any other regular person’s job. As long as you are clean and make some kind of effort to look presentable that’s good enough! If your value of yourself is based upon outward beauty, you will be crushed when you start to age. You will get wrinkles and things will start to sag. That’s normal. Embrace it!
Your Career
Many people have nothing more to talk about than their career. They feel highly accomplished by their title alone. Ha! A career doesn’t make a person. What happens when their company downsizes or just fires them? What happens when they get injured and can’t do their job anymore? There goes their self-worth! They will feel as if they are nothing anymore. Sad!!!
How Much Money You Make
Again, this is like placing your value of yourself based on your career. Who is really going to know how much money you make or have in your bank account? Can you tell how big someone’s income is by looking at them? Are they wearing a sign around their neck with a dollar amount? NO! You can’t tell the difference between someone who makes $200 an hour or someone who makes $15 an hour because there are a lot of people who are faking it. People are in more debt than ever now trying to keep up with the Jones’s. Their purchases are made with credit. Anyway, no matter how much money you have, that can go away too. You could get sued and lose it all, or have a serious illness that uses up most or all of your money. When you have no money left, you will be devastated if this is what you used to base your self-worth on. Monetary value does not equal your value as a person.
Popularity
Oh brother! People who need to be popular and need constant attention and admiration for what they do are nothing more than insecure. These people strive to be perfect and always the top performer in their job or field or amongst friends. You can’t stay #1 forever. There will always be a newcomer who will get the spotlight, leaving the popular person’s view of themselves shattered and their insecurity will cut to the bone. Who wants to live like that? Do not tie your self-worth to your achievements or how popular you are at the moment. That creates a very false and temporary security.
Another Person
Surely your self-worth doesn’t come from another person or you wouldn’t have had any your entire life until you met that person. That’s ridiculous. What happens when this person leaves? Are you suddenly then worth nothing? No! Relationships come and go and you are still valuable either way.
DON’T:
- Tie your self-worth to other people’s opinions of you because they don’t matter. Other people do not define you. Although, if you hear the same thing about yourself from multiple people, this may actually be something to reflect on and possibly make a change.
- Compare yourself to others. It doesn’t matter what they are doing.
- Be a people-pleaser. You were not put on this earth to please others. This is YOUR life and YOUR happiness matters.
- Tie it to anything external because everything external is temporary, and could be gone in the blink of an eye.
DO:
- Look within to find your self-worth and value. Place your value of yourself on who you truly are on the inside and how you live based on your core values.
- BE a good person, don’t pretend. Good people don’t need notoriety for what they do, they just do it because it’s the right thing to do. They are at peace and are genuinely happy with who they are. If you want to feed the homeless, good for you! Go do it. If you then post it on social media to announce what a good person you are, you didn’t do it for the right reasons. Good people don’t need awards or public recognition to feel good about themselves.
- Take a good look at yourself and figure out what you have to offer.
- Be nice and kind to yourself. Say uplifting and positive affirmations until you believe them. Some even write them on their bathroom mirror so those are the first words they hear in the morning. There are more than enough critics out there, you don’t need to be one of them.
- Find ways to give back to the world or your community. Givers are much happier than takers.
Summary
Again, don’t tie your self-worth to ANYTHING that can be taken away from you. Figure out what makes you happy, fulfilled and how you feel most valuable. Find your inner power and learn to accept and love yourself completely. You will find a peace within that nobody can rattle, shake or break down. You are good enough and you are worthy!
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