Why do we want to build our self-worth?

When you build your self-worth, many of the difficulties in your life will wither fade away or you will simply struggle a whole lot less with them!  Life is always going to throw curve balls at us - from the big to the little things: we fall out with friends, a partner cheats, pandemics happen, we loose our jobs… we miss the bus, we are late for a meeting, we say the wrong thing, we get into an argument with our partner.  It’s all part of life.  The problem is, we are so busy micromanaging every single thing in our lives in order to try and avoid any kind of difficulty, we forget that it’s simply a part of life and is therefore unavoidable.  We cannot control other people, we cannot control anything external to us - no matter how much we like to believe we can.  All we can do, is start to do the work to find more control over our inner world.

There are numerous things that block us from being able to step up for ourselves and do, what I believe is fundamentally one of the most important things we can do, build our self-worth.  When we build our self-worth, we transform into the most beautiful version of ourselves.  We tap into our playful inner child who is excited to learn and grow.  We become in alignment to our core needs and core values.  We literally step into a whole new energy, and that energy is magnetic.  It draws the right people and our desires towards us without us even trying!  Here are some blocks that we have to get past in order to build on our foundation of self-worth.

One - Victimhood Mentality

Victimhood Mentality Relies On 3 key Beliefs:

1. Bad things always happen to me

2. Other people and circumstances are to blame - I have no power

3. I will fail so I might as well not try to change things

A victimhood mentality is something we all can suffer from at times in our life.  However it’s important to be aware that this mentality will ultimately lead to unnecessary distress and will stop you from creating powerful changes.  97% of our thoughts are subconscious so there’s a likelihood that if you have this mentality, you might not even realise it.  I teach people to become aware of the subconscious thought patterns that are holding them back and stopping them create empowering change. 

Victimhood Mentality Behaviours:

•  Blaming others.
•  Not taking responsibility.
•  Making excuses.
•  Procrastinating and putting off any attempts to create something different.
•  Negative self talk.
•  Lack of confidence.
•  Not attempting new things.
•  Feeling frustrated, angry & resentful.
•  Always focusing on the problem not the solution.
•  Self-sabotage.
•  Comparison - my life is bad everyone else’s is perfect. 
  
  

Victimhood Mentality sounds like:

“Why do I always get things wrong?”

“Why do I always make bad decisions?”

“It’s so easy for you.”

“I will never meet a partner.”

“I could never get that job, I’m not smart enough.”

“It’s all my fault.”

“There’s no point in trying.”

“It’s just who I am.”

Tips to tackle victimhood mentality:

1. Start to notice the way you speak to yourself - change only comes from awareness.
2. Notice the way your negative self-talk has become a pattern - ask yourself next time something comes up: would I say this to anyone I love?  The likelihood is you wouldn’t.  So treat yourself with the same love, care and respect.
3. Get out of your comfort zone and try something new.  This is so key to help to rewire our brains.  Start a new class, join a book club, go for a run in a new area, learn a language…. We have to shift the way we have been showing up, and trying something new helps build confidence too.
4. Repeat for 6 weeks every morning when you wake up: “I am enough.”  Affirmations have been shown to help rewire the brain to notice the positive.  Start to be your own cheerleader instead of constantly dragging yourself down.
   
   

Two - People Pleasing 

If we are forever people pleasing, it’s a sure sign that we are not in a place of high self-worth.  People pleasing is something that causes a lot of unnecessary suffering and when we come from a place of high self-worth, we no longer succumb to the trap of people pleasing.  People pleasing is when we decide to choose someone else’s perceived happiness over our own.  There are many problems with this:

1. We are not being true to ourselves.

When we are people pleasing we are not actually being truthful.  We are not using our voice and our power to state what it is that we want, what it is that would serve us better instead.  We are effectively hiding who we are and not even giving the other person a chance to hear how we truly feel.  By keeping someone else in the dark, we aren’t able to create deeper, more beautiful, more healing connections with one another.  You have possibly lived your whole life without other people truly knowing who you actually are for fear of rejection.  Self-worth helps you let go of this fear and allows you to be a more abundant, more loving, compassionate, stronger version of yourself.

2. We create a culture of guilt.  

Guilt causes unnecessary suffering and stop us from growing.  Guilt causes us to get stuck in a cycle of negativity believing we are not worthy of good things in our lives.  Guilt will also keep you stuck in a cycle of victimhood mode.  Constantly feeling guilty is exhausting and really debilitating.  We have to turn our guilt into gratitude - gratitude that we have this moment to create shifts and learn from our mistakes.

2. We become resentful.

When we are choosing other people's happiness over ourselves we become resentful.  Resentment is a sure sign that you are lacking boundaries and not speaking your truth.  Resentment can build and build and end up causing big blow outs - perhaps if we had started by being truthful, it would never reach this stage.  Resentment also, once again, keeps you trapped in the cycle of victimhood mode.  Not only are we resentful of other people, we are also resentful of ourselves, wishing we had the courage to speak up in the first place.  Being resentful towards yourself is going to stop you from building your self-worth because your inner dialogue will be going down a spiral of negativity.

4. We create high expectations of others.

Because we always adapt ourselves to suit others, we feel others should do the same.  And when they don’t, we get stressed out.  We create high expectations for other people and then they always disappoint us.  Making us feel like there’s something wrong with us.  Why didn’t Sally invite me to her dinner party when I went out the way to invite her to ours?  Am I not good enough?  There could be a multitude of reasons why seomone didn’t invite you, but you fixate on the fact that you have been such a great friend by sacrificing your needs for hers, and therefore shouldn’t she do the same?  The fact is, when you have a high level of self-worth, you wouldn’t invite someone to something just to please them, you would invite them because you truly wanted them there.  You also wouldn't care so much when you don’t get invited to something - you don’t see other people’s actions as a measure of how worthy you are.  You know how great you are.  It’s like water off a ducks back, you just care less!  Relationships and problems feel easier and way less complicated!

 
Three - Getting caught up in the past / future

It’s very hard to build your self-worth if your mind is constantly worrying about the past and feeling fearful of the future.  You are just too distracted to be able to take the time to even realise, and become aware, that the only thing you can influence is right now.  When you start to settle in to the comfort of how innately worthy you are, you don’t blame yourself for the past, you simply see it as a huge potential for learning and growth.  One of the fundamental building blocks to improving your mental health and increasing your self-worth, is to start living in the present.

Of course, this is not what most of us have been taught by society / our parents / care givers… we have been taught to live in fear of all the bad things that could happen to us.  But the truth is, what we appreciate, appreciates.  If we are continually focusing on our fears, our fears will feel bigger than they actually are.

Instead how can we focus on the one thing we actually do have: the right here and now?  Well there are heaps of mindful practices - yoga, meditation, breath work… but also things like practicing active listening (this is hard as so many people are in their heads thinking of the next thing they can say, rather than focusing on the person in front of them), going out in nature and observing the beauty around us, getting creative - painting, drawing, ceramics, playing an instrument… these are all incredible ways to practice staying present and also fantastic ways for our brains to learn new, more beneficial neural pathways.

As hard as living in the present moment might feel right now, it’s about rewiring your brain.  If you have been thinking about your fears for the past 33 years, it’s going to take a moment or two to change this up.  So don’t give up if it feels hard, dedicating time and work to this could be the most beneficial thing you will ever do.

For me, self-worth has truly had the most incredible impact on my life - from feeling the biggest failure, constantly worrying about anything and everything that could go wrong, blaming myself for everything that was going wrong, pleasing everyone else but myself, always feeling guilty… to creating an inner freedom that has given me the chance to magnetise so much beauty and happiness into my life.  I never thought life could feel so easy, until I built my foundation of self-worth.