Self-worth is the level of importance you place on yourself.
Self-worth brings about a sense of feeling good about one’s self, a feeling of deserving love and affection from others, and also deserving of the good things in life.
Self-worth in a nutshell
To know how much self-worth you have, you need to ask yourself these questions as no one is better qualified to answer them than you are.
How do you feel about yourself?
How do you feel when you look in the mirror? Are you pleased or are you disappointed?
How do you feel when your around your friends?
How do you feel around strangers?
Do you feel you worthy of other people’s love?
Or do you feel like am asking too many questions that are none of my business?
Anyway, those are some questions you need to answer to discover where you lie in your self-worth journey and how much you value yourself.
Most people confuse self-worth with self-esteem, which relies on outward factors like beauty, accomplishment, success, and more. To learn more about self-esteem, click here.
Self-worth essay
Do you feel worthy of love from others?
If yes. How much on a scale of 1 to 10?
If your answer is below 5, please read on and consider checking out this article on how to build self-worth to help get you started on your self-discovery journey.
And if your answer is 6 and above, consider checking out these beautiful self- worth quotes.
You need to feel worthy regardless of your color, race, life’s circumstances, even when you make mistakes and things don’t work out as planned or expected.
OUR SENSE OF SELF-WORTH IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT DETERMINANT OF THE HEALTH, ABUNDANCE AND JOY WE ALLOW INTO OUR LIVES.
Low self-worth
This refers to having a negative opinion of one self, judging oneself too harshly.
That feeling of unworthiness, be it because of your mistakes, background, life circumstances, or all other situations that make you feel guilty and undeserving.
Everyone has times when they feel a bit low or find it hard to feel good about themselves however if this becomes a long term situation it can lead to health issues such as depression or anxiety .
Causes of low self-worth
Low self-worth and generally low self- esteem can be caused by many factors .
For example an abusive relationship, divorce of parents, bad influence from peers, poor performance at school, being bullied at school, unfortunate situation(s) that may have happened even back in childhood like neglect by parents or family, rape, isolation, poverty, poor health can all cause one to feel less worthy, inadequate and not deserving of love and good things in this life.
Self-worth is an inward trait. People with low self-worth tend to develop low self-esteem as an outward trait. And are often characterized by;
- Being very judgmental
- Tendency to focus on the negative both to themselves and others as well.
- Criticizing themselves and hence tending to be negative to others as well.
- They tend to brush off compliments from others and hardly give any as well.
Self-worth case study
A story is told of a young girl whose parents divorced while she was still an infant. She was then raised by her aunt until she was of adult age. This young lady had what most people could refer to as a beautiful life; at least from the outside, it appeared to be a bed of roses.
But deep down, she was empty, she always felt like she didn’t belong. Her cousins and family barely ever noticed her. She was the center of ridicule; no mistake of hers ever went unnoticed. Her mistakes never went unpunished. She always received a good scolding at the very least. Which at times turned to a lecture of how she was being helped by living in that home.
She was always blamed for almost everything that went wrong in the home. This treatment caused her to feel less worthy of love from others and undeserving of good things in life, so empty, not enough that at some point she even had suicidal thoughts.
I’ll get back to this young lady’s story later in this article.
Low self-worth may manifest itself in different ways for different people with various personalities. Some may be very outgoing and you may never even realize they struggle with low self-worth thoughts unless you are an expert on the subject.
But here are some of the ways a person with low self-worth may behave;
- Less likely to stand up for themselves from being abused even when they are adults (old enough)
- One may be shy or very reserved and can even be mistaken for an introvert when they are not.
- May avoid taking part in social events and challenges and even be overall underachievers.
- In personal relationships, may become upset or distressed when criticized or disagreed with.
So here’s how to make yourself more aware of your worth.
First, Self-worth can’t be increased because you are born with more than enough worth; you are worthy of all the love in the world. You can only increase your awareness of your worth to yourself. Below are some bullet points to get you started.
Self-care
The antidote for low self-worth is the self-love. That is the starting point.
Self-love is having a high regard for your wellbeing and happiness, not settling for less than you deserve.
But first of all, you need to be honest with yourself and acknowledge how good or bad you feel about yourself.
And once you start to love yourself, others will also become aware of the shift, and no one will treat you like you don’t matter. And even if they did, you know the truth- THAT YOU MORE THAN MATTER. You are enough, and that is all that matters. People will not always like or approve of you, but you have got to be okay with that if you are to ever get ahead in life.
Easier it is to find an esteemed person who is empty on the inside compared to finding someone who is aware of their worth and has low self-esteem.
Although you deserve love from others, it is their choice to give it to you. You need to get used to being okay with not receiving it from people; after all, you can’t force others to love you.
Once you know you’re worth, people’s opinions won’t bother you and will always come second to yours.
Your sense of self-worth comes from you alone, never from the opinions of others.
Robert Greene
Back to the story of the young lady.
She knew she had to be there for herself. Her hidden advantage was that she was a reader. So, diving into self-help books (which were her best friends at that time), she found consolation and followed the steps mentioned in here to get her life together.
At that moment, she is doing great, great, so hyped, and confident, giving life her best and living her best life every day. Wherever you find her, you can tell she has a high sense of self- worth just by the aura around her. I say this with pride because the young lady is I, the story teller.
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