How To Strengthen Your Self-Worth

To break out of the thought that you are not good enough. Or deserving of living and pursuing the life you want. You need to improve your self-worth. In today’s post, I share nine ways to strengthen your self-worth.

First of what is self-worth?

According to LearnersDictionary.com, self-worth is:

a feeling that you are a good person who deserves to be treated with respect .

Of course, you want to be respected for being a good person. And the truth is you deserve that respect. Because you are a good person!

Here’s the thing. 

When you are not being treated respectfully – it’s not because you’re a terrible person. It’s because you allow others to treat you that way. 

Think about the last time you felt disrespected? How did you handle it? What energy did you give out to the other person?

Self-worth begins with respecting yourself. And to respect yourself, you need to know who you are and your values.

Easy Ways To Strengthen Your Self-Worth

1. Define your values

The first step to strengthening your self-worth is identifying the values and beliefs you live your life by.

• Who do you want to become?
• Where do you see yourself in the future?
• What do you want to accomplish in this lifetime?
• How do you want to live your life?
• What impact do you want to make in this world?

Now that you have answered these questions step into that version of yourself. Feel into the feelings of being that next version of yourself. 

Because you are that person, believe that you can be that person. 

The person who feels good about herself and is given the respect she deserves. Not just from others but yourself. 

My friend, others may find it hard to respect you because you don’t respect yourself. You are not setting boundaries regarding how you allow others to treat you. You are allowing others to treat you the way they want. To be their “doormat!” 

Put an end to that sort of treatment by setting boundaries for yourself and giving her the respect she needs. Including the way you treat her. 

2. Strengthen your self-worth through self-love

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance

Oscar Wilde

What is self-love?

Self-love goes deeper than a bubble bath mani/pedicures.

All that’s great! But loving yourself is building the best and healthiest version of YOU! Tusting and leaning into your authenticity without guilt or shame.

It is a service to yourself that will magically transform your life.

True self-love is how you think, feel and talk to yourself—recognizing and embracing your weaknesses—not hating yourself for these flaws. But instead identifying, accepting, and understanding these flaws and working towards improvement to be a better YOU.

Self-love is how you tune into yourself, recognizing the beliefs that don’t serve you. The ones that make you feel anxious, crappy, and unhappy find the root causes of how, when, and where these limiting beliefs were formed.

Self-love is about your energy and beliefs!

The relationship you cultivate with yourself will create your relationship with everything else in your life. Including your worthiness! 

Strengthen your self-worth through self-love by rewiring your limiting beliefs and the way you perceive yourself.

These limiting beliefs (thoughts that do not serve you) were formed as children (usually from ages 0 – 8). Or through your negative thought patterns. By constantly believing in a thought that was not the truth. But your fears manifested it, tricking you into thinking it was the truth.

You will uncover your authentic self and passions by rewiring these limiting and negative beliefs.

Examples of negative beliefs may be:

• ” I’m not worthy of success.”
• ” I need credentials to become a successful woman or start a business.”
• ” I’m a failure because I’m not contributing to our family’s income.”
• ” My kids think I’m a horrible mother.”
• ” I suck when it comes to making and keeping friends.”
• ” Saving money is difficult.”
• ” I’m always late. It’s just part of who I am.”
• ” No one hears or sees me.”
• ” I’m overweight.”

A new study reveals that the mind thinks over 6,000 thoughts per day.

Thoughts are never the truth. They only become the truth when you allow them to. You can process any thoughts that enter your mind.

Here is an example, “oh, I’m not good at anything. I quit every job I ever held. And now, I’m a stay-at-home mom. I’m a complete failure.”

You have two choices:

(1) allow this thought to ruin your day by believing it and going ahead with your day feeling unworthy and like a complete failure

OR

(2) by asking yourself

• is this thought honest?
• Does this thought serve me?
• Am I going to let this thought ruin my day today? Or will I change that thought and create one that will raise my vibrations?
• Even if this thought is accurate at the moment. How can I rewrite this to work for my highest good?

You will attract positive energy while directing and transforming negative thoughts into positive ones. This energy will raise your vibrations, allowing you to feel and be the amazing woman and mom you are. 

Change the thought from being a complete failure – to I’m so grateful for this opportunity. To be raising my kids and taking care of my family. Or some variation of this.

You are in control of your thoughts. And if you are constantly thinking negative things about yourself. You will find reasons to believe you are unworthy of all the finest things in life. 

3. Speak to yourself in a loving way

Think about this! How do you comfort that person you love when they are hurt or upset, or feel frustrated and angry due to unfortunate situations?

In a calm, loving, supportive, and caring manner, right?!

Similarly, it would help if you did not hate or “beat” yourself up when things don’t go as planned for you. Instead, lean back, embrace the moment, and let the experience be a learning curve, reminding yourself it’s OK when things don’t work as per your expectation because something better is on the way.

Remind yourself that you are exactly where you need to be and life is happening to and for you. NOT against you.

Be kinder to yourself by embracing your mistakes and failures. It’s OK to be vulnerable, to cry, and be emotional.

But it’s not OK to speak negatively to yourself. Because when you allow all the chatter to take over, you tell others they can do the same.

Stop speaking ill to yourself and start treating her with the respect and love she deserves.

4. Strengthen your self-worth through regular check-ins

This is one of my favorites!

Every so often, I do a check-in with myself. To make sure I’m doing well emotionally and mentally.

I sit down and commit myself to writing everything that fills me up and drains me. Everything that makes me feel unworthy and small.

If anything is holding you back from feeling worthy, I highly recommend sitting down and doing this exercise.

Write down everything that fills you up. What makes you feel good? And list everything that drains you. That makes you feel small and not worthy or deserving. 

5. Use Daily Affirmations to Strengthen your self-worth 

Affirmation is one of the greatest and easiest ways to strengthen your self-worth.

You can rewire your limiting beliefs and rewrite your own story by repeating powerful affirmations.

Create a practice where you repeat positive words and phrases that resonates with your current situation to yourself daily.

Now, hear me out; repeating positive affirmations won’t work if you put little effort into it. Or it doesn’t resonate or feel right with you.

In other words, you need to feel into the feelings and believe in the words you are reciting to yourself, knowing it’s the truth. Look yourself in the mirror and let those affirmations flow through you, raising your vibrations and strengthening your worthiness.

Here are some beautiful affirmations to increase your worthiness.

• ” I’m deserving.”
• ” I’m enough.”
• ” The more I love and appreciate myself, the more worthy I’m beginning to feel.
• ” With each passing day, I’m learning to love myself.”
• ” I’m capable of doing great things.”
• ” Every day, I’m becoming more of the woman I desire to be.”
• ” I’m a kind, peaceful and loving mom.”
• ” What I want in life matters.”
• ” I’m worthy of having the finest things in life.”
• ” I deserve to be loved.”
• ” This is who I am. And I love myself for being myself.”
• ” I love myself and accept who I am.”
• ” I’m grateful for the unique gifts I was born with.”

Pick one or two self-love affirmations and repeat them throughout your day.

Write out the affirmations that resonate with you on sticky notes. Place them on your laptop, office wall, bedroom, washroom, kitchen wherever you can see them. Then use these as a reminder throughout the day. To remind yourself how amazing you are.

Because you are amazing!

Related post:

• Empowering Mom Quotes To Help Balance the Demands of Motherhood
• 30 Quotes to Inspire Joy
• How To Figure Out What You Truly Want In Life
• How To Take Care Of Yourself As A Mom
• Powerful Affirmations For Moms To Navigate Motherhood

6. Journaling

Another technique that I love!

Journaling allowed me to embrace my truth and unveil some of my deepest and darkest fears. And, I honestly believe it can do the same for you! 

A journal will help you tap into your authentic self and discover your truth through daily goals writing. How you feel or how you would like to feel, expressing gratitude, and identifying what is holding you back from moving forward.

Writing things down lets you see why/what or who makes you feel unworthy and undeserving. Knowing this will help you understand where your unworthiness feelings are coming from. 

Adding journaling into your daily routine can help you slow down, take a step back and reflect on who you are.

Through journaling, you can discover so many things about yourself that you aren’t even aware of consciously.  

I recommend starting with the five-minute journal if you are new to journaling. You can even grab a notebook that’s sitting on one of your shelves.

Set a timer for 5 minutes and write. Don’t overthink what you are writing. Write what comes to your mind.

You can take it a step further by even writing yourself a love note – reminding her of her strengths, worthiness, and the influence she has on herself and the people around her. Remind her that you love her and the reasons you love her.

Another journaling exercise would be to write your perfect day from start to end. What does your ideal day look like? Write about it from when you wake up to when you go to bed. 

Write what kind of clothes you are wearing. Whose with you? Where are you? What are you doing/wearing, etcetera?

Another journaling activity is writing three “I feel statements” that you want your future self to embody.

For example, I feel abundant, prosperous, and invincible. I feel contented and full of gratification.

Take this sheet of paper and stick it somewhere you can see it daily as often as possible. When you feel unworthy, read your “I feel” statements.

Oh, here’s another activity you can do.

Write why you feel unworthy and when you’re done. Take this sheet of paper and rip it up into pieces, or burn it if you can.

You’ve just let go of those unworthy feelings and are ready to transform your life. 

You can also give this self-love journaling prompts a try as well:

• What do you need to forgive yourself for?
• What do you love about your appearance and why?
• How do you want to feel today?
• Why do you feel unworthy? When did you first feel this way?
• Why do you feel ashamed of who you are?
• List 3 reasons you find it hard to love and accept yourself.
• Why do you compare yourself to others? What makes you feel inferior to others?
• Why do you feel like people resent you?
• If you can be anything or anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
• What can you do to raise your vibrations today to feel good?
• What do you love the most about yourself and why?
• Why are you fearful of letting the world see your authentic self?

Once you’ve given these journaling activities a try, I would love for you to tag me on Instagram @whatmommy_wants and share your breakthroughs. 

Looking forward to reading your story.?

“If you don’t love yourself, nobody will. Not only that, you won’t be good at loving anyone else. Loving starts with the self.”

Wayne Dyer

7. Strengthen your self-worth by managing your energy

As a mother, you are probably always in the doing and hustling mode – where you try so hard to be the best employee, wife, mother, daughter, friend, boss-babe (and the list goes on) to assert yourself.

 

In so doing, your actions have become more masculine (this is the energy you give off when you are hustling and always doing) than your feminine energy (feminine energy is all about listening to yourself and need, following your intuition, trusting that the universe has your back and taking inspired actions).

Sometimes you will need more of your masculine energy to complete the projects you are working on. However, you must ensure that it’s not draining you mentally and emotionally.

You need to balance your masculine and feminine energy to be completely aligned!

Take the time to unwind and do the things you enjoy – trusting your intuition and taking the time to love yourself completely.

You will be in awe at how much you can get done and how great you will feel by allowing your feminine energy to flow.

Sometimes the busy and hustling model doesn’t mean you are getting more done or more productive. 

8. Strengthen your self-worth by filling your cup first

As a mother, I bet you are always taking care of and putting others’ needs in front of yours.

But who takes care of you? Who sets your needs first? 

Who will care for your loved ones when you become overloaded and burned out? Show up and feed your kids/take them to school? Give them love and attention?

Taking care of yourself and putting your needs first is not being selfish!

Let me repeat it. 

Taking care of yourself and putting your needs first is not being selfish!

It’s prioritizing your health and needs. Fill your cup first so you can pour it into others. You can’t pour from an empty cup, can you?

Strengthen your self-worth by mastering the act of filling your cup first. 

Related post on taking care of yourself:

• How to make time for yourself as a mom
• Five things I am doing to be a better mom

9. Keep educating yourself

Never Stop Learning. Because Life Never Stops Teaching

The more you know, the more you will grow into the next best version of yourself. The version of you who loves herself selflessly and who feels good. Who feels worthy and deserving of being everything that she is. 

Commit to your growth journey every day!

You can do this by listening to a podcast—an inspirational YouTube Video. Reading a blog post. (Now is an excellent time to add What Mommy Wants to your favorites for easy access) And, of course, reading self-help books. 

Accessing self-help material is so easy today, even when it’s free! 

Related post:

• 22 books that can uplevel your growth in 2022

 

What happens when you increase your self-worth 

Once you cultivate self-worth, you will begin to love yourself and embrace your ambitions authentically, creating your destiny, living your life easily, and confidently stepping into the best version of yourself. 

There are no reasons to feel guilt for caring for yourself as a mom and loving yourself unconditionally. 

You need to love yourself wholeheartedly before loving and caring for others. So starting right now, commit to love YOU for who you are.

Accept yourself as the way you are because you know what?

You are a beautiful soul, and the world needs you to show up and be YOU.

Some wise person said – choosing to be your imperfect self will always outweigh trying to perfect someone else’s life.

I hope this blog post gives you the empowerment you need to start cultivating self-worth. Tag me on IG @whatmommy_wants if this post resonates with you, and be sure to share with your community to spread the word! And help support this blog to grow.