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Building Self-Worth

The truth is the more you value your self, the better everything is – your relationships, friendships, opportunities, how you live, your experiences, academic achievements – and the rest of your life.

First let me ask you a question: on a scale of 1 – 10 for self-worth (where 1 is low and 10 is high) where are you? What feels true for you deep inside?

I’m guessing less than a 10, right?

To understand why you aren’t ‘right up there’ on the scale, we need to just get a grip on some underlying factors.

Why I’m less than a 10

When we are born, we are born with our Enneagram personality and that personality means we have some natural tendencies. For example, some people are naturally wired up to be leaders and others are naturally wired up to be followers – or to want to help people – or to be high flyers – or to be gentle and studious – or to be naturally creative etc.

Inevitably this means some people are more prone to low self-worth than others. What Enneagram personality number are you? What can you realise from this? (Part One, chapter one and Part Two, More About Your Higher Self and Lower Self).

And then we have all the influences of everything around us and all the people that teach us what we get to believe about ourselves and our world. If you’ve grown up in a house where there’s lots of criticism you’ll probably criticise yourself – and even others – yet if you’ve grown up in a house where you’ve been praised and encouraged, you’ll probably feel more confident and have more respect and regard for yourself. It’s natural.

The thing to realise is that everything we learn about ourselves and our world, right from when we are born, is stored in our brain and by the time we are only 4 or 5 years old, this has become the blueprint in our mind from which we live. We are then on that path and have more and more experiences that equate with that path. So if we’ve had lots of positive messages we’re likely to have greater self-worth and consequently more positive experiences than someone who’s had lots of negative messages about themselves and their world and has lower self-worth and who consequently has more negative experiences.

Yet the good news is that even if, on that scale, your self-worth is zero, you can change this. And here’s how you can start . . .

How to move up the scale of self-worth

Here are five ways you can climb that scale and become the 10 you deserve to be:

1. Stop criticising yourself – or others

How can you feel good about you if you keep finding fault with yourself?

Some people think “How can I improve if I don’t know what’s wrong with me?” but seriously – do you know anyone who ‘improves’ by beating themselves up? No. Because you can’t build positives by being negative!

Stop all criticism – in fact, stop all judgment – be it someone else’s opinion, choice, hairstyle, or decision. It’s none of your business! But most of all stop criticising yourself. It’s just self abuse! (See Part One, chapter six – Criticism).

The following visualisation allows this shift in your subconscious mind to be even more powerful. (Remember, it doesn’t matter if you don’t feel you’re good at visualising, just focus as best you can and whatever you do will be fine. Hear it or feel it more if you’re audio or kinaesthetic). Click here to go the audio and have me guide you through it. Once you’ve familiarised yourself with it you can use this image any time to shift this old pattern.

Quick Visualisation – Instilling Self Acceptance

Close your eyes . . . and just imagine some typical critical things you think about yourself – telling yourself you’re not good enough, calling yourself names, being unkind to yourself . . . Or whatever you think or say that’s judgmental or critical of other people which is actually none of your business

Keep your eyes closed and now imagine yourself catching those thoughts and just splatting them – like you would a fly with a fly swatter. Splat them . . . and now just gently say to yourself “I am willing to accept myself – as I am . . . I am willing to accept myself as I am”. Even if it feels completely untrue right now, or even extremely silly, keep splatting those criticism thoughts and Switching them to “I am willing to accept myself exactly as I am” or even “I’m willing to work up to accepting myself exactly as I am” or “I’m willing to learn to accept myself exactly as I am”. Whatever feels right, keep saying that to yourself right now over and over . . .

Imagine it was true, now . . . just for a moment, buy into that feeling – that you felt just that bit more accepting of yourself.

Isn’t that really what you want from others? Acceptance? How can you hope to have acceptance from others if you can’t accept yourself?

Keep going “I am willing to accept myself, exactly as I am” . . . over and over . . . and keep doing this visualisation and be willing to build up gradually until it feels so familiar and comfortable you can say “ I now totally accept myself exactly as I am” and feel the truth of it in every cell of your body . . .

When you’re ready, just gently come back to your room and open your eyes.

Does that feel a bit nicer than beating yourself up?

Your feelings are your 24/7 guidance system as to whether you are in positive energy or negative energy – and energy is everything! (Part One, chapter ten).

The more you say this to yourself, the more you will grow into it. Do not fall into the trap of thinking “If others accept me then I can accept myself” because you won’t be able to believe others can accept you and let that acceptance in if you can’t accept yourself first!

Imagine you said “I am willing to accept myself exactly as I am” enough times so your brain took ownership of it and you believed it? How do you think that might feel? Nicer; more supportive; kinder? If you are kind to yourself as well as others you are likely to get a lot further in life.

And, as I said, even if it seems really untrue to start with, or silly, or ‘other people don’t do this’ or whatever other blocks get in your way, keep doing it, and look for the ways it shows up for you. Maybe you can realise you’re good at something, or have a nice smile, or are loyal, or love animals . . . just find one thing if needs be, that you can think of as you say “I accept myself as I am” and even if it’s only that one thing for now, know that the more energy you give this the more this feeling will grow, which will help you feel a whole lot better about yourself.

2. Stop scaring yourself

How many times do you literally terrorise yourself with your own thoughts? How many times do you let a fear thought or an anxiety thought escalate into something huge – or tell yourself you’re bound to fail or that you can’t do something?

Think about it – how can you feel good about yourself when you are letting all those scary thoughts run around your mind?

The fact is that you are the only one who can think in your mind and you are only one who can give thoughts power – or to splat them.

The following quick visualisation will help shift this pattern from your subconscious mind. Again, just do your best. Click here to be guided through it to make this change and break free.

Quick Visualisation – Moving Up The Scale

So again, close your eyes . . . and just think of some of the scary thoughts you have . . . and as you have those thoughts notice how they make you feel . . . Now see yourself splatting them . . . like you would a fly with a swatter, and then say “I am safe” and choose a nice thought instead. What could you think about that puts a smile on your face? Your pet? . . . A funny moment in a film or on YouTube? A holiday or time when you were having fun? . . . A comforting image? Find a thought now that makes you feel a bit better . . .

Have you got one? I like thinking about running free in a big field of wild flowers with a blue sky and the sun shining . . . Find your nice thought and then . . . imagine you were just a little bit higher up on that self-worth scale . . . just one step higher up . . . and ask yourself “If I felt this new level, what would be different?” . . . Just imagine if you were that one notch up on the scale . . . and because you had more self-worth you felt that bit more confident and self-assured . . . Paint the picture of you being just a little bit more confident or brave or powerful and what that would look like . . . and then how you could handle things better . . . Your brain starts to take that on board and work out your answers!

“If I felt a little bit higher on that scale of self-worth – what would be different?” Let the answer come to you – you don’t need to force it now, yet recognise you do have your answer inside . . . I promise you do always know because once you are in that positive part of your brain it is hardwired with the answers . . .

When you’ve got your answer, know you can follow through on it. Ask yourself, “If I was take the tiniest step towards this new picture what would it be?”

Know that each tiny step you make towards moving each notch up the scale, allows you to feel better and better – until you get to a 10 and are living all the differences that has made!

When you’re ready . . . come back to the room and open your eyes.

Now, anytime you need, you can splat that scary thought, say “I am safe” and Switch it to your nice thought! And then focus on that next thought towards moving another notch up the scale. You can do it.

3. Start praising yourself

Imagine a small child who is constantly made to feel wrong and bad – and then imagine a small child who is constantly praised and encouraged? Which one is most likely to feel small and insignificant and which one is likely to feel secure and valued and better about themselves?

Regardless of how little praise or encouragement you get at home or at school, choose to praise yourself, for every little thing you do! If you finish some homework, tell yourself “Well done” – even if you don’t then get a good grade. If you do some cooking, tell yourself “Well done”, especially if it was just for fun. If you stand up for yourself any time, tell yourself “Well done” etc. I even tell myself “Well done” when I’ve washed up a cup! The more you can say “Well done” to yourself and acknowledge yourself, the more you are valuing you!

You can also get your subconscious mind on board with you directly to speed up the process. See the topic on Worthiness and Deservability and the Inner Child visualisation towards the end Keep telling all your ‘younger you’s’ how you’re proud of them and praise them for having learnt to walk and talk and read and write and get through any challenging things etc. I know it sounds really weird and ‘do I really need to do this??’ yet if you really want to improve your sense of self-worth, this simple imagery, done properly, will help you get there much faster!

4. Stay in your own power

The 3 secrets to staying in your own power with all the benefits this brings are:

i) remembering you count too;
ii) connecting with your ‘who you really are’ higher self (See Part One, chapter one);
iii) telling yourself every day, as often as possible, “I approve of myself” “I approve of myself” “I approve of myself”

I recommend you learn these off by heart as well as put them fully into action. You can see the full detail of Staying in your power in the topic Peer Pressure in Part Two. Have a look there now and come back here.

5. Cultivate happy things for yourself

What do you like doing? What do you like doing just for pure fun, that’s positive and healthy? If you are doing things that you can do that make you as happy as possible and you are staying true to yourself in these choices, you are showing yourself you count too – and will be feeling better by having the fun.

What can you do – even with whatever limitations there are for you? Would you like to do something creative? Is there a local club you could join where you could meet different people? Could you read more or find some other hobby? Would you like to do something that involves helping people? Maybe you could do some jobs for neighbours and earn a bit of extra money.

My point is that when you are choosing positive things for yourself, you are moving up that scale big time!

(Just a tiny word for awareness – sometimes we can decide to make a positive change and then it backfires on us! Like we offer to mow a neighbour’s lawn and then have a problem through no fault of our own, or we lose something or drop something, or get sick. I promise this is a good sign – it means things are shifting! It will soon pass if we keep going. It also indicates we likely need to increase our sense of Worthiness and Deservability to let ourself benefit from our positive choice. Go to that topic and work on this too)!

In brief

To recap on moving up the scale of self-worth:

~ stop criticising yourself – or others; you can’t feel good engaging in negativity. Read Part One, chapter six – Criticism.

~ stop scaring yourself; how can you feel good letting scary thoughts run round your mind? You are in charge of your mind and can Switch them to a happy image as in the visualisation above.

~ start praising yourself; make this your new way of talking to yourself – it feels much nicer, heals you and grows positive self-feelings. Do the visualisation Inner Child in the topic Worthiness and Deservability too.

~ remember the 3 secrets of staying in your own power and put them into action.

~ cultivate happy things for you; what can you do positively that makes you feel good? Show yourself you count too and allow yourself to have some fun and enjoyment.