The Fine Line Between Self Esteem And Self Worth
Self-esteem is having confidence in one's own abilities and self-worth is sense of one's own value or worth as a person. Higher self-esteem can make you feel confident about your abilities but may not necessarily make you feel worthy and lovable. High self-esteem makes you feel good about yourself. It does not mean that we are any no longer worthy if we don't feel good about ourselves.
Building your self-esteem means working towards becoming better at what we are good at, like talents and abilities. For example, losing weight, becoming healthier, developing our personality traits, etc. At times, we tend to place our entire worth on these abilities and if they come down, our value also comes crashing down. We stop giving credit to our hard work which in turn sabotages our sense of self-worth.
1. Success And Failure do Not Define You
Some psychologists believe that measuring your self-worth should be not based on external actions but more about your inherent worth as a person. We give too much importance to higher self-esteem which in turn leads us to compete with others and we lose focus on our own intrinsic worth. We fall into the trap of continuously competing with each other to increase our self-worth. We find that there is always someone better than us, someone prettier, richer or more successful than we are. Our self-worth increases or decreases based on our successes and failures.
2. You Are Unique
Each one of us is unique. We have our inherent unique qualities. Acknowledging that uniqueness which makes us who we are is very important in developing our self-worth. In order to build our self-worth, we need to challenge the nagging inner critic in us. Be more kind to yourself and start loving yourself for the person you are. Involving yourself in activities like a humanitarian cause that extends beyond your self-interest can help you build your self esteem.
3. Discover Your True Worth
Having higher self esteem helps only when it is accompanied by a sense of self worth. One may feel good about one's talent and abilities but may feel that they are not good enough. When you have a history of abuse and struggle with self-esteem and self-worth it's, very hard to build it up all over again, though not impossible. You can discover your true worth. Emotional abuse can lead you to doubt your self worth. Your true worth does not lie in the opinions and wrong actions of other people. Start living up to your potential and start believing in yourself.
"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” - Carl Gustav Jung
