You see it on TV all the time, you hear it on the radio, in adverts, other people’s social media pages the messages all seem to say the same: Love yourself before loving others, you are worth better, you are amazing, you deserve to be happy. The quotes and sayings go on and on and on. They all have one thing in common, they are promoting self-worth but no one is prompting how to achieve it or even start to find it. Well today we are doing exactly that, so let’s look at how too achieve what everyone keeps going on about despite us thinking we are the only person in the world it seems to elude. Let’s start to find our self-worth in life and lets start right now.
Self-worth for want of a very basic description is the sense of one’s own value or worth as a person; self-esteem; self-respect. Simple, clean and easy to find and harvest, right? No not right in fact very wrong and around 65-70 per cent of clients we see on a daily basis who come in with a problem or a certain issue in life all have this missing in life. This is a vital and integral part of what makes us happy, content, confident, assured in life and without it we will falter and nearly every hurdle we face so let’s get started and see if we can find it or at least get us looking in the right direction.
No double standards: Now most of us are happy to have a set standard of how we expect others to treat us and show us respect and understanding when needed. So why are you not setting the very same standard for your own self. Answer this question: Is it ok for someone to stand in front of you and say the following over and over, you are useless, you are stupid, you don’t have a clue about anything, you are a failure in life, the answer is no you wouldn’t you would stand up and be counted and not allow anyone to stand in front of you and talk like that to you or behave in that way. So why is it acceptable for you to tell yourself that time after time again and again. You are living in double standards and if you tell yourself something time and time again, trust me you will believe it. So, let’s change that voice in our head and change our inner self talk. Negative self-talk will always lead to self-doubt and that effects yourself worth so NO MORE negative self-talk and replace with how you want others to talk to you and compliment you and encourage you. Repetition is the key to this and soon you will find if you tell yourself something over and over you believe it and you start to feel a dam sight more content and yourself worth will rise. You have nothing to lose so let’s wake and try this morning. Don’t accept from yourself what you won’t accept from others.
Stop making your self-worth conditional on other people: Once you try to live up to an image of what you think others want to you to be, you lose your self-worth. Instead, you are following a compass set by other people’s expectations, whether or not those expectations are clearly defined. Unfortunately, many people live this way, making such choices as what to study, what career to choose, where to live, and how many children to have all based on expectations from parents, spouses, friends, and the media. This comes from being afraid of standing up for their own preferences and respecting their self-worth. It’s a shame to live your life for someone else. Be very wary of listening to people who regret the choices that they made in life and who actively inflict their distress or anger at this regret upon others (especially upon the next generation). Such people won’t enlighten you as to the path of acting on your self-worth at all. Instead, they’ll try to either live out what they didn’t get through you or, what’s worse, expect you to have the same poor experiences they had. To be sure of this, they’ll give you poor information, incorrect details, or simply omit to inform you at all. You must do what you want to do and not be a people pleaser in other words. This is your time, your life and it is up to you to live it how you see fit.
Forgive yourself: Responsibility also requires that you relinquish the need to use blame as a source of coping; blame alleviates the need to look at yourself and to change your own behavior. While that seems like the easy option at times, it’s also the one that will leave you stuck in time and stuck with your negative feelings; worst of all, it leaves you feeling helpless. Blame implies that someone or something else has the power that you don’t; and if that isn’t giving up, then what is?
Don’t blame your parents, the government, your next-door neighbors. What have they got to do with the perfectly well-formed thinking matter inside your head? They may have made things difficult for you but you can understand that without using it as an excuse to reduce your self-worth. Avoid being a martyr, the responsibility to move on as a strong, whole person rests with you.
Value what you have: Stop looking at what you don’t. Life is life and we have right now what we have. Looking at others and wanting everything they have at this moment in time is not going to help you. Make a list of what is good in your life and things you are thankful for. If we constantly look at what other have then we only concentrate on the negative. In time with good advice hard work and a good head on you shoulders these things can come. For right now enjoy and be proud of what you have no matter how little you may think it is. Wealth does not come in the form of possessions or money. Some of the richest people on this planet are the poorest with the least to show possession or monetary wise. Look at the news of late and how many rich mega stars have taken their own life or died. When we are gone, we are all equal in death, The very same with life and your sense of worth. Value what we have today and tomorrow will be what it will be.
Commit to change: So, we want to improve our self-worth. Let’s not just say we want to improve lets actually improve. What’s stopping you waking up and telling yourself the good points and things in life before we start our day. What is stopping you at looking at the glass half full and not half empty. The only limitation we are facing right now is our self. Let’s decide to make improvements and stick to it, even when we don’t want to even if we feel rough that day. We wake we have made a choice and come hell or high water we stick with it. If we commit a 100% to change then we will change.
Grab opportunities. Opportunities present themselves in all sorts of ways. Grasping them is altogether another matter that not many of us are adept at doing. Part of building self-worth is learning to recognize opportunities, however small, and working with them. Sometimes a great deal of patience will be called for; at other times, much self-restraint and downsizing of ambition might be needed. Whatever the case, take the opportunities life offers you and make the most of them because you deserve to do so turn challenges into opportunities. Successful people tend to turn challenges into opportunities. Can you practice this thinking style too? Try it out on the smallest of things first and start changing your language by removing the negative words and using words that reflect a sense of purpose, direction, and focus. Don’t go to the opposite extreme though and paint everything as rosy; life still has its thorns and its tragedies, and what is needed is a realistic appraisal followed by a determination to keep striving for better.
As always folks have a great day what ever you do with it.