What are you worth? Sounds a bit odd doesn’t it? It sounds like you are about to be sold. What are you worth? Many people don’t know what they are worth. You can ask them and they may tell you how much money they have in their bank account. Yeah, that is a way to express your worth. However, that isn’t what you are worth. How much is your self-worth?
Look at it this way. If we were all judged on our bank accounts score then Elon Musk would be one of the most valuable men in the world. Yet many people don’t like him, simply because he was able to buy Twitter. Most of society acts like the higher your bank account score is the more people act like they do not like you. Also, someone can come by and take all of your money, and then you would be what? Worthless? Sadly many men think that. I knew a man who committed suicide by cop because he lost everything to his ex-wife.
The truth is your value isn’t the amount of money you have but you can use your ability to generate money as a marker of your value. This week I wanted to start exploring your value. Who creates that value? Who gets to dub you with that value? How do you increase your worth if your self-worth is too low?
How to Determine Your Worth?
You can look all over the internet and you will find many self-help folks talking about this very topic. So why is this such a problem these days? You don’t hear many people talk about your self-worth back in the 1920s. Why do we concern ourselves with this topic now? Honestly, I don’t know. I have my guesses but they aren’t concrete. Yet people especially parents sweat this detail.
So what does self-worth mean to you? You see that is a big question to ask yourself. The answer will tell you why you have self-worth or you are lacking self-worth. If you are lacking self-worth what would it take for you to have all the self-worth needed to function?
What do you value yourself now? On a scale of 1-10, where do you see your self-worth at? Is it a 2 or maybe an 8 or maybe a 10? Now, what would it take for you to be at a 10? Now pay attention to all those thoughts you are having about that answer. Those thoughts you are having right now are the reasons why you could never be a 10. So if you would have to make a million dollars, is saying you are looking at your bank account. You would have to have a son that graduated college and says you are judging yourself on the performance of another person. All those are thoughts. Write those thoughts down. Look at them.
Now there are good things to measure with and there are some things that just don’t serve you. A few of those items are listed below.
Your Network
A great means of measuring your self-worth is who you know. Who knows you? How good of a relationship is that connection? This is why The Man’s Community pillar is important. It helps you see how valuable you are to others. Your friends and colleagues are part of that self-worth. How many men do you have in your group? Not many? That is a good reason why your self-worth is so low.
If you want to raise your self-worth by a good number start making it a point to talk to other men. Get to know those men and develop friendships with those men. They will pour into you all the reasons you are far more valuable than you believe.
Your appearance
How are you dressing? Are you clean-shaven and well dressed or do you look like the Unibomber? This shows how much you value yourself as well as telegraphing to others how much you believe you provide value.
Your appearance is a huge indicator. As to how much you value yourself. Yeah, first impressions are important and this is one of the big reasons why. If you don’t care about yourself that much then how are you going to care that much about other people? Some folks try to tell me that they put people first but this falls into the priority paradox of How can you care for other people if you can’t care for yourself? If you don’t have a good amount of self-worth then how are you going to see how much worth you have to other people?
It may seem like a very selfish act, however, the most selfless act you can do is take care of yourself.
Your purpose
What is your purpose? The third pillar of the relaxed male is this very thing. What is your calling? What gets you out of bed? This is where most men get their sense of self-worth from, what they do for fulfillment.
Sadly many men ignore their sense of self-worth. They do what they believe is needed not what feeds their soul. They turn to what other people think needs to be done than see what they need to do for themselves.
Have you ever looked at something and thought I would like to try that and then just walked away? That is you not valuing yourself. You had a craving to try something and you denied yourself that experience. Why? Maybe because you thought it would be dumb. Then again you may have thought you couldn’t do it.
Those thoughts are what keep you playing small. They prevent you from taking a chance on growing who you are. Instead, you stay locked in your small little cubical thinking you are safe and sound, even though you are only one angry boss away from being fired, or an economic downturn from the business doors closing.
Men die every day because they are not feeding their souls. They starve the inner man who just wants their time to shine. Why? All because they are afraid or they were told it was dumb.
It is how your think of yourself
Those who see their internal value, have been rewarded with an external representation of their self-worth. If you want to have an adventure you have to babel to see how much you are worth. Not just to others but to yourself too. That self-worth is how much you value yourself. How much you are valued by others.
This is all about how you view yourself. Who cares what other people think of you? They are just thoughts. Someone thinks you are scary enough to make a gargoyle flinch. So what? Is it true? If not why are you getting upset about it? The only time you need to get upset about it is if you agree. Even then get upset with yourself not them. AL because you have a thought of what someone else thought.
Your self-worth is nothing more than what you think of yourself. Are you worthy of all the good stuff that happens? No? Why? Why do you not think you are worth the value you are providing?
Self-worth is self-validation. We want to take the easy road and have other people validate our work, our value is contingent on what we are doing. This is why it is evident when you see someone who is poverty-stricken because they see their self-worth as that low.
Take a rich man and take all his money away. Do you know what happens? They start earning that money back. Why? Because they see the value they create and that value is translated into their self-worth. If you don’t provide value then you won’t be able to become wealthy. Your worth is based on what you perceive to be the value.
It’s not what social media thinks
Sadly many of us look to social media as a way to validate ourselves. Now the creators of these sites have done great in making sure that you do use them as a means of external validation, however. You have no control over what people see in your posts. You have no control over how they respond and so this can often lead to you feeling like you are of lower worth than somebody else. Remember comparison is the thief of joy.
Social Media is also designed to pit you against other people within your network. You see John buying a new bass boat but you also don’t see what it took for him to get that boat. Nor do you know how much debt he is now in.
Don’t turn to social media for your validation. That comes from within. All Social Media does is create stress and decrease connection.
It is not how in shape you are
Some people actually look at their health as a benchmark for their self-worth. Yet do you have control of that? You do have a hand at it yes. However, some men are professional runners who have had heart attacks. Nonsmokers who have lung cancer. You don’t have as much control over your health as you would like to think and this is one reason why it is not wise to base your self-worth on your health.
Yes, it is good to be healthy. You can then apply your health to your value but don’t base your health solely on how healthy you are.
It is not your bank account
Now money is nothing more than a circumstance. It is a score that represents how much value you have created. So what happens when identity thieves come by and clear out your bank account? Does that mean you are suddenly worthless? Of course not. It means your money was taken from you. They cant take your ability to create value. So the money will return. All because you are creating value which is why you have money.
It is not who you are sleeping with.
Yeah having some hot woman laying in bed with you is great but her value doesn’t reflect on your value. You may know a celebrity or two but that has nothing to do with your self-worth. Self-worth comes from within. Having a smoking hot chick wiggling on your hips doesn’t mean your value has increased. It means you have a good story to tell. That is all. One of you will eventually tire of the other and if she leaves your value is suddenly gone too.
Who is your self-worth important to?
Now, this is a great question. Why even worry about self-worth? Who does it matter to? Does your self-worth mean anything to your boss? How about does your self-worth mean anything to your parents or your friends? Your company? The answer to all of that is no. The answer is in the question. The key is the self. The only person it matters to is you.
You have the power to change how much value you see in yourself. You can change your price! Why not raise your value? It doesn’t affect anybody but yourself. How much are you worth? The more you value yourself the more value come to you. It takes a lot of thought work but you can change your value. This is something I work on every day.
Who determines your self-worth?
I would look to the previous section. If your self-worth matters only to you then the person who determines how valuable you are is you. Right? Now some folks may want to argue for their limitations and if that is the case then go ahead. You can keep your limitations.
If you are tired of feeling worthless, then become worth more. You know what to base your value on and what makes you more valuable each and every day. If not then you might want to sit down and do a thought download on why is keeping you from feeling valuable. When you find out what thoughts you are having that are holding you back then the work comes in and you can change that thought. When you do then you will have more self-worth simply because you did the work.
Where do you get your self-worth?
We often confuse self-worth with a sense of accomplishment and this can get us into some trouble especially when we have a fixed mindset. If we base our self-worth on what we can or can’t do then we are going to be self-defeating. So you first have to do the task of changing your mindset. The growth mindset allows you to explore and celebrate when you fail. That is because failing is learning. The more times you fail the more you are able to do. The better you get at failing.
Self-worth is from the fact you are taking actions, not so much that you get the action right but that you are brave enough to try something you have never done before. You dare to fail and get up and fail again. That is where you start to see your self-worth.
How do you increase your self-worth?
There are several different worksheets out there that help you find your self-worth. Yet I like Positive Psychology’s post on increasing your self-worth. They have a whole section based on improving your self-worth.
This post covers several sections from Improving your self-understanding to helping you with self-acceptance and self-love. There are a lot of powerful questions you could spend all day pondering. And I would recommend you do that. Start with the first questions and just spend a day pondering them.
Then on the next day think about the next question. Take your time that way you are able to truly find out who you are and what your self-worth is.
