Believing You Deserve More

Have you ever noticed that confident people are also certain of their own worth? Not only do they have the confidence to follow their dreams, they know with certainty that they deserve the good things they seek.
As you build your confidence and get reconnected with your inner self, your self-worth should begin to grow in proportion also. However, there are things you can do to help the process along.
The first involves developing an understanding of why we feel so lousy about ourselves in the first place. What really causes low self-worth?
􀂾 Being constantly criticized by others (especially authority figures) lowers our self-worth.
􀂾 Being bullied by peers lowers our self-worth.
􀂾 Criticizing or berating ourselves for our mistakes lowers our self-worth.
􀂾 Consistent negative reinforcement from others or ourselves lowers our self-worth.
􀂾 Blaming ourselves for the abuse we receive from others lowers our self-worth.
􀂾 Believing the negative things people say to or about us lowers our self-worth.
You likely recognize many of these examples from your own life, either currently or as part of your past. However, understand that as badly as others may have abused you, YOU have picked up where they left off. If you grew up with a critical mother that always had something negative to say about you or your accomplishments, you may feel that she is to blame for your low self-worth. She may have initiated the process, but you continued it. It wasn’t her hurtful words that caused your problems; it was your decision to BELIEVE HER.
The same goes for any bullies you have faced in your lifetime, any impossible-to-please bosses, critical friends and demanding spouses.
In order to turn this around, you need to begin believing in yourself again (if you ever did). You need to shift your perception of yourself from a worthless person of no value to a person of great value and capability. How? Positive reinforcement, of course!
Just like negative reinforcement can wear down our self-worth, positive reinforcement (from ourselves and others) can begin to build it back up again. Here are just a few ideas to begin building your self-worth:
􀂾 Treat yourself with kindness, compassion and love. Do something nice for yourself for a change. Make it a priority to get enough rest, take good care of yourself and speak kindly to yourself. If you catch yourself speaking negatively about yourself to others, or mentally berating yourself, stop and change your language to a more positive focus.
􀂾 Express kindness and love to others. This may not seem to be related to your own self-worth, but remember that people are inclined to treat you the way you treat them! Make an effort to compliment the people in your life more often. Speak kindly and offer to help others in whatever way you can. That doesn’t mean neglect yourself and become a doormat. Keep these activities in balance with your own self-care, but in general make an effort to reach out to others in positive ways. This will encourage them to reciprocate, and you will receive positive reinforcement from others more frequently. (Note: this does NOT work the same in abusive relationships. Very often the nicer you are to abusers, the more abusive they become. This pertains only to normal, healthy relationships.)
􀂾 Keep affirming your positive qualities. Read over the lists you made while completing the exercises in this report. Make new lists about your growing accomplishments. Honor the unique aspects of yourself and constantly strive to discover more and more great things about yourself. The more you focus on growing yourself as a person, the more things about yourself you will find to feel good about and be proud of.
The great thing about all of the activities we’ve covered so far is that they are self-perpetuating. As you build your confidence, you’ll notice your self-worth increasing also. As you focus on increasing your self-worth, your confidence will also grow. As you focus on expanding your vision, you’ll begin to believe in your capabilities more, and you’ll begin trusting yourself more, and you’ll feel a deeper connection to your inner self beginning to blossom - and on and on it goes! Doing any and all of these activities will result in growth and healing in the other areas too. And the further along in the process you get, the more effortless it becomes.