Know Your Worth: Seeing the Value in Yourself
Observing other people’s creativity and their value is effortless. It’s like, wow! Look at what they are doing, producing, living. However, being on the outside looking in is a limited perspective because, as a spectator, you only see the finished product. You do not watch or endure the process. You do not witness the literal TIME spent working to achieve a goal. Theodore Roosevelt’s quote “Comparison is the thief of joy” is a FACT. Spending your energy and time, a resource you cannot get back, playing the comparability game does not increase your value. It sucks the joy out of you like a powerful vacuum. It’s nothing wrong with celebrating others. Celebration is welcome, but comparing what someone else is doing or not doing is imprudent. Focus on yourself and your lane; you will likely elevate as you evolve. Loving yourself increases your happiness and value. Your self-awareness is essential to your self-worth and overall well-being.
No one is immune to days of self-doubt, fear of trying something new or feeling inadequate. Comparing what someone else is doing can skew the fear you feel, sending you in the wrong direction. Learning to pursue dreams and relationships while feeling afraid is a life skill that develops each time you “do the thing you think you cannot do” as Eleanor Roosevelt once said. Sometimes anxiety shows you where to look. Terror can tell you where it hurts and can potentially point you toward uncovering your healing.
Vienna Pharaoh, author of The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love, discusses root issues stemming from childhood. The pattern continues in our adult lives like a worthiness wound. Comparing where you are with another individual’s life achievements is futile, resulting in the opposite effect. As a human being, you will make mistakes and experience failures, but those components do not devalue you; those pieces actually appreciate you, expanding your ability to live a thriving life. Ask for what you deserve and have worked hard to earn going forward despite the fear you may feel. This internal work is hard but so worth it! You matter more than enough to do it.
Brittany is a book lover with a continuously expanding To Be Read (TBR) List. She lives in an Atlanta suburb with her husband and two daughters.