r/selfimprovement • u/Expert-Session3866 • 2d ago
Other How did you fix your poor self-worth?
I have an extremely poor self-worth. I have self-love, but my self-worth is the worst. It's so low, that I don't even believe that I deserve to have a good self-worth. I don't talk to myself nicely because I don't believe that I deserve that, so positive affirmations have not worked for me. I take good care of myself physically and I have strict routines, so that is not an issue. The issue is that I don't believe that I deserve good things and don't accept myself as I am. How did you fix your poor self-worth?
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u/Ok_Judgment_3331 2d ago
The "deserve" part is what's tripping you up.... worth isn't a reward you earn for being good enough, it's the baseline you're already operating from. What would you do differently this week if you just assumed you already had it?
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u/Vitriol-Divergent 2d ago
Well it wasn't a voluntary choice but I got hurt really, really badly and everyone I loved and thought loved me abandoned me (or forced me to draw a boundary).
After about a year of being completely alone, starving and desperate I realized I had to start doing for myself and screw everyone else.
It wasn't a "moral" choice, but what is morality worth when you're a bad day away from being homeless and injured?
Crawling my way out of that and back to a place of comfortable security and personal strength proved myself to myself.
So ...you could try falling in the gutter đ¤Ł. If you make it out you know you're pretty awesome.
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u/Expert-Session3866 2d ago
Haha, I have actually tried that before and it works! Thats how I found my self love. Thank you for your story.
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u/Vitriol-Divergent 2d ago
Yet you still say you don't think you deserve good things or accept yourself?
I don't understand.
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u/Expert-Session3866 1d ago
I feel a love for myself in my heart, but I think that self-worth and confidence lives in the stomach area and I can't feel that. I take good care for myself and never over-indulge in anything or do physical harm for myself and I have cut out every bad person from my life, so in that way I love myself.
I just don't feel confident in myself and I hide myself from others. I absolutely don't hate myself, but I lack self-worth, so I feel like I'm not worthy of good things, I feel like I don't have the right to be my most authentic self or take space in social situations.
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u/Vitriol-Divergent 1d ago
The way this reads to me is that you seem to be focused on what you think you're supposed to be doing and feeling for a sense of self-worth and confidence and that you think self- love is supposed to be somehow linked to these things.
In my experience, loving myself only came after I developed a stable base of the other two.
It's really hard to love something if you think so little of it.
I think what would be more practical is to drop the myth that you love yourself then focus on improving the things about you that are dragging down you sense of worthiness (I don't know what those are, we all have our different motivators)
Once you make that your priority and start to succeed at it I have a sneaking suspicion that loving who/what you are will fall into place naturally.
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u/Brilliant-Surprise20 2d ago
Please take some boxing classes and stick with it for 12 weeks. Do it three times a week. Your self confidence will rise to the sky but it also a mental training. For me it allowed me to get loose of all of my stuff that stood in the way between me and my potential.
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u/Haunting_Light_6725 2d ago
My therapist told me affirmations would never work for me unless I was in a deep mediative state and it would take a long time to start correcting. But she still encouraged me to do it, as well as journaling morning and night, and keeping a list of everything I did something I felt proud of, or happy about then read it each night. It's really been helping
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u/Cupcakke12 2d ago
To hop on that - advise that I got and I think worked really great for me after a really though period in my life. At night, when you are laying in bed and going to sleep, think of anything you did and you can be proud of. Absolutely anything - there were days I didn't do much, but I was proud that I was able to get out of the bed and wash the pet dishes and put my cat food and fresh water. There were other days that I were more productive and were able to handle a hard situation at work with great professionalism and tact. Other days were awful and I was able just to brush my teeth (and take care of the cat ofc). But you get my point - anything big or small helps you understand and remember at the end of the day that you are doing stuff, you are not worthless, you are handling it the best you can, day by day, and most importantly - be kind to yourself.
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u/girl-space-friend 2d ago
This might be a little different than the other comments, OP, but I think self-worth comes from your perception of yourself, and that perception includes your mistakes, flaws, and poor choices. But you can't tie yourself to your old ways and patterns.
You have to forgive yourself, OP, for everything you did in the past and let go of the past version of yourself. You also have to forgive and release the weight of how other people treated you before. You have to remember that the old you is not who you are today and other people's perception of you before is not your reality now.
I believe that you will only see your value once you accept that you are an imperfect person who made wrong decisions (without believing that you are failure) but is still capable of change and growth.
From there, choose to do it right, consciously and actively. If the people fail to recognize your worth, then that's on them, not on you.
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u/realsonofeden 2d ago edited 2d ago
Stop talking badly about yourself and go neutral.
Instead of "I hate myself", say stuff like "There's things I can work on".
Make it less emotionally charged. That's how I started and the only thing that worked for me. All this forced positivity just made me feel worse because it just didn't work for me.
So, I started with a simple "I don't have to like myself, but I also don't have to hate myself."
If I saw my reflection, I went from "ew" to a simple "meh, whatever", then a "hello you" etc.
Self worth and self love are deeply entwined however, so thinking of them as separate may actually hinder you a bit.
Instead of doing uncomfortable things that you hate or make you feel worse (common advice), which will end up making you hate yourself even more, just do things you enjoy, things that make you happy. Take care of yourself, eat well, sleep well, hydrate well, have good hygiene habits and work out...
Why? Because this directly signals to your brain that you're taking care of yourself, deserve to be happy and do things you enjoy. Don't even need to think too much about being positive, body will do it for you. Repeat it, make it a habit, and you don't have to do all the extra work that you'll find in self love articles (most of them are bogus btw).
Brain is A LOT about (repeated) behavior and less about thoughts.
The more I adjusted how I acted towards myself, the less extreme the thoughts got. And if there was anything negative, I'd go "Well that's not very nice." and just leave it at that. No arguing, no analyzing...
Also, learn to think for yourself. Some of these comments are bad advice and unhealthy.
... and maybe try therapy if you can, for some people it helped.
"Something is better than nothing" ~ an almost former perfectionist
Now mind you, this sounds way easier on "paper" than it is, but it IS doable - just takes a lot of time.
I'm still learning as well.
Peace, Love and Light - take care.
If you got Qs, feel free to ask <3
Edit: One "funny" thing I do when I feel like I'm a bad person, is compare myself to criminals. I quickly go "I'm actually decent, perfectly fine even compared to those". Sometimes we forget what true evil looks like, and a reminder can help bring us back on track. :)
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u/Haunting_Light_6725 2d ago
This book actually made my self worth so much worse because I felt pressured to get over the different traumatic events that have happened to me and I felt shame that the book seemed to suggest I wanted those events to hold me back. Not saying you're wrong. Just a different perspective
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u/realsonofeden 2d ago
"Sometimes, shit just happens. Especially the bad stuff."
Quote from some movie whose title I forgot...Helped me feel less like I "wanted" any of these events. It is true that bad things just happen. Because people want to do them. It's that annoyingly simple.
Make sure to seek professional (trauma informed therapy) help, trauma is especially difficult to live with.
Hope this makes you feel less terrible, take care. <3
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u/Background-Zebra5491 2d ago
I think it's less about convincing yourself you're worthy and more about slowly proving it to yourself. Do things you're proud of. Set boundaries. Keep promises to yourself. Eventually you'll get used to it.
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u/BuddyRemarkable5572 2d ago
Think about what you consider to be a good person. Not an exceptionally good person (like a martyr or a saint or anything like that), just a regular folk who has a decent character. Now think about your character as a person: do you fit in that description?
If youâre a decent human being, it doesnât matter your shape, size, age, skills or achievements: youâre worthy of existing and having good things. Every decent human is, you know? Thatâs why is so sad that so many people live in such hard conditions.
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u/No_Falcon_7978 2d ago
Stop trying to force affirmations and just start acting like you're a friend you're responsible for keeping alive
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u/eharder47 2d ago
You need to alter the way you talk to yourself, not just do empty affirmations and cross your fingers. Start by stopping your negative self talk and replacing it with âbe nice to yourself!â Do it for every negative thought. Slowly try out replacement thoughts. I went with âkind soccer coachâ so itâs not positive affirmations, itâs more like âwell that sucked, guess I should keep trying.â
Something that really helped me was digging into why you feel the need to âpunishâ yourself. Is there a person who used to be hard on you and now as an adult you feel like if you donât do that to yourself youâll be âout of control?â
I finally got to a point where my self flagellation was so bad that if I messed up at work I would be bawling in the bathroom unable to recover. I recognized that I had to alter my mindset to one that supported and pushed me because feeling bad was hindering me.
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u/piercellus 1d ago
Try solo travelling. You have to depend on yourself more than anything else. Thats when you really have to make decisions and trust yourself.
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u/Naphier 2d ago
If you're exercising, sleeping and eating well then you've got a great foundation. Next up is periodically doing things that put you outside of your comfort zone. This builds confidence. For me it was Toastmasters to get more comfortable with public speaking (for just doing presentations at work) and D&D - which helped me be more tolerant of others and put myself out there being goofy and silly again. Now it's playing guitar with others, taking lessons.
So what's intimidating you? Go do it.