Where do you rank on the Self-worth Quadrant?
Do you have a high-interest piggy bank that provides, adds value, is confident, knows its strengths and respects its worth? Or do you have a piggy bank that is overdrawn and or withdrawn, with little to no return on investment or has the capability to deliver value? Do you feel like you need to smash yourself in order to get the last few coins out?
CONFIDENT: You feel confident when you have high self-esteem and your self-worth and internal dialogue is kept high, light and positive. You have a strong mindset, display courage and are resilient. You are not afraid of failure and have the ability to trust your intuition (inner guidance) and back yourself. When you do take a ‘hit’ or experience a challenge, you recover twice as fast as the Awareness quadrant. You are not relying on external sources or stimuli to boost your confidence, your value and have your mindset in the right place to Make Your Mark (as you know that it all stems from within).
Feel Empowered and Inspired
to Make Your Mark in the
World and Reach Your
Full Potential…
AWARE: You are aware that your internal dialogue that is speaking to your self-worth is generally positive, and you trust your own guidance system. You may lack some courage to step up in certain situations and understand the true value that you bring. This must be realised to increase your self-esteem to a higher order to increase your confidence in your work and life.
FRUSTRATED: You can feel frustrated when you have high self-esteem and know that worth that you bring yet somehow you still find yourself listening to external sources who really aren’t worth listening to which brings self-doubt and decision making based on other’s opinions and beliefs.
DESPONDENT: You can feel despondent when you are in a place of low self-worth and low self-esteem. This is because you are taking on the opinions and beliefs of others as to what you should be doing or who you should be. It feels all-encompassing and you aren’t quite sure how to shift your state. As Thema Davis (an associate professor of psychology at Pepperdine University, where she also is the director of the Culture and Trauma Research Lab) said, “Don’t see yourself through the eyes of those who don’t value you. Know your worth, even if they don’t.” The despair quadrant is where you rely on input from others and when challenges occur, you can fall twice as hard as those who are confident. It’s time to switch off listening to the opinions of other’s who you really don’t care for and start to gently guide yourself towards cultivating self-compassion and care for yourself first and foremost, remembering the value that you bring to yourself and to others.
I’d love to hear your thoughts as to where you sit on the Self-Worth Quadrant.
Are you full of high valued notes or weighed down by coins to the point of you might need to break to set yourself free?
“You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.”
– Diane Von Furstenberg
What is Self-esteem and self-worth?
I think of self-worth is a bit like a piggy bank. It can be full and heavy with low value coins, or it can be full yet light with paper notes of high value. Both coins and paper money can get stuck in the piggy bank and quite often you need to break it open to get the value. Don’t allow yourself to get to breaking point in order to find out your worth.
Wikipedia defines Self-esteem as an individual’s subjective evaluation of their own self-worth and the confidence in one’s own abilities and self-respect.
So why do some of us struggle with our worth and the value that we bring?
At times we can think that we are not deserving of success, or the imposter syndrome is in the mix (which we will talk about shortly) that makes us feel like a fraudster and think, “How did I even get to this position in a company or how did I build this business?” or even, “Who do I think that I am wanting to do and be it all?”
As women we can base our worth on all kinds of external matters such as how many friends we have, what suburb we live in, our salary or the amount of money we earn in our business, to the size of our waist and hips. All trivial (when perspective comes into play), but with which we can get caught up in external stimuli and believe that all of that matters if our self-esteem and value are low. Self-worth is about who you are, not about what it is that you do or what you have.
“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
– Louise L. Hay
With only 1 in 5 Australian women having high body self-esteem, we also have 7 in 10 girls believe they are not good enough or do not measure up in some way, including their looks, performance in school and relationships with family and friends. You OWE it to yourself and to future generations to increase your self-worth as quickly as possible!
– Real Girls, Real Pressure: National Report on the State of Self-Esteem, Dove Self-Esteem Fund
Over the years, I’ve interviewed thousands of people, most of them women, and I would say that the root of every dysfunction I’ve ever encountered, every problem, has been some sense of a lacking self-value or of self-worth.
Oprah Winfrey
Bob Burg and Zig Zigler have both famously quoted along the lines that you need to have people know, like and trust you in order for them to listen to you and to do business with you. But I believe that we need to rewind a little and firstly ask ourselves, “Do you know, like, and trust yourself?”
If you don’t know yourself or like yourself, you are needing to increase your self-esteem. You then need to further bolster it with the trust factor of self-worth in order to have the confidence to
back yourself. If you don’t have it within you, how can you expect others to have it for you? It is a case of first you need to be and lead yourself.
Once this is achieved and you can know, like and trust yourself, it allows you to build authentic, connected personal and business brands to your workplace, teams, customers, and clients. You become more aligned and congruent in your identity with integrity and purpose. It allows you to shine bright like a diamond (or the sun), to Make Your Mark.
How to cultivate Self Worth and
High Self Esteem
It’s important to know if you base your self-worth on internal or external dialogue.
Understand who you are (Identity) so that you know yourself.
Like yourself – embrace your perceived flaws and love who you are!
Trust yourself – you were made to do incredible things and to stand out from the crowd. It’s time to back yourself, you’ve got this and trust that all is unfolding as it should. It’s your time to shine.
Keep a folder or file of all the thank you notes, testimonials and compliments that you’ve ever
received from friends, family, colleagues and clients. Read them to remind and affirm to yourself of the
high-quality work and value that you have brought
and continue to bring both personally and professionally.
Learn to develop habits that increase and extend the VALUE that you bring to yourself and others.
Practice self-compassion and self-care so that you speak kindly to yourself and have perspective with the inner dialogues that you have that can look and sound like a bloody battlefield. You most likely tell others to be kind. It’s time to be kind to yourself.
By cultivating your self-esteem, you increase your confidence and courage and bolster your self-worth to deserving heights.
