Why is it difficult to develop self-worth?

This confusion comes because of the belief that self-love and egoism are somehow associated with each other. They are not! I understand that association though, because I used to hold that belief and that made me hold back tremendously. I was terrified of being perceived as egoist, arrogant or simply a jerk. That made me stay away from anything closely related to self-worth because I believed I would risk developing those negative qualities too.

 

The reason why this happens is because when we have low self-worth, we look around us to find a model of it. Since we never experienced it, we infer it based on what seems to be symbols of strength. Usually the most flashy examples are the ones that catch our eye. Arrogance is flashy and so is pretentiousness. Therefore, we start associating this kind of behaviour with self-worth and we might go as far as having thoughts such as: “this guy really loves himself”. I remember having a kind of toxic admiration for these personality types.

At the surface, it might seem that the qualities I just mentioned are somehow related to self-worth or even that they come together in a package but in reality, that’s not the case. Ego-centric behaviours, such as arrogance, come from a place of insecurity. Whereas self-worth comes from a place of love.

 

Egoism and self-love are unrelated, they are NOT in the same spectrum. Egoism is behaving in an ego-centric manner, it’s the behaviour that emerges when our ego takes over. Egoism is usually considered a “bad thing” because it often manifests itself in behaviours where one puts oneself first instead of others or even penalises others in order to benefit oneself. What must be clear here is that it is a protection mechanism and the need for protection only appears if we feel threatened. In other words, it is a fear based behaviour.

 

Now, self-love has nothing to do with that. If you experience true love at its essence, you naturally feel self-love but you also feel love for others, nature, animals, the world, etc. This state is not compatible with a protection mechanism that comes off as egoism. Moreover, they are not opposites either, although they have certain specific qualities that are. For instance, love (even self-love) facilitates connection, while egoism creates separation.

 

Last point, someone that is egoistic does not experience self-love, it might see him or herself as better than others and have a beautiful self-image but it is a fragile, distorted or even delusional one.

 

Self-worth is something that I often help people develop and it’s one of the aspects that has the biggest positive impact in life. It affects the way we feel about ourselves, the way we enjoy our accomplishments and even the way we connect with others. More importantly, it is absolutely essential to live life with authenticity and get that amazing feeling of expressing ourselves with no fears and without holding back.

 

You can email me if you’re interested in developing self-worth ([email protected]). More information on my program is available here: