Overcoming low Self-Worth to gain high Self-Confidence
Low self-worth is something many people struggle with unknowingly. It is a struggle shared by people from different classes in our society, whether rich or poor. This is because many people base their worth on factors beyond their control. In most cases, we let our self-worth be dependent on academic or career success, appearance, approval, outperforming others, virtue (or goodness), and religious faith.
Basing your self-worth on factors beyond you is dangerous because you will not always be successful in everything. Sometimes you will fail. For example, if your worth is based on your appearance, what happens as you age and no longer look as good as you do right now? If your worth is based on following your religious doctrines, sometimes you are bound to feel worthless since no one is morally perfect. This is why the value you place on yourself should not be based on external factors. To overcome your sense of low self-worth, and not get affected by how others view you, you need to ask yourself these three questions:
- What makes you special or unique?
- What do you do that no one else does?
- What are your positive qualities?
If you have answered the above questions, then keep the answers in mind as you read through this article and reflect on the areas you feel you have failed prior to having this knowledge.
Understanding Self-Worth
When we talk about low self-worth, there is one simple truth that everyone should know. This is the fact that we all have worth… it’s just that some of us don’t know it. If you don’t know this, you may consciously or unconsciously believe that you are worthless. Believing you are unworthy affects every aspect of your life from your thoughts, to your emotions, to your actions, to your experiences. Knowing and believing that you are worthy is essential for happiness and wholesome well-being.
Knowing your worth directly boosts your Self-Esteem. Self-worth and self-esteem are correlated. A High self-esteem (not being arrogant) is important for you to be happy, successful, and impactful in life. To boost your self-esteem, you need to understand what in psychology is called ‘conditions of worth.’
What are Conditions of Worth and how do they affect your behaviors?
The conditions of worth comes from a theory developed by a psychologist named Carl Rodgers. Conditions of worth refers to the expectations, rules, roles, and standards that people believe they must meet in order to gain acceptance, respect, care, and love from significant others. For example, as a child, you may have been told that for you to have your needs taken care of, you had to be a good and obedient child. Being an obedient child meant doing everything your parents wanted (whether you liked it or not) for you to receive their affection, provision, and validation.
While not all parents meant this maliciously, the effect is that you ended up believing that your worth is dependent on what you do and how beneficial you are to others. This is why many people feel unworthy, because no matter what you do, you will never live up to everyone’s expectations.
We all we want to experience things that make us feel good, but when we have conditions to our self-worth, we might engage in activities that make us feel worthy and avoid activities that make us feel unworthy. This can negatively impact our short-term and long-term goals.
For example, if your self-worth is contingent upon you doing well at work, then you will find yourself only choosing jobs that are easy. This ensures you always succeed, so you don’t have to feel unworthy. It is also the case if you only feel worthy when you have a certain weight. You will find yourself under-eating or engaging in unhealthy dieting practices to make sure you don’t feel unworthy. Having your self-worth contingent on (or tied to) outside factors leaves you with little control on how well you live your life. This is because you will always be trying to find ways not to feel bad about yourself by pleasing others.
People who don’t know their worth will often find themselves doing everything they can to avoid failure. And if they fail, they abandon their goals, lose motivation, or make excuses to help themselves feel better. The sad part is many never realize that this is what they are doing to themselves because it is unconscious. They end up not living up to their potential. If you now realize this is you, then you may need to seek the assistance of professional counselor. But even before that, here are some things you can do by yourself to boost your self-confidence.
Effects of low self-worth and what you can do overcome it
Low self-worth affects people in different ways. You may find yourself not handling criticism well, and thus you only focus on doing a task over learning how to do better. As a result, you stagnate. Low self-worth can also harm our relationships. If you are overly concerned about how others see you, then you may not be authentic or share your struggles, which are main ingredients of building a healthy relationship. You may also unconsciously manipulate other people to see you in ways that make you feel good about yourself, making it difficult for anyone to want to be around you. Needless to say, all of this can cause a lot of stress and anxiety.
Below are some expert tips on how to overcome low self-worth:
- Adopt a Learning Mindset
Many people continue to drown in low self-worth because of their inability to take criticism positively. When you adopt a mindset of learning and growth, you take failures, criticism, or lack of approval as an opportunity to improve. This helps you manage negative emotions, and as you get better at everything, so does your sense of self-worth.
- Relationship Goals
Knowing how to handle the different relationships in your life is instrumental to your sense of worth. For many people, our self-esteem is determined by what those close to us tell us about ourselves. And while this is something you should work to change, setting goals that are good for you and others around you will encourage healthy relations, and help avoid some of the things that bring down our self-esteem. So focus on how well you can serve others and add value to the world.
- Reduce external contingencies
As we have seen above, most of our feelings of low self-worth come from external conditions we place on ourselves to feel worthy. Things like always seeking the approval of others for anything you do, feeling good or bad based on your appearance, or rating your worth by how successful you are at work or school. These things destroy your self-esteem as you cannot control what happens. Instead, you should focus on your strengths and strive to gain validation from them. If you answered the three question in the beginning of this article, then you have an idea of your strengths. Make them your shield against your feelings of unworthiness.
By understanding where your beliefs and assumptions about your worthiness come from, you will make sense of feelings of low self-worth you experience. By reading this, you can now challenge these beliefs that were instilled in you by parents, family members, or early life experiences. Also, through counseling, you may get insights that will help you identify the root course of the feelings of unworthiness so you can lead a better and happier life.
