Hello, and welcome back to the Thoughts that Bind! Now, we talk a lot on this site about how to succeed in life and make yourself stick to what it is that you want to get done. These skills are incredibly important when it comes to being able to live a life that you’re proud of. But at some point, it all falls flat. Because it’s not the be-all, end-all for life. And today, I want to talk about the other side of that coin.
Finding the balance
Just like so much in life, being hard on yourself and taking accountability is a balance. If you take on too much responsibility and control, you’ll begin to experience burn-out and get overwhelmed.
It’s not that you don’t have control over your life and who you are. It’s just that you can’t change it all, all at once. As I’ve covered on this site before, you need rest. Time to renew yourself, body, mind and spirit. You can find the discussion about rest here, if you’re interested. But even with rest, if you’re just going from overdrive back into rest, you’re going to need quite a bit of it to save yourself from burnout.
The pressure
What I mean to say is that on its own, rest isn’t enough. If your mindset isn’t right when it comes to success and getting things done, then you’ve got a problem on your hands.
I think we all get wrapped up in it from time to time. We start to believe in the things we’re told by society about the necessity of productivity. You’ve got to do great things with your time and your life. And if you don’t, well, you’re just not worth as much. And your life just wasn’t worth as much.
It’s good to want to do things with the time you have on this planet. In fact, I think that’s quite a noble pursuit. Wanting to contribute something to the world is one of the best things we can do when it comes to determining the direction of our lives. But it can definitely cross over into an unhealthy territory if this perspective goes unchecked.
Your personal worth
I know so many people who fall into this trap. In fact, from time to time, I do it myself. We see other people as full individuals, with the right to exist and be just as they are and enjoy things. But for us, there are different standards. Now, I’ve said before (in this post) that double standards can be good when they’re directed at ourselves. Having different expectations of ourselves can push us forward and lead us to new goals when we would otherwise grow complacent. But when it comes to double standards about your worth as a human being, that’s not good.
As Louise Hay pointed out once, “you’re a people too”. By which, she meant that you are a unique and worthwhile individual just like everyone else. You’re deserving of your own love and respect, as well as existence on this planet and enjoyment of the time that you’ve been gifted here.
In other words, you don’t need to achieve great things in order to be a worthwhile individual. You are worthy of living a peaceful, respected life. Whether you become a millionaire or a doctor or military general or mad scientist or famous actor…or not.
Success?
I think we ought to take a second to explore where the intersection of these ideas really hits. When we’re pursuing success voraciously because we don’t believe we are enough, as opposed to, for instance, doing it to create something new. (I think many people, when they’re approaching productivity and success, have a sort of mixed attitude about it. And when that happens, their mental health is a mixed bag, as well as their results.)
You see, this sort of “I have to create my sense of self-worth through my successes thing” really doesn’t work. We think it will, because we admire people who’ve achieved a lot. So why wouldn’t it translate inward, right? But every time you look to some sort of achievement or accolade to provide you with self-esteem, you’re going to come up short.
First of all, what happens if you end up missing the mark? Well, then you’re going to conclude that you’re still not worthy and you have to work harder. Even if you did your best. Which, if you did, that sucks for you because obviously “it wasn’t good enough”, right? But what we also don’t think too much about is what happens if we have this perspective and then we manage to do it?
When you get what you want…
This scenario of achieving all of the success that you expected of yourself is a little bit of a tricky one. But we can break it down. Think about it this way. Remember the last time you finally achieved something that was hard for you after a long time coming. That feeling of elation when you “finally did it” or “finally got it” was intoxicating! I’m willing to bet, however, it didn’t last that long.
The problem with this perspective that you’re not enough and have to earn your worth through things and achievements is that it never really gets fixed. Sure, you feel that sense of accomplishment in the short term. And it’s great, I would never want to keep that feeling from anyone. That being said, it doesn’t last because your background attitude is that you’re not a worthy person. And so you’ll always be searching for your next big plan, big goal, that will keep you on the hook for feeling like you’re worth something.
It’ll never be enough.
Fix the real issue
The problem about this isn’t success or productivity or that you want and value these things. All of us want to be successful to some degree or another. But when it’s tied into our self-worth, we run into mental and emotional problems, with both mental-health and our success. The things that we create aren’t as good as they could be, because our thinking is tied up in something else. If we were truly free to create without the fear that we have to prove our worth by doing so, our mind would be open to so many more possibilities. Creatively, we give ourselves more leeway if we understand that failure is just feedback.
By thinking that our worthiness is tied up in our success, we keep ourselves from taking risks that make creations truly revolutionary. We get stuck in a box of our own fears and insecurities. And more importantly, we never really get to enjoy our lives for what they are; unfolding of the here and now.
So, value success. Value productivity. But work on your mindset. Because who you are on the inside is worth getting to know and respect. When you do this, you will be more successful. Your mental health will improve too. And for what may be the first time in your life, you’ll actually be living it.
How to fix your self-worth
Now, working on this perspective is certainly easier said than done in some ways. It’s true, you can’t just change your mind about who you are, what life is, and what you’re worth all in one day or like turning on a light switch. But you can work on it, and make real progress overtime.
I think the first step to valuing yourself as an individual is getting to know yourself. And you can hear more about constructing your own identity from this post, if you’re interested. But in this exploration, what you really want is to be open to surprising yourself. You make like or be good at things you never would have expected. Or dislike things that you never really thought about before.
Get to really observing who you are and how you truly feel. Get curious about your emotional responses to things. Start learning about yourself again. You may think you’re old enough to know who you are by now, and while that may be true, a lot of us just think about who we once were when we were young and just starting to get to know ourselves, and freeze-frame that. The truth is, life is always bringing you changes. You’ve learned a lot even in the last couple years of life, and through that, you’ve grown as a person. Get to know the new you. You’re worth it.
And learn how to take care of yourself again. Prioritize rest and relaxing, as well as some of your more personal needs that you may have.
Clearing out the crap
I think the other side of your self-worth is the mental stuff that’s got stuck in there. You need reflection to remember where you got these weird ideas in the first place. To remember where they came from so that you can finally see how bogus and unfounded they really were. To be honest with you, all of the bad things we believe about ourselves and our worth came from people who pretty much were just in bad moods themselves. They spewed their venom on us and we took it on as our permanent beliefs. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want people’s bad-day statements to rule my life and my mental state.
We need to examine where these upsetting beliefs came from. Once we know, we can start to unravel them. And on the flip side of it, start to invest in the ideas about ourselves that we want to believe. Practice reasoning yourself into the fact that you can grow and change into the person that you want to be. And then, once you realize that you are truly capable, go ahead and start becoming.
Revisiting success and productivity
When we start to realize that other people’s expectations don’t have to control us and how we see ourselves or the world, success looks different. You see, many of us have the desire to create. We want to build something that’s amazing, and we want to help or inspire or entertain others with our work. That’s a pretty normal human desire.
The difference is, when we know that we are enough as we are, we approach this process so much differently. I already touched on this earlier, so I’m not going to go off on a long rant about this. But it’s like all your life, you’ve been creating with one hand tied behind your back. When you get out of your own way to create, your works can simply take on a life of their own, instead of one shaped by your own insecurities. Now, none of us can do this all the time. But when you can, it makes a big difference in both your actual creation’s quality as well as your own capacity for enjoying the process of it. You get to feel more fulfilled and excited by your newest goals and projects if your worth as a human being isn’t tied to how they turn out. And you get to be happier, whether they take off or not. Don’t we all want that?
You can be free
All in all, I think it’s pretty normal these days to have your sense of self-esteem tied up in something you can’t fully control. But this is a handicap and it’s something that you can learn to free yourself of.
Work on getting to know yourself, and love yourself. If you want to hear about my own self-love journey, read this post all about it. But regardless, I just want to affirm for you: You are an individual who is worthy of existence, enjoyment, and success. You deserve to enjoy your life, regardless of what you may or may not accomplish in it. And you are a person truly worth knowing.
