I spent a few days with my peer group. Opportunities to be vulnerable with my peers provide opportunities for serious personal development. I ran into several conversations around the topic of self-worth. At a certain age, you would think that issues like self-worth would just work themselves out. What I learned from people in my group is that maintaining self-worth is a process no matter what age and no matter how accomplished you might be.
One of my mechanisms to cope with low self-worth is learning. I spent some time thinking and reading about self-worth’s connection to getting lost in learning. I thought I’d share just in case you use the same mechanism to cope with feelings of self-worth or in case you are working with someone who might exhibit low self-worth traits.
Do you have a very curious mind? Do you want to know what makes something tick? Why did someone do what they did? How were the results achieved? What is the methodology? What’s behind the data? Killing the desire to learn is not the goal of killing a sense of low self-worth. Using the desire to learn to soothe feelings of low self-worth is something to consider.
When you believe your self-worth is diminished. Do you become petrified to do the thing? Do you worry about crawling out of the box and take chances? Are you fearful of doing what you know? Are you brave enough to acknowledge that growth is in the doing? To calm the fear people use coping mechanisms. One mechanism is diving into learning to compensate for a feeling of low self-worth. Some tell themselves if I just read more books, watch more videos, take more classes, and participate in more workshops I’ll know it. If you know more won’t you be better when it comes to doing?
The learning you dive into to grow your self-worth is likely not fluffy stuff. Learning is likely a pretty deep dive. Nevertheless, it expands your knowledge but not necessarily your self-worth. You might get a temporary assurance that you’re good because you know so much more, however, it can be fleeting.
To build self-worth consider skill development. Taking what you learn, being bold, and putting learning into practice. Take the practice into review. One of the most powerful methods instituted for skill building and thoughtful feedback is peer review. Putting your work out there with an avenue for honest feedback from mentors and clients. Doing a deep dive into honest self-reflection. Honestly intentionally reflecting on your own work by acknowledging the good as well as what needs to be reevaluated. Doing, reflecting, and doing again builds confidence. Confidence is a killer of low self-worth.
Keys to building confidence:
Being Assertive – putting yourself in situations to apply what you have learned even when it makes you nervous
Developing a peer group – people who can offer honest feedback
Acknowledging your own skill – being your own champion. “Damn, that wasn’t half bad!!!”
Challenge yourself – Am I learning because I want to know or I’m I scared to death that I don’t think I can do!
Ask yourself:
- Where do you see yourself compensating for your feelings of low self-worth?
- Why might that be?
- What other things might you try to build your feeling of self-worth?
- What steps might will you take to move from feeling a sense of low self-worth to confidence?
