If you feel you have a low self worth you should definitely read this.

Somewhere along this journey of life, to certain extent I let the external world cultivate/dictate my inner world and the voice of the outer world and society as we call it started to define my self worth.

I tied my self worth to things such as Money, Status and my Goals while for sometime this drove me to achieve my best at some point especially when I wasn’t able to achieve at the rate I set for myself (Of course, influenced by external society to a certain extent my inner world started to break and get weaker, with each failed goal my Inner world got weaker to the point that I decided to re-look at my Self Worth..

What is Self Worth?

The first thing I realized is, it’s called “SELF” worth for a reason sounds pretty obvious but we miss it. To do with you NOT external and Worth “ a form of measure/value you hold”

something that “YOU” would hold “YOURSELF” accountable for irrespective of society, friends, family (of course! within a moral compass of things)

For me, Self worth and Self love are intertwined when working on one, the other automatically works through itself..

Some forms of measuring your self worth can be

1. How you show up in the world?
2. How do you take care of your body?
3. The environment?
4. Are you kind as a person?
5. Are you living the life YOU want to?
6. Are you happy? If not what are you doing to work on this?
7. How are you showing up in the world?
8. Are you thinking beyond your self? Impacting the world in some positive way?
9. Taking Risks and Pushing through your comfort zones?
10. Are you working on healing your limiting beliefs?
11. Are you living an adventurous life? aka creating a life resume (A term I learnt from Sara Blakely’s Husband in a podcast)

I defined mine, and ensured to practice it for a month , at the end of every day I would write a note on how I was showing up things and I saw things starting to change internally, it happened quite quickly once I decided to stick by my rules

This led to the following changes

1. I let go of the need to chase anyone in life — friends, colleagues, relationships anyone and anything I worked on myself and naturally started drawing similar people

2. My mindset and the way I value people changed, I valued them how I did myself, Self Worth, Consistency Values, showing up for yourself rather than how much money they made, their house etc etc.

The reality is in the world that we live in Money can be made easily, especially if you’re in the right field, have connections and some more reasons which let’s not touch upon. It’s no more the generation of “Hard Work” is the only way to success a lesson we were taught as kids

Hence, I value people for what they’re doing with their wealth (small or big) What efforts they made as a human to reach to that point. The “Money” in itself doesn’t create the value rather how they use the “tool”/ “money” to create their life. and it’s exactly how I measure myself now!

With this shift of perspective within me, I have seen myself value the right people and create a space in the world to value human beings that go above and beyond with whatever they have, no impact to me is big or small what matters is the intention and effort

3. I became more in love with myself, and developed a strong inner fortitude

I was always hard on myself, until this point and this turns to Self love, I had it on a physical level but not in the deeper level. People who say “I’m amazing” but i’d find that hard to believe.. If you don’t believe in yourself it’s normal to feel this way. So this one was the hardest to let go of my masculine energy and tune into the feminine side of acceptance, love, appreciation for self. I became more conscious of being my own cheerleader, this can be super helpful and the realization that you need to be your own cheerleader was pivoting!

Loving yourself can look like taking care of your mind, body and de-attaching from experiences and people that don’t value you. It can be lonely at start especially if you have a lot of cleansing to do but I felt more at peace within my self with this one.

4. I become more conscious and intent on people I was admiring and complimenting

Being a good human being and impacting the world in some way became my benchmark for myself and people I was complimenting

I saw a beautiful video by Rupi Kaur, it resonates the sentiments I feel so deeply . It goes like this

“I apologise for calling you pretty, you are so much more than that… You are Courageous, Powerful, X, X.

It’s having the intention to look beyond someone’s physical self and actually bring out the beauty within and I truly believe you create the world you live in. Seeing people from the lens of how they navigate through life and how they show up is beautiful, you not only end up shining someone’s day, you show them that they are valued beyond their skin and maybe even push them to continue that hard journey they are on.

5. Peace, more in tune with life and inner Voice

This one is a work in progress, I am figuring out when to jump, push and when to be still, how to dance and flow with life but with knowing my self worth and that added peace with it I am more at flow with life than i’ve ever been before

I know that any external voice, opinion is not going to affect me, I stay always open to opinions but ward out the one’s that mess with my internal compass

6. Taking Risks

With a stronger self worth, I have realized that I am more in a growth mindset and with every failure, I learn stand up and go back at it Just like climbing a Mountain, depending on the mountain you’re climbing, the adversities you’ll face in life will be different, but you take the risk, keep looking up and get up no matter how bruised you are, it’s your mountain to climb, mentors will appear to guide you but it your uphill journey

Finally with this sense of self worth i’m able to live life in my own terms, create boundaries when needed, letting go when something falls apart, rise up when I’ve failed and follow my inner compass even if the world tries to mold me into one direction.

There are times that I come back to them, as the inner fortitude is a work in progress but with every conscious effort I create a more joyful existence one which is true to myself, with as limited exposure from societal opinions

7. The Most Important One knowing your “WHY”?

Knowing why you want to achieve, a goal, why you want to live a certain way and asking the “why” question will help you get to your inner core and give you the right guidance to follow through in life especially when the going gets tough.

After all we’re not caged birds, we’re meant to fly whenever we want, and rest whenever we’d like. It’s our sacred journeys and we must decide our own values without external voices.

Let me know on the comments below, what self worth issues you’ve had and what has been your guiding compass to get through them?

Rupi Kaur, Snippet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1U8ITgcitQ