Is It Time To Think About Estimating Worth Vs. Esteem?
Need to develop a bit more "badass" in your personality? Check out this episode of Magnetic Me.
Well, hello there, I think it’s about time for some interesting debate on the difference between self-esteem and self-worth. Yes, I thought of this idea before drinking the best mojito I've ever had during girls' night last night. I love those any time of the year — both girl's night and mojitos.
I know that these two terms are used interchangeably, but in my mind, they’re slightly different. Now, if you’re someone who suffers from feeling like you’re not as good as other people, you might be wondering, “How is knowing the difference going to help me?” Keep reading, please.
Confession time, I spent a good part of my growing up years wishing that I were either someone else entirely or wishing I could be better than I was. I was very out of touch with who I was on the inside. Even though I had big dreams, and I know now that I was fully capable of being able to make every one of them come true, I didn’t. My low self-esteem was keeping me in a place where I was willing to settle for less to play the game of life. Sound familiar?
If only I could have reached out to my younger and completely misguided self to let her know that she was on the verge of screwing up everything. You know that if I could, I’d do it in a heartbeat. My younger me just needed to be more badass!
The crazy thing is that I’ve always known who I was...to a degree. And then I was also confused by my self-doubt. But still, some part of me knew exactly what I was capable of being and doing. So there was a huge disconnect between the inner me and me that was on the outside. And how I presented myself to the world. I did grow up and out of this stage of life, but it took me a long time. A lot longer than I would have liked. I’ve had decades of personal development training and spent tens of thousands of dollars on it, so am I cured? Honestly, not completely. There are still times when I allow myself to be a bit lazy. I ignore that switch that gets turned on inside my brain. Then I do something dumb and realize it while I’m doing it. That’s when I usually put on the brakes and say, nope, not today. The warning here is not to become so comfortable that you’re unaware when your switch that says, “I’m not worthy,” is being flipped on by whatever’s going on around you.
You are not alone in your "un-worthiness" delusion.
Is it just the young who suffer from this kind of paradox? Since I’ve been working with people on the Law of Attraction, I can tell you for sure that it’s not. When people come to me looking for help, a widespread thing that I run into when coaching them is low self-esteem. Why is that?
In this physical world, where we’ve been taught that reality exists only on the outside, and what we can see, people tend to lose touch with their inner truth. Yes, there is a hidden reality, no matter how you look at it. Many of us tend to see thoughts and feelings as being things that aren’t real, but when they are controlling what’s going in your life, the consequences of them are genuine. Yet so many of us don’t want to accept that changing these two basic things about ourselves will make a huge difference. You see, personal development, no matter what form it takes, even the best and most expensive kind, will only work when we are willing to make that type of change.
The moral of my story is that it's not so easy being green. By that, I mean, I've been a "junkie" of personal development since my early twenties. No matter how much I read or what I did, nothing cleared up the self-esteem issues for me until I started understanding my worth. My worth just seemed so abstract in a world where the hustle and bustle amounted to climbing a ladder to success. Maybe I just wasn't ready to understand it until a bit later. Despite that, one of the things that made a difference for me was "getting" the gap. So let’s jump into the idea of self-esteem vs. self-worth and see what the differences are and what you can do about them.
First, try on that bright and badass self-worth.
Self-Esteem: I tend to think of this as being the feeling you get about yourself based on the ways that other people react to you. Your self-esteem hinges on the signals you’re getting from the outer world as to who you are.
If you have someone in your life that treats you in a way that you don’t like, then because of LOA, you’re sure to know that you’re putting something out into the world that’s bringing that response back to you. When someone else treats you in a way that you don’t want to be, then you start building a particular image of yourself. It can start happening when you’re very young, and it can continue throughout your entire life. Humans are very good at finding ways to explain why they’re getting specific reactions or behaviors. The thing is that when people respond to you in a certain way, it’s partly them (their ideas and feelings) that’s going into that reaction as well as the energy you’re putting out.
Now, if that confuses you, think about it this way. When you put out your energy, it’s going to attract like energy. That’s LOA. When someone else is mean or critical to you, they are picking up on the negative energy you’re sending out. They might be allowing themselves to become negative in the process, or they recognize that energy. Because it already exists in them, they'll respond to it in the only way they can at that moment, with more of the same. I remember when I used to feel miserable all the time, that I had no shortage of people who were miserable surrounding me. Yes, we can bond over our agony, and it’s dangerous. When we think of toxic people or relationships, you’ll know the common denominator is habitual negativity.
Self-Worth: The higher part of you or your spirit holds onto your self-worth so that it’s always with you. You’re worthy because you exist, you’ve heard me say it before. Your higher self is that part of you that lives on forever, and it knows precisely what you’re capable of doing. It's the inner worth as opposed to the outer value. It's the part of you that wants to strive for more that wants to do more that wants to be more. The reason for that is because it is more. You are more than you realize. Your higher self is the part of you that is capable of anything, and it knows it. When you create a desire, it lives within your higher self. Your spirit then stokes the fire inside you for that dream that you have because it knows that you’re supposed to have it. Your self-worth, your higher self is always in complete agreement with you having and doing the things that light you up inside.
Knowing that there’s a difference between the two, does that make you think of yourself any differently? The reason that people disconnect from themselves is that they don’t believe that there is that higher part of them. They walk around thinking that there’s a limit to their worth. The solution, of course, is to connect with your worth and understand it. To feel it and to claim it as your own!
