Editor’s Note: This guest post is a very new and interesting take on Self-Worth and Self-Esteem by Richard Johnson of Reaching A Better Place.
Self-worth is as it sounds: how much we feel we’re worth. How good we are at certain sports, how easily we make friends, how much we weigh, how good we are at our jobs etc.
Self-help psychology tends to assume there is an intrinsic link between self-worth and self-esteem, and that the key to bettering a person’s self-esteem is to change that person’s perception of his/her self-worth. If you believe that you’re worthy and valuable in all sorts of regards you’ll feel better about yourself.
While this can be the case it can also be much simpler than that, provided it’s realised that emotional well-being and self-worth don’t have to be linked.
When self-worth is linked to self-esteem (how good we feel about ourselves) the relationship is pretty proportional. If we have a sense of little or no self-worth we feel terrible about ourselves and if we have high self-worth it’s the opposite.
Our sense of self-worth can fluctuate with our changes in circumstances, and I doubt positive mantras and visualisation exercises are always enough to combat the simple knowledge that in some areas you really do suck. There’s an alternative to trying to change your perception of self-worth to weigh up the scales well.
Your self-esteem is likely connected to a sense of worth and value – it’s the same for almost everyone. But that sense is down to the value and worth you can be to others and not necessarily are to others.
Alone on a desert island, what are you worth? A lot? A little? In that situation you are completely worthless – you are of no use to anyone. But would that sense of worthlessness on that island bother you? Could you imagine any lone castaway battling with a sense of self-worth? That would be ridiculous. As Tom Hanks taught us, ice skate dentistry and argumentative footballs will always take priority.
In a more direct example: what might people suffering from low self-worth worry about when they wake up: whether they will contribute value to their work today or whether they can contribute value?
Our concern for self-worth is in our capacity, not in our contribution. Marooned on an island, unable to be of value to anyone, we just get on with surviving. Throw us back into civilisation and the business of self-worth appears again. The key to self-esteem is not necessarily in boosting self-worth, but simply in detaching our self-esteem from our self-worth.
Just as self-worth isn’t an issue when it comes to survival on a desert island so it need not be an issue in civilisation when you’re just trying to achieve happiness.
Most people who do really well aren’t in the media at all, if ever. In the following examples I’m going to refer just to celebrities though, as it makes for easier writing and reading.
When you see celebrities on TV, especially in interviews, have you ever noticed how some seem very big-headed and others seem rather humble? They all know they ought to look modest, of course, but you can often tell when some are putting on an act and others genuinely have no interest in tooting their own horns.
Such celebrities can have equal levels of success in their different fields, yet behave very differently.
Some celebrities are very successful at what they do, yet have low self-worth. Maybe they’re worried that their fame comes from hype and not their accomplishments, maybe they feel really worthless in some other area…but somehow or other despite the glow of the media spotlight they still feel not quite worth enough. Such people can strike us as cocky, boastful, big-headed or even just narcissistic – using pride to cover up a deeper-seated feeling of worthlessness.
They’re better off with high self-worth.
Some celebrities have high self-worth…and they can still strike us as cocky, boastful and big-headed, but they’re obviously better off than those with low self-worth.
It’s still not ideal though as it doesn’t offer much security. The world’s best ballerina may have soaring self-worth (as in literally her worth as a dancer) but that would vanish if she became paralysed. If these people lose the thing which makes them valuable to others, they will emotionally crash down into low self-esteem – and it will be a long fall.
They’re better off not thinking in terms of self-worth, thus having no link between that notion and self-esteem.
There are also plenty of celebrities who don’t seem to think in terms of self-worth and these are perhaps the easiest to name.
Tony Hawk, Jackie Chan, Warren Buffet, Stephen King, Will Smith…they’re very down to Earth and quite humble. It’s not so much that they have high self-worth but that they don’t apply any level of worth to themselves – low or high. As mentioned earlier, we can all easily not think in terms of self-worth in various situations, the challenge is to think like this consistently – irrespective of our circumstances.
The better cure for self-worth is just to leave that system rather than try to win at it. In the system of self-worth you’re either low on it and you need more to feel good about yourself, or you have plenty and you’re happy with yourself – but that happiness can be taken away in an instant if you suddenly lose the thing which makes you valuable.
If you opt out of that mentality you’ll always have self-worth (literally a level of value to others), but it can simply have no emotional relevance to you and won’t be something you give much thought to.
I’m not a perfect example when it comes to thinking beyond self-worth (though the guy I share my blog with is…damn him) but I find as time goes on I get better and better at disregarding self-worth by doing one particular thing and avoiding another:
Simply reminding myself of what this article is about is usually enough to kick myself out of thoughts of self-worth. Self-worth isn’t a mental model I’d have to deal with alone on a desert island and I don’t have to deal with it in my present circumstances here in civilisation either.
I’m not sure I’ve ever done this. I hope I never do. ‘Fake it until you make it’ is such a business thing and it really promotes the self-worth mental model. Pretending to be more successful than you are until you reach that level of success for real…well it might be good for business but until you get the success for real you’re really stirring up self-worth troubles.
Richard Johnson is the writer at www.reachingabetterplace.com – a blog dedicated to reaching better and better places in life.
If you enjoyed this article you may also like Liking Yourself, Disliking Yourself and the Alternative.
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I disagree on the point about not faking it till you make it. I understand the sentiment and where this article is coming from, but there is a broader picture than just self esteem and self worth – and that is, how others’ perception of you, and your value, can affect the level of respect you get.
As an example, when I applied for my first job, I dressed well, spoke confidently, and had a polished resume – anyone who read the resume could see I had zero experience. However, the level of confidence in myself I exuded I am sure helped me land the position – because I didn’t come across as someone who had never had a job before, rather I came across as someone who would be a good fit for the position, and believed themself to be capable.
Hi Richard,
I read your article and can accept your logic to a point but, I would like to say, that I disagree with your notion. I am a psychotherapist and throughout my work, they are strongly linked:
Self esteem reflects a persons’s overall evaluation or appraisal of her or his own self worth. Synonyms or near-synonyms of self-esteem include: self-worth, self-regard, self-respect, self-love, self-integrity. Self-esteem is distinct from self confidence and self efficacy, which involve beliefs about ability and future performance.
Many Thanks
Regards
Dawn Pugh
http://www.dawnpugh.com
I wouldn’t call that faking it, Sid.
The clothes weren’t fake, confidence is always an act (it’s just that sometimes the person acting confident believes in their own confidence and sometimes they don’t) and a ‘polished’ resume just sounds like you presented the truth in positive way.
I guess I could have defined it better in the article, but when I say faking I mean just that – coming up with fake things such as making up personal interests on a CV or pretending to have met someone you haven’t.
No harm comes from presenting yourself well, it’s outright duplicity that can cause problems.
Yes, self-worth and self-esteem no doubt are very strongly linked, Dawn, but I don’t think they are intrinsically linked – that they have to be.
I believe that people can have self-esteem (feel okay with themselves) without using their sense of self-worth (their worth to others) as a foundation.
I tried to convey this without using synonyms, but, as you showed in your comment, in the field of psychology it’s hard to avoid them for self-esteem. I think self-worth shouldn’t be one of those synonyms. We shouldn’t have to feel of use to others to feel okay with ourselves.
I, for one, agree with Richard, here, and feel that it can indeed be important to be mindful of conflating concepts. By not equating self-worth with self-esteem, Richard makes a very good, and very important point—namely what I quoted above.
One should not get so bogged down in semantics that they lose sight of the message Richard is conveying here, a message which could, I think, do a lot of people some real good.
Nice post!
I stepped out of the self-worth/self-esteem trap years ago. There’s way too much “self” in that way of looking at things. We don’t have to be perfect to be lovable, being loving and nonjudgmental to ourselves and others is powerful.
You know, this intellectualizing of esteem is like a dog chasing its tail. Of all the positivity coaches I’ve met, 99% had major self-esteem issues. Why do you think they’re so out there creating an image of esteem? Of those, less than half were honestly aware of it. It’s nice when they are, though.
So there’s a lot of good-intentioned crap out there. “Remember, you need to have good esteem – it’s utterly important – but we have to be in denial about the parts of ourselves that honestly don’t look at ourselves with love.” But of course, it’s usually more subtle than that.
But there’s that word: love. If you love all your thoughts, all your emotions, and your body – including everything that’s stored in your body – you’ll have good esteem. And by “love”, I mean simply welcoming and accepting what is. Including the bitchy parts.
I’m with you on this one Richard. As a parent I notice that when we link achievement to feelings of worth it has the effect of creating children who try to please others instead of learning to follow their own intuition. (Which leads to adults still trying to please others!) This article reminds me of research I’ve read about in books by Alfie Kohn, among others. What they found was that when children were persistently praised they began to perform activities not for enjoyment of the activity but for the praise. As Kohn says: “… research has shown that the more we reward people for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward.”
I think what he writes so beautifully illustrates why self-worth (by your definition of ‘their worth to others’) does not lead to self-esteem. He also writes: “Even when it [praise] works, we can’t really say the child is now “behaving himself”; it would be more accurate to say the praise is behaving him. The alternative is to work with the child, to figure out the reasons he’s acting that way.”
This praise-driven behaviour is, I think, why we can end up feeling like fakes, even when we do achieve something that could be classed as worthwhile.
Yet we’re so conditioned to use praise and rewards to manipulate children (and adults) to do what we want, that it’s challenging to break away from this, but until we do then this issue of self-worth is going to keep on burning. It’s so ingrained in us that I was about to praise you for writing this article!!! Instead I’ll say thank you – your reminder was timely for me.
If you’d like to read more of Alfie Kohn try this link:http://www.alfiekohn.org/articles.htm#null
The article I quoted from is: “5 Reasons To Stop Saying ‘Good Job’”
Hi Yvonne,
I’d like to add to what you’ve presented. What you say is true based on my own experience. I am no longer a child, but my childhood instruction included the style you mention. I was given some activity or task, then praised, or not, for the result. It does create the connection of the two things. When I did ‘good’ with the activity, I was considered good by those who I looked to show me that I was. And of course the entire thing reversed. It is how I determined my worth.
Once instilled in a child and reinforced, it takes a very long time, after then living as an adult with these same physiological and psychological responses, to retrain oneself in a different manner, to the extent there can be retraining. The body is on ‘automatic’ for the most part. We do not regulate the majority of our bodily functions and responses. This early training and responsiveness in the body’s functioning becomes as much a part of that as our blood flow. Now, of course, we have the ability to stop our blood flow, but do we want to? Very often the same response to changing what has been inserted as a part of who may have become. Inherent worth was diminished, it is an automatic response. It takes great strength, effort and desire to reprogram, I feel.
Important info for all who take responsiility for the education and nurturing of children.
“Alone on a desert island, what are you worth? A lot? A little? In that situation you are completely worthless – you are of no use to anyone.”
That is a very interesting observation/question to ask. Hmmm….and the answer comes when you said:
“Our concern for self-worth is in our capacity, not in our contribution. Marooned on an island, unable to be of value to anyone, we just get on with surviving. Throw us back into civilisation and the business of self-worth appears again.”
So what’s the solution? Something we’ve all heard of before but continue to ignore because of social norms, expectations, our level of exisiting self esteem……
Only you can boost your own self esteem – not others. A quick example of how I figured this out.
I had a speaking engagement in Las Vegas earlier this year. I was addressing a group of hospital CEO’s about dealing with and overcoming adversity. I felt very much in the moment, gliding effortlessly with confidence and exurburence. I felt like I was speaking in the “zone.”
But although the audience seemed to enjoy it, I never heard back from the meeting planners after that. No “thank you” or “that was fantastic” or anything like that.
Normally I would have been crushed, worried and anxious about this lack of reaction. But I stopped myself and asked how I felt I did. I analyzed (but not overanalyzed, mind you!) how I truly felt and whether I could have done better.
My response was I felt great internally. I felt on target and did a good job. I checked to make sure it wasn’t my ego trying to lull me into a false sense of achievement.
After all that, I felt good about my performance even though I didn’t receive any feedback (I contacted them numerous times but they never returned my emails – I even sent them a couple of Chicken Soup books to thank them – no “thank you cards” – NOTHING).
Bottom line? We all want praise, recognition but what happens when we don’t get that? Does it mean we are worthless? Not unless we allow outside influences affect us.
Great article – you truly touched a nerve inside me and it felt good to share with you and everyone else.
One more thing – I want to respond to Sid that I did not construe the action you took for your interview to be fake. If you were nervous inside but covered it up with a confident pose, I guess we could attribute this to the “fake it to make it” concept.
I think authenticity works far better than faking it until you make it.
I especially like the point about don’t fake it till you make it. And it is not good for business.
@ Sid – you are not describing faking it until you make it. You are describing the choice to act confidently on the outside, even if it’s not how you feel on the inside. Confidence is always a choice. Pretending to be richer than I am would be more of the fake it until you make it plan.
That’s a very interesting take on the entire concept. I appreciate the point that we shouldn’t put happiness stock in a system of self-worth that can be taken away.
That’s another reason I think internal-happiness will always trump external-happiness. If your happiness is internal, nothing can stop you from cracking a smile, laughing with joy or simply being thrilled to be alive.
If your happiness is internal then external events can’t destroy it. Someone who finds satisfaction internally can lose their job and walk away whistling.
As far as achievement, I’ll be writing a bit on that in the future, but I think I might possibly disagree. I’m not sure though; I couldn’t be certain unless I had a personal discussion. Sometimes words get a little “iffy” in discussions like this, so we might very well agree.
Excellent post and some great comments. Self worth and self esteem can be closely linked – but it is clearly possible to have a high self worth but low self esteem. Addressing this situation can be very challenging to both therapists and those experiencing this condition…
**
Editor’s Note: Thank you for your comment, but as mentioned below, please leave keywords out of it. I’ve edited your comment accordingly.
Confidence is something that I lack very much. I think that it is mainly because of the failures that I have come across.
I really want to get out of this rut… I will surely try out your advice and see how it goes…
For this one, it would be good to take reference on Urban monk’s post last Feb 21, 2007 (What is the one question to set us all free?). Come to think of it, everything we deal with and how we go about things, is basically all centered on who we are. Not on who we think we are but on who we really are regardless of how we or other people think we are. Anxieties, depression, happiness, and for this matter, self worth and self esteem, can all be understood if we can first understand ourselves, the ‘Self’, what our essence is, our position, and what our function is supposed to be. By simply knowing or for that matter realizing our true identity that we are not this body nor our mind, nor our false ego, everything else will come easy for us. It is actually the basis for everything because it is according to our perception on how we deal with everything else. If we understand that we are not the body nor the mind and that we are in fact separate from the material, then everything else in connection with our body and mind can have no effect on us. If we take self-worth and self-esteem in connection with our body, i.e. basing it on how our body looks, or on what our activities are or accomplishments, then no matter how much worth or self esteem we get, there will come a time where all of it will be of no value.That is if we just see self-worth and self-esteem just for ourselves trying to satisfy our desire for recognition, gratification, or respect from others or simply wanting to feel good about ourselves. It won’t work, because we are identifying with our body and/or mind and think that whatever happiness we can get for the body, we will also be happy. But time and past experiences have taught us that this is not the case. No matter how much happiness we get in connection with our body, somehow or other in the end we still feel a longing for something deeper. That is because we tend to falsely identify with our body and thus forget who we really are, what our essence is. Since we are something separate from the material body and mind we are temporarily in, and deep inside we know that we exist and that we cannot be simply nothing (the fact that we have the desire to live or continue to exist, simply means that we are real – it takes ‘someone’ to think that he exists or does not exist), means that we are in fact a person who has a purpose. It is only logical to think that we exist for a reason and therefore if we just act according to our ultimate purpose, then everything else that we base according to our bodily perception will be secondary. By realizing our identity and applying ourselves towards our purpose, we can actually have peace of mind and not be afflicted or troubled on how other people see us, because we know within ourselves who we really are and that we are moving towards our goal. I hope this can in a way also give people or help in their introspection and deal with their anxieties and troubles.
“A lotus rises above the water…untouched by its impurities. Similarly, through meditation, a person can live in this miserable world untouched by its anxieties.” – Jagad Guru Chris Butler
I know this is Richard’s post, but I’d just like to chime in and say that the comments are superb. In particular Jagad Guru’s comment – it really touches on some of the differences between mainstream (perhaps pop) psychology and spirituality. At times these two are going in opposing directions, and it’s interesting to watch how they interact.
For instance, I’ve been slowly letting go of my attachments to my body, the things I’m proud of, and so on, and although that kind of work has nothing to do with self-esteem, I’m noticing parallel growth in what I am guessing is self-esteem in the mainstream sense. How this came about I am not sure, but I’m just going ahead and observing.
I still regard myself as being a work in progress. I happen to be fortunate in the self-esteem department. I had a shaky period about a year or so ago, but seem to have regained what I lost. I find that this is something that I need to work on constantly, so as not to lose any ground. My spirituality has grown and so have I. And so, I feel as if I am worth a lot to myself, as well as to my family and friends. I must never forget. – Nards
I was having a hard time understanding this post until you offered the celebrity examples. Warren Buffett shows up to meeting in NYC yellow cabs, he lives in the same house he purchased 50 years ago, yet he is one of the most successful business people ever. He needs not material possessions to fill a void in his life. His self-esteem is a result of a passion for his work and his open-mindedness about the world. I know I did this the last time I commented, but I couldn’t help but write an analysis of mine own and how I can relate this philosophy into my own life. Thanks for this post.
http://jquaglia.blogspot.com/2.....steem.html
“I know this is Richard’s post, but I’d just like to chime in and say that the comments are superb.”
Oh, I certainly don’t mind: I’m really pleased the article has prompted this much intelligent discussion.
“If we understand that we are not the body nor the mind and that we are in fact separate from the material, then everything else in connection with our body and mind can have no effect on us.”
Absolutely. The more I read and write on personal development the more this paradox emerges of how through this field of intense self-awareness and involvement the greatest goal is likely to be transcending the ego.
“ice skate dentistry and argumentative footballs ” he he he something about that sentence just warms me all up inside.
Re: Jagad Guru’s comment. While much of what is said there is obviously true, I think that most people do not take the pitfalls of dualistic thinking seriously enough. By saying that you are not this, and not that, but that you are this instead, is, inherently, dualistic thinking, which can cause serious roadblocks down the line. For example, if you claim that you are not your body, and not your mind, then what are you? Are the body and mind somehow “outside” of reality? Outside of the non-dualistic Oneness people talk about? Of course not! The very notion is absurd. The idea of something being able to be outside of reality is, actually, a very Judeo-Christian notion (That “God” is outside of, and created, reality). And we in the West have been conditioned by this idea to the point that it affects our subconscious metaphysical assumptions. This is one way in which conditioning can be, and often is, extremely, and sometimes even insidiously, subtle and hard to even recognize.
What I see here, and elsewhere, too, is mistaking denial and aversion for letting go.
Remember that aversion is also a form of attachment (though, this is, admittedly, a difficult concept to grasp (pun intended)). Meditation is not about transcending the miseries of life, but rather awakening from the illusions we have that it is either good or bad, miserable or awesome. That is classic dualism. One who has become free of such illusions/attachments sees that everything is perfect as it is, in the sense that (given the truth of “karma”), everything is exactly as it had to be. As the Buddha is said to have said, “Done is what needed to be done.” One might say, “But, isn’t this or that obviously bad?” That’s a great question to really dig into, in my opinion. Not in order to come to a relativistic nihilism, but to recognize our own illusions/delusions concerning such matters, and our attachments to them.
One should always be mindful of the trappings of dualistic thinking. It has many, many more pitfalls than is readily apparent.
Consider this: the goal is not to transcend the ego, but rather to awaken from the illusion of ego. This might seem like picky semantics, but the very idea/concept of “transcend” implies that we “rise above” something, some thing that exists. We rise above it, and there it is, still down there. But, again—false dualistic thinking. One cannot transcend something that is actually an illusion. Thus, the focus should be on awakening from the illusion (we have of something), not “transcending” it. This is an important difference.
(Sorry for the long comment, Albert! Cheers!)
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Self worth does not come from the outside and feeling that you are worth anything. It comes from a knowing connection with the universe. That’s it. It’s not about how other perceive you or even how you perceive yourself. It’s know that you are human and live on this planet. Full stop.
This is a great subject and an excellent article. I would just like to add one thought which comes to my mind after reading the text above. I think we should not forget about the self-love in connection with self-worth and self-esteem. When I say self-love, it does not mean egoistic love, but love toward one’s true self. One cannot fake self-love, and it does not matter how one attains it. If one can feel it within oneself it means one most definitely deserves it.
I tend to choke on all the use of the word “self”. How about believing everyone is worthy of respect, including you, and having some humility and a sense of humor?. Whenever I read discussions like this I think of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. They’re outside looking at the stars, completely awed. As they walk back into the house Hobbes (the tiger) says, “It makes you wonder why humans think they’re such big screaming deals.” Lighten up, gals and guys!
Hey guys, just wanted to chime in and say thank you for all your contributions and comments
I have always lacked self confidence but to others i appear very self asured. I guess it is some kind of defensive acting by me that makes me look very self confident and in reality i am not. Well at least i am getting better all the time. Trying to build up my self confidence.
Thank you Joan
This is a great post on a really important topic.
However, I wonder if trying to step out of the whole self-worth system can be detrimental. In a sense, even acknowledging it – even if just to reject – is to fall for the trap. Fighting it, or leaving it, requires accepting it.
I’m just thinking aloud, with incomplete thoughts.
I generally think self esteem is vital for living a productive life. I diagree about faking until you make it being a bad thing. I think that although it used in the business and internet marketing world it can be transformative process and will help you to heal your life and break old addictive habits.
I agree with faking it sometime. There are times when you need to exude confidence and be full of self-worth to achieve something.
THats some great post.
I ve read countless material about that topic and I have to agree with everytihng you have said.Its nothing new for me but its something which is allways nice to discusss.
After I cristalise those tihngs in my mind, like who I really am, what is my value, and where I see my self in the future my self image was pretty shaky.
I mean I felt strong at times but in the other hand there were times, where I felt like crap.
But after following some of Anthony Robins advices I menage to fix my self image to the point where I almost dont care about opinion and aproval of other people.
Its
The post really makes sense, Good one to read
James Wilter
Jordan, have to agree with you about that. You have to fake it sometimes to achieve something, to become someone in this life!
Hi
For me i also think lack of knowledge over particular things that are common also makes people feel unworth.
Thank you for your comments everyone.
i think i have to fake it sometimes to achieve something, to become someone,hope you have a good life
Everyone at some point in their life has “faked” it one way or another. It’s not fair to say it’s wrong of them. To each his own really.
This post was real, and got to the point. The comments are equally as great.
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