What if I told you the quality of every single aspect of your life—your relationships, your bank accounts, your home, your emotional health—boils down to one thing? This one thing? An unwavering understanding of your own value. This understanding is at the core of how you see yourself and how you allow the world to see you. It is what I call “self-worth.” I’m going to walk through the 3 reasons you struggle with low self-worth and exactly what you need to do to stop making these mistakes.
Low Self-Esteem Is Caused by Lacking a Sense of Self
Self Worth Requires self—to have a sense of self, you must have healthy boundaries.
The definition of a boundary is a line that marks the limits of an area; it's both a line of containment (keeping you in) and a line of protection (keeping others out). Think about this like drawing a circle around yourself. Inside the circle is your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual space. This space is where you live. It is the space that your whole self occupies. It includes all the aspects of yourself that you love, cherish, and celebrate. It also includes all the aspects of yourself that you have forgotten, denied, and repressed. No one else belongs in that circle and it can’t be shared.
Boundaries are your rules for who, what, how, and why you feel comfortable being close to someone else—clear communication of what’s true for you—helping others know who you are and how to interact with you. When you are clear with your boundaries, no one around you is left guessing.
If you want to know more about building self-worth. My best-selling book, The Worthy Project, is available for free on Audible.
Low Self-Esteem Is Caused by Over-Giving
In the realm of money, worth follows a basic supply and demand model. Money is traded for things. To build financial worth, you must keep more of that value than you spend. If things become too easy to get, value collapses and worth vanishes. This is also how self-worth works. To build self-worth, you must keep more value than you spend. Where financial worth is the accumulation of a thing called money, self-worth is the accumulation of a thing called self.
When you spend more resources than you can afford—whether you’re spending time, attention, energy, or money—you decrease your self-esteem. You reinforce a sense of worthlessness and lower your self-worth. So, when you consider giving or spending things like time, energy, and self, it’s important to know how to determine whether or not you can afford to spend or give.
To build-self worth, you need to ask yourself: Do I have an excess of resources to give or spend? This is kind of like the flight attendant’s advice to “put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you help others”—here, “an excess of resources” means that you have extra after you’ve cared for yourself first. If you have to put yourself into debt emotionally, health-wise, energy-wise, or time-wise, you can’t afford to spend the resource. This means that before you give your time, your attention, your energy, or yourself to anyone or anything else, you first care for your true self. If you don’t have extra to give, it means you can’t afford it. To build self-esteem, you must keep more resources than you spend.
Low Self-Esteem Is Caused by Behavior that Reinforces Low Self-Worth
This one is pure magic—so let me quickly explain how it works. When you take action that reinforces that you’re not worth your time, energy, or attention– you reinforce a low self-esteem story about yourself. This worthless story leads to worthless behavior and reinforces a sense of worthlessness. The best way to move out of what I call The Worthless Cycle—is to hack your behavior. This means that you take a deliberate action that reinforces the idea that you—the real true you—are worth time, attention, and energy. This doesn’t mean you have to do something big. You don’t have to write a book, get a PhD, lose 50 pounds, or run a marathon. It means that you can take just a tiny action instead of a dramatic overhaul of the most challenging part of your life.
You only need to take an action that reinforces that you, your life, your self, is worth your own time, attention and energy. Because it’s easier to get a new doormat, sweep the floor, or put laundry in the hamper, rather than to quit a mind-numbing job or overhaul your entire financial plan. Yet, surprisingly, small steps are just as effective as large ones at getting you into The Worthy Cycle—where you’re building self-worth. By taking small, worthy action steps, you immediately stop the downward spiral by placing intentional value on your true self. Any action that cares for your precious true self will help you accumulate more self. More self means more self-worth. The Worthy Cycle builds on itself and gains upward momentum.Worthy behavior creates worthy consequences. When you see the consequence of this new behavior (the new doormat, the swept floor, the hamper), this reinforces a worthy story, which inspires more worthy behavior, and so on.
so to recap…
The 3 reasons you struggle with low self-worth and exactly what you need to do to stop making these mistakes:
You lack a sense of self
Self worth requires a self. The only way to have a stable sense of self is by strengthening your boundaries.
You OVERSPEND your resources
You need to be more conservative with how you spend your time, energy, and attention. To build self-esteem, you must keep (meaning invest in yourself) more resources than you spend.
Your habitual behavior reinforces Low Self-Worth
You need to stop doing things that reinforce the idea that you’re not worth it. And instead make a daily habit of taking one small action that reinforces that you are worth your own time, attention, and energy.
To really master self-worth, you need to know the ins and outs of setting healthy boundaries—so read this post next: How to Say No Without the Guilt.