Self-worth definition
Self-worth is the level of importance you place on yourself , how you feel about yourself. It’s an internal feeling, and starts from within. Self-worth brings about a sense of feeling good about yourself, feeling of deserving love and affection from others and deserving of good things in life generally.
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 your worthy of other people’s love ?
Or do you feel like am asking too many questions that are none of my business?
Anyways, am on your side. Those are the same questions you need to answer to discover where your lie in your self-worth journey and to help you discover how much you value yourself .
Self-worth essay
Most people confuse self-worth with self-esteem which relies outward factors like beauty, accomplishment, success and many more. If you want to know more about self-esteem click here.
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 also consider checking out this article on how to build self-worth , to help get you started on your self-worth discovery journey.
And if your answer is 5 and above, you will find out more on how to maintain your self-worth awareness later in this article . You should also check 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 is generally having a negative opinion of one self, judging oneself negatively. And feeling like you don’t deserve to be loved by others maybe because of your mistakes , background, life circumstances and 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.
Though 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 tend 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 parental auntie 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 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 . And was center of ridicule; no mistake of hers ever went unnoticed at least that’s how she felt. Her mistakes never went unpunished. She always received 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 of various personalities. Some may be very outgoing and you never even realize they struggle 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 one
- May avoid taking part in social events challenges and even be overall under accomplishers.
- 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 more than enough, you are worthy of all the love in the world. You can only increase your awareness of your worth to yourself. And below I have outlined and tried to explain how best you can do this.
The antidote for low self-worth is the self-love. It’s the starting point. Self-love is having a high regard for your own wellbeing and happiness, not settling for less than you deserve. But first of all you need to be honest with yourself and acknowledge your feelings towards how good enough you feel about yourself.
And once you start to love yourself then others will also become aware of the new shift and no one will treat you like you don’t matter. And even if they did, you know that truth- THAT YOU MORETHAN MATTER. You are enough and that is all that matters. People will not always like or approve of you but you gotta be okay with that if you are to ever get ahead in life.
It is very common to find an esteemed person who is empty on the inside. But very rarely do you find someone who is aware of their worth, and less esteemed.
Much as you deserve love from others, not everyone will give it to you. You need to get used to being okay with not receiving it from people, after all you can’t force them to love you. But once you know you’re worth, people’s opinions won’t bother you and will always come second to yours.
Back to the story of the young lady.
She knew she had to be there for herself. Her hidden advantage was she was a reader. So diving into self-books (which were her best friends at that time), she found consolation and followed the steps mentioned in the “how to increase your self –worth and all over self-esteem” 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 everyday. Wherever you find her, you can tell she has a high sense of self- worth just by the aura around her. I can surely tell you that because the young lady is I, the story teller.
I go by the name Tasha and it’s been beautiful since i mastered self-worth. I believe everyone deserves to live an abundant life. I DESIRE to help more people improve their lives day by day. If you liked this article please share it and leave me a comment . Thank you .
Your sense of self-worth comes from you alone, never from the opinion of others.- Robert Greene
