How Will You Measure Your Life? A Self-Worth Perspective

And the relationship between self-worth, self-confidence, & results.

You meet someone new, and often the first question someone asks is "So, tell me about yourself." How do you respond?

Over time, we've learned to answer this question by talking about our achievements, our careers, our families, or even the hobbies we partake in - all external characteristics of who we are. It's not bad to talk about or be proud of our achievements; chances are you've sacrificed time and energy to achieve these goals.

However, it shouldn't be the only thing that defines who we are or our self-worth. For high-achievers, our achievements give us a tangible result of what we've done and proof of our hard efforts, but it can only go so far before it becomes a comparison game. In reality, there will always be someone who runs faster, has a more successful career, makes more money, or has a longer list of athletic accolades. There will also be times when we don't reach our goals, fail in attempting, or for athletes, get injured and can't pursue our athletic endeavors. When we're at our lowest 'low', we need to ask ourselves, "How do I define my self-worth?", a measurement of our lives.

When I competed professionally, a bad race (or bad workout even) could get me down, especially because of how dedicated and intrinsically motivated I felt. When I was a few pounds heavier than I thought I should be, I beat myself up. I thought "How can I be a professional athlete and not be disciplined to eat well enough to keep (what I perceived as) a lean weight?". I knew my family and friends loved me regardless of how well I ran. However, I thought my value to my coaches, teammates, and sponsors was solely based on my performance. Even knowing my friends and family loved me regardless of my results, the question "Would they respect me more if I ran well?" or "Would they be more proud of me?" would sometimes pop into the back of my head. In a sport that is so individual and your success or failure is based on a place or a time, and arguably very subjective, it was easy to internalize my failures. My self-worth and life measures of 'success' fluctuated with how well I performed, my appearance, and my confidence.

What I realize now, that I didn't realize then, is that self-worth is not my achievements OR failures. Even when I'm doing as well as I can be in my career, even if I were running PRs and had all the confidence in the world, that isn't my self-worth. To answer the question "Do I know what my self-worth is?", I need to strip back my accomplishments, career, and appearance, and ask, "How would I define myself?

So, what is self-worth?

Before I started thinking about this, defining myself beyond my achievements was hard. It's easy to default to what we do every day, try to boost our ego and confidence by coupling it with our accomplishments, rationalize that we're good at what we do, and therefore, are worth more, should be respected more, or should have more value.

Though there are many definitions, self-worth focuses on the deep knowledge that you are of inherent value and immeasurable worth. Yes, our achievements were reached because of the traits that make up our self-worth, but the accomplishments themselves are not measures of self-worth. Here are a few things that make up our self-worth:

• Your enduring qualities and values, and how you live them out

• What you say to people, how you react to situations, and how you treat others

• The values and qualities you aspire towards

• Your intentions and the habits you act out

• What you think of if you were to ask yourself, "If everything I have was suddenly taken away from me, what about me would I value?"

What self-worth is NOT

• Your appearance or weight

• How much money you make

• Your career, hobbies, or level of education

• The number of friends you have, relationship status, or state of your family

• Your achievements

You may be struggling with self-worth if:

• You judge yourself on your appearance or weight

• Your achievements define who you are or how you feel about yourself as a whole

• You work to please others and not yourself

• You love yourself and others conditionally

• You are constantly comparing yourself to others

• You've thought wild success could 'never happen to you'

The items listed above are quite normalized in our society, and if you do them that doesn't mean you don't believe in your full potential of self-worth. However, there's a fine line between the items listed above in what could be considered motivators or internal drive and self-deprecation or insecurities. Internalizing these attributes, putting guilt or anxiety on yourself because of these, and thinking you aren't good enough for the promotion, the appreciation of others, or success is when we need to stop and analyze how we define our self-worth.

Where self-worth and self-confidence can get confused

When high-achievers associate their results with their self-worth, it's confusing their self-confidence for their worth. Confidence is important, don't get me wrong, but it's self-confidence that fluctuates in our successes and failures, not self-worth. Our self-worth never wavers; it stays with us and is our identity.

No matter your successes and failures, the mistakes you've made, or the goals you hit or didn't hit- this has no impact on your self-worth. In running, if we don't achieve the result we want, don't have a good race, or are struggling more than we think we should be, we can get rattled, and stressed, or make us think we're not good enough (especially when running is such an important aspect of our lives). This correlates our results with our self-worth, especially if we are dedicated, passionate, and high-achieving. This feeling of not being enough can then seep into other parts of our lives, similar to if you associate your weight or appearance with your self-worth. Failing, not being good enough, or not being disciplined can then subconsciously default into other aspects of our lives, making us feel small, not good enough, making us not believe in ourselves, and insecure. We then don't become what we want to or envision, but become what we think we are worth.

However, once we acknowledge the difference between self-worth and self-confidence and evaluate how we measure our self-worth, we start to recognize how much we may have cost ourselves - in opportunities, memories, conversations, and relationships - all because we perceived ourselves as less and not enough to put ourselves out there. Therefore, once we disassociate self-worth with results (in athletics, school, and careers), we can be more successful, happier, and take more risks because failures (or successes!) do not impact our self-worth. A failure or success is just that and nothing more. If I had disassociated my self-worth with my results, I would have been able to shake off bad races more easily, not been so analytical of every race and workout, and probably would have enjoyed running more.

How to practice "self-worth"

Just as your self-worth needs to be acknowledged and defined, it also can be practiced. Your self-worth is built on your habits, behaviors, and words. It's not just a process of self-actualization, but how you carry yourself. To practice self-worth, try these:

• Reflect and take note of the things that define your self-worth. What qualities, habits, and characteristics are you most proud of?

• Acknowledge when you seek external validation (from a boss, coworker, teammate, or coach). Reframe that mindset; focus on making yourself proud

• Stop people-pleasing behaviors

• Love yourself unconditionally and with compassion

• Recognize that you alone control how you feel about yourself.

• Take time to do things you love or reenergize you

• Take responsibility for your words and actions without being harsh on yourself and recognize we all are imperfect and have room for improvement

All of this isn't to say that you need to respond with your definition and personality traits that exhibit your self-worth when someone asks "So, tell me about yourself". More so, it's recognizing who you are in successes and failures that is a true representation of who you are. It's easy to fall into the habit of judging others (or yourself), criticizing yourself for certain choices, beating yourself up for a bad race, or feeling lost. It's times like these when you need to reaffirm your self-worth and recognize your intrinsic value.

We become what we think about.

You are more than your results. Good or bad <3