SELF WORTH

Updated: Oct 25, 2020

What is self worth and how do we build it?

What does it mean to be worthy?

The concept of self worth always confused me and I always had a myriad of questions surrounding the topic. How do I measure my own self worth? Is it based off of what others think of me? What is self worth?

Needless to say, I'd heard countless people preach about the importance of self-worth, but never took it into consideration or really valued it myself. I suppose that was a result of the emphasis society has placed on workaholic culture ----- the idea that putting in consistent, heavy effort leads directly to success, but any breaks in-between will only lead to deterioration in effort. The skewed perspective we hold places self-worth in the "break" category. We often categorize self-worth, self-love, self-care not as essentials, but rather as trivial activities.

Merriam Webster defines self-worth as:

“a feeling that you are a good person who deserves to be treated with respect”

Others define self-worth as

“more behavioral than emotional, more about how you act toward what you value, including yourself, than how you feel about yourself compared to others” (Stosny, 2014).

Essentially, self worth is the concept of valuing yourself and your characteristics. It's understanding that you're worthy of loving and worthy of living. The IQ Matrix writes that essentially, self worth means "having unshakable faith in yourself and in your ability to follow through and get things done."

How Do You Build Your Self Worth?

At the root of self-worth is the issue of invalidation. We often find ourselves invalidating our accomplishments, leading to a lower sense of self-worth. However, it is not our accomplishments that define us, but rather our character. Instead of abiding by perfectionistic standards, we must learn to not give in to outside forces.

By learning to compare ourselves to our own standards instead of defining our happiness by others' expectations, we can construct a powerful sense of internal worthiness.

As explained by Courtney Ackerman from Positive Psychology, "similar to the dangers of anchoring your self-worth to someone else, there are big risks in tying your self-worth to your job. Like a significant other, jobs can come and go—sometimes without warning." Remember, our self worth is not always determined by our external successes, successes determined through other people and outside work such as our jobs.