Knowing your worth can be the key that helps you to truly soar in life. This golden rule leads to confidence at work and at home, which will let you flourish. Read on to find out what knowing your worth really means and how to do it.
- What does it mean to know your worth? Knowing your worth is a simple enough concept to understand. This is your own measure of your own value. Knowing your worth is not related to how other people view you, and it has nothing to do with seeking validation outside of yourself. When you do know your worth, you know that you’re worthy of love and happiness, regardless of how other people think of you.
- How do you know your worth? Knowing your worth comes down to accepting that you are enough as a person without any of the bells and whistles that society says you need. It can be hard to get to that point after loathing yourself for not having the perfect job, body, relationship, and bank account. But there are a few steps you can take that make knowing your worth easier. Check them out below!
- Embrace your strengths. One of the first steps in knowing your worth is being aware of your strengths. The things that you’re good at don’t define you. But embracing them can help to remind you that you are a worthy person. Everyone has something to bring to the table. So knowing your own strengths, talents, and skills solidifies your belief that you are worthy.
- And embrace your flaws. Interestingly, knowing your worth also involves embracing your flaws. Why? Worthy people aren’t perfect. Basically, flaws or faults don’t mean you don’t deserve love and happiness. Therefore, accepting your weaknesses is an act of self-love. It’s a step you can take to remind yourself that you don’t have to be perfect to be a valuable human being.
- Don’t attach your worth to external situations. Psychology Today points out that one of the most important steps in knowing your worth is no longer attaching your worth to external situations. We’ve all done this at one point or another! It often looks like telling yourself that you’ll be good enough when you reach a certain point, either in your personal or professional life. For example, “I’ll be worthy when I’m married” or “I’ll be worthy when my book is published” or “I’ll be worthy when I have 10,000 followers.” This kind of thinking will sabotage your attempt to know your own worth. Knowing it is about recognizing that you’re enough as you are, with or without that stuff.
Knowing Your Worth: How To Do It
- Adopt a growth mindset. If you struggle to refrain from attaching your worth to external situations, you might find that setbacks reduce your opinion of yourself. If you get rejected from a job interview, for example, you might think that you aren’t worth a lot because you didn’t receive validation from that employer. The growth mindset can help with this. So don’t look at setbacks as evidence that you’re not good enough. Instead, view them as chances to learn and grow. Failures aren’t reflections on you. They’re just learning curves that teach you how to do better in the future.
- Don’t judge your thoughts and emotions. Beating yourself up over your thoughts and emotions can stop you from knowing your worth. As unpleasant as some thoughts and feelings might be, these don’t reflect your value as a person. We can’t control how we feel. And we can’t control the thoughts that immediately pop into our heads. What we can control is how we respond to those thoughts and feelings. Your actions are a better marker with which to judge yourself
- Serve other people. Doing things for other people can help you to feel better about yourself. When you know you’ve brought something to someone else’s life, you’re more likely to understand that you are worthy as a person. So try to make an effort to serve others regularly. It might be as simple as helping someone you see struggling with their grocery bags. Or you might like to donate to a charity or buy the person behind you at the coffee shop a coffee. Even being there to listen to your friends who need a shoulder to lean on is a great way to reinforce your worth.
- Find a hobby you love. Finding a hobby you love can lead you to fully understanding your worth. When you do something for no other reason than the love of it, you’re telling yourself that you are allowed to just be and enjoy. You don’t have to constantly be productive or serving to be valuable. You are worthy just as you are, and you deserve to spend time doing the things that you love. It can take a lot of practice to get comfortable with this. But making time for hobbies is a powerful move towards really knowing your worth.
- Take a break from social media. You shouldn’t tie up your value in external things, like how many likes you get on social media. But sometimes, it can be tricky to stop caring so much about receiving that outside validation. So it can help to actually remove the temptation in the first place. If social media is bad for your self-esteem, leading you to compare yourself with others or wait around for likes, take a break from it. Learn to find your worth in a way that has nothing to do with social media.
- Avoid people who bring you down. Try to avoid people who sabotage your sense of worth. Whether they do it intentionally or not, other people who have this effect on you can undo all your hard work in learning to love yourself. So if you notice you feel drained and unworthy after spending time with certain people, don’t be afraid to cut the cord.