The Simple Truth About Your Self Worth

Have you ever held a new born baby and wanted to give them the world?

Or looked at your best friend and thought they deserve everything they want and more?

What you’re glimpsing in those moments is our innate worthiness.

We are all born worthy of our desires. We are worthy simply because we are.

When you look at that bundle of newborn perfection it is so easy to believe this. To know that we all start out as supremely worthy.

But over time, we tell ourselves stories to explain events, we integrate society’s expectations into our belief systems, we learn to perceive the world around us in a certain way and all of these things contribute to us forgetting that we are born worthy.

We need to polish away those layers and get back to our core, our essence, our innate worthiness.

Then we’ll be handed the world.

What is Worthiness?

Worthiness is how much we believe in ourselves, believe we are deserving of our desires.

It’s reflected in how hard we believe we have to work in order to achieve a goal.

It’s reflected in how well compensated we believe we should be for our efforts.

It’s reflected in how graciously we receive compliements and feel deserving of kind words.

It’s reflected in the treatment we will and won’t tolerate from ourselves and from other people.

It’s reflected in whether we’ll go after our dreams or pretend we’re content with our lot in life.

When we believe we’re worthy we play a lot bigger, take up more space, expect more, treat ourselves better, raise our standards.

When we don’t believe we’re worthy, we’ll take whatever passes our way.

We Get What We Expect

Depending on where we sit on the worthiness scale (remember, you are worthy!) determines what we expect in life.

I have a friend who grew up with money and in her first role out of university was paid more than I was earning at the time, four years out of university. Both of us are intelligent, capable women doing great work. However her expectation about how much she was worthy of being compensated for her work which much higher than mine and that was reflected in how much she was earning.

Learning about how much my friend was earning made me see how much I was selling myself short. How much I was undervaluing myself, my skills, what I bring to a role. Within weeks I’d secured a job which paid significantly more money.

My expectations of what I got to have had changed and the world changed around me to reflect my new internal reality.

Why We Need Higher Expectations

We shy away from taking complete ownership of our lives because essentially we are accepting that we create our reality.

That when something goes wrong in our lives, that on some level we really wanted that to happen.

It’s not quite the straightforward but even in heartbreak there can be relief to no longer be fighting. In losing a job comes room for a better role or the space to start your business. In getting sick we finally get that week off we desparately need.

There’s a benefit to the situation, a secret upside buried underneath the pain.

And if we raise our expectations, if we decide we are worth more, if we take control, we can create the changes and the uplevels without the pain of having it forced on us. If we can bring our desires out into the open, we can bring them to life without the need for catastrophe as a catalyst.

We also need to raise our expectations because we won’t ask for things we don’t believe we’re worthy of, that we don’t believe we can have. Or we ask without our energy behind it and the answer is always no.

I remember going to a job interview at a big firm. I could do that job but didn’t believe I belonged there. I got over awed by the whole experience and blew the interview.

It didn’t matter that I was qualified and experienced enough to do that job. I didn’t have the self-belief that that could be my life and that’s what shone through in the job interview.

That was four years ago and now I run my own business so how did I get from that lack of self-belief to where I am now?

How To Change What We Expect

Our expectations are a reflection of how worthy we believe we are.

So it follows that changing how worthy we feel, will influence what we expect life to be like.

What’s maybe a bit backwards about all of this is that because we’re born worthy is more of a process of remembering. It’s not like building confidence or trust in ourselves, which feel like building a muscle, this is a returning to who we innately are.

In my story above about my realisation I was being underpaid and actually worthy of a lot more, things shifted pretty quickly after my epiphany. I remember sitting at the brunch table and thinking I wonder what it would take to earn that amount that I want to. I was curious and open to the possibility. But more importantly, I had, in that moment, reassessed my worthiness and made a decision that I deserved more.

That decisiveness is the game changer.

Remember, we are born worthy. It is not something we have to earn or work towards in anyway. I was remembering.

Think about it, nothing had changed about my skillset or experience or personability or anything else that may influence getting a good job. All that had a shifted was how I felt about what I deserved to get.

I had made an energetic decision about what standard I was willing to accept.

Here’s how you can make that energetic shift as well –

Build evidence on all of the ways you are worthy. Everytime you’re a great friend, a wonderful sister, an understanding colleague, a kind stranger.

A great exercise I get clients to do that are looking for new work is write out all of the many, many ways they contribute to an office. Not just the skills and experience they bring but every extra, additional responsibility they’ve taken on officially and unofficially, that time they solved a problem before anyone else, the energy they bring into the office, the way they interact with colleagues, the cupcakes they bake on Fridays, how they find the best lunch spots, are the go-to person for unravelling sticky situations, have the widest general knowledge for pub quizzes. A long, exhaustive list of every way, big and tiny, that they add to any company they join.

At that end of that list, you’re going to feel on top of the world. You will be CONVINCED that any company on this planet is lucky to have you. That is getting into the energy of feeling deeply worthy.

You can adapt this for anything you’re wanting in life right now. If you’re wanting to make new friends, think about all of the many, many ways you’re an incredible friend. Or think about what makes you a great girlfriend. Or a wonderful flatmate. Or how having your own house means you can curate an epic space that all of your friends and family benefit from. If you run your business, you can think of how people are better off by buying your products or services.

Or you could write one, big, potent master list of all of the evidence you’re worthy.

The only real rule is that it feels good.

That thinking about all of the ways you benefit from you, that others benefit from you, that the planet benefits from you being you, makes you feel in your body like your worthy.

And you do that over and over and over again.

Until you believe it.

Love this? Join The Independent Mavenhood Facebook group for more articles, regular lives riffing on productivity, confidence, empowerment, and access to my coaching, courses and offers.