Our Self-Worth and Identity

Self-worth or the word worth means to create value and importance. This is usually prescribed to the idea of a thing we are striving to have or accomplish. 

But, I’d like to offer another way of looking at self-worth. Self-worth as identified as a verb. A verb is a word describing an action. I think that self-worth is a constant state of action and not something that can be “achieved” or “accomplished”. I think this is something that takes practice, requires intention, and actionable steps to create that is constantly being perfected and enhanced. 

When we look at self-worth as a verb we then look at how are we practicing this action in our daily lives. For example, when we choose to wake up early and start our day off with a workout or journaling, we are showing self-worth by stating that approaching my day is “important” to me and that my physical health is of value to my life. When we practice something that is important and is of value, we are showing ourselves that we are worth these things. Hence, when we feel we are worthy of something we will (action) continue to pursue them and daily. 

Now discussing identity and how that plays into self-worth. Identity is the “fact of being who or what a person or thing is.” This has a lot to do with our self-talk and our sense of belonging and congruence with the thing/routine/habit/structure we are trying to create.

So let’s take the example again of wanting to wake up and workout/journal in the morning. If our self-talk and identity is centered around “I hate mornings” or “I’m not a morning person”, then we are already not identifying with this idea of who we want to be. We don’t have to say, “I’m a morning person” but a more compassionate and healthy approach to changing our identity could be: “I am a person who values my time in the morning” or “I am a person who values myself”. Just this slight shift makes us view the mornings and ourselves differently which will hopefully take the negativity away of having to wake up in the morning. 

So I challenge you as you create new habits and routine/structure with your self-care this rest of the month and hopefully the year, to pay more attention to your self-talk and your sense of identity when starting new things. Our sense of belonging is an innate biological need for us to feel fulfilled. So if we choose how we belong and identify with something, we are meeting this need for ourselves.