Building Your Self-Worth

Self-worth is at the core of our very selves—our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are intimately tied into how we view our worthiness and value as human beings. Self-worth is simply defined as the level of importance you place on yourself.?

Building your Self-Worth

Receiving unconditional love, respect and support from others –what does your relationships look like? How do they make you feel? Do you have your emotional needs met – belonging and acceptance?

When things go wrong or we feel like a failure, the tendency is to criticize or bully ourselves into feeling better. Self-kindness is about accepting that you are not perfect and working to be more understanding with yourself even when things are going wrong.

Inner Voice - work on identifying, challenging, and externalizing your critical inner voice. We all have an inner critic that loves to stay stuck on our negative. It’s natural to let this inner critic get the best of us sometimes, but if we let her win too often, she starts to think that she’s right!

Whenever you notice your inner critic start to fire up with the typical criticisms, pause for a moment. Pattern Interrupt/Challenge your Thoughts - Ask yourself whether the thoughts are based on truth, whether your being kind to yourself, and whether these thoughts are helping you in any way. If none of those things are true, feel free to tell yourself you are done listening.

Forgiveness - Forgiving yourself is about more than just putting the past behind you and moving on. It is about accepting what has happened and showing compassion to yourself. Accept what has happened. Take responsibility for your actions. Ask for forgiveness to the people you have hurt. Learn from the experience.

Religion/Spirituality – knowing your worth as a human. In one of the latest national studies, the more participants reported feeling God’s love, presence and guidance, the more likely they were to agree they are a person of worth. Having a close relationship to God (higher power, source, etc.) where they felt loved and cared for increased self-worth.?

For more information, please visit www.dianelang.orgor email Diane at [email protected]