What Does Self-Worth Mean?

What I had previously self-diagnosed as insecurity, shyness, procrastination, perfection or being introverted were all symptoms. Self-worth was the root cause.

Self-worth is when you accept yourself. It means you know your bad traits and your good traits, you trust your instincts, you can set boundaries for how you want to be treated, and you can handle failure and rejection knowing it doesn’t take away from who you are. You believe in yourself at your core and nobody’s opinion impacts your value. You are worthy of being yourself, being loved and receiving in abundance. You are worthy of making mistakes and learning from them.

If you want to test your self-worth, when someone compliments you and you say “thank you” without feeling the need to say – oh it’s nothing - or anything after, that’s how you know.

So how do you get there? 

I started with self-discovery and learning about myself. I had previously done personality quizzes and had been healing my inner child for about 2-3 years, so I knew my good and bad traits. I used those as a baseline and went into self-awareness exercises - emotional journaling, observations and reflections. 

Emotional journaling is checking in with how you’re feeling. It connects your body and mind to an emotion so that you’re not lurking in the abyss but moving forward and processing the feelings. Healing your inner child looks like being there for yourself. It’s cooking for yourself, adding creativity to your life and just being the person you need when you go through good or bad things. It’s asking yourself: what do I need to hear right now? You do get to a point where you genuinely feel your inner child is healed. It took me a few years and was worth it. Observations and reflections are being mindful of the way you react in and to situations and reflecting (not dwell) on them to see what you can do better next time.

Self-esteem differs from self-worth. I believe it’s something important to differentiate in this context.  Self-worth is the core of who you are and how you value yourself despite everything. Self-esteem on the other hand is how you feel about things you have done. Here’s a few examples:

Low self-esteem and low self-worth: you want to do things but feel you’re not good enough and it wouldn’t matter anyway. You never do anything or give up easily.

Low self-esteem with high self-worth: you know your ideas matter, you just don’t feel skilled enough to bring it to life. It’s not going to stop you because you’re capable and you’ll figure it out.

High self-esteem with low self-worth: you know you can execute, but if you fail or don’t get the recognition then what’s the point? Your value depends on the outcome.

High self-esteem and high self-worth: you’re capable in your ability to execute and even if you fail or things don’t work out, you’ll be fine.

Where do you see yourself? 

I’ve worked hard at my self-worth and self-esteem over the past 3 years and I'm continuously building it. My self-esteem still hits when starting something new or when the result isn’t what I hoped, but I keep going because I know I’m worthy of trying and I know practice builds confidence. 

So my advice is, if you’re going to start anywhere, start with your self-worth.

I think it’s important to remember that there’s no right or wrong, or good vs bad. There’s just you, navigating life and working on yourself so that you can be there better for others, stop passing down generational emotions and live a life true to your values. None of which you can do if you don’t know yourself. 

Doesn’t all this change the way you see self-care? 

Massages, manicures or haircuts seem a bit commercial in the grand scheme of things. Trust me, as an avid spa girl, materialistic self-care doesn’t help with relaxation as much as inner work does. And when you know yourself, and are content, that’s where you find what they call – inner peace.