There was a time in my life that I was considered to be a complete idiot by just about everyone who knew me. I was the 'family nervous wreck', the constant worrier that my ex-husband had married, the idiot in a miserable relationship who didn't have the courage to walk away, and a hypochondriac. I had exactly two people on my side who knew the real me, the rest were alternately rolling their eyes and laughing, not always behind my back.
Now I'm not just talking about some people, or any old random people. I'm talking about my own family, my so-called friends, and my work colleagues - who I now realise were amongst the cruellest people I've ever met. Close people who were in my life every day. I did have some good people too. Two extremely supportive friends, my amateur dramatic group, and my parents-in-law, who were my greatest supporters.
Fast forward to today, and if you met me you wouldn't believe that I was the same person, and in truth I'm not. Which is exactly where I'm going to start:
Tip 1 - Become Someone Else
If you want to change your life in a real way you must be prepared to change as a person. Whatever has sapped your confidence, self-respect, and self-worth, must be changed. Now, you can make cosmetic changes, such as a new relationship or a new job, but if you don't make deep inner changes to the person you are, you will still fall into the old patterns. I think, act, and am a completely different person to the one I described to you above.
Suggestion: Don't think of your character as set in stone, think of yourself as work in progress, and very much in charge of that process. You can change your character any time you wish, and if you do your thoughts, actions and reactions will change.
Tip 2 - Take Control of Your Thoughts
Your mind is not a runaway train in your head, nor is it a nebulous object floating somewhere outside your reach. Your mind is in your head and under your control. You can choose what you think about every minute of every hour of every day. And the type of thoughts you think will change how you feel inside. The more you practice good, positive thoughts, the better you will feel. Happy people feel stronger, and they have more energy for life, as such they are better at tackling challenges than people who are emotionally and mentally exhausted by sad and difficult thoughts.
Exercise: Every time you think of something that makes you feel miserable, angry, or sad, make a conscious decision to stop and think about one of the happiest times of your life. Create that memory in as much detail as you can, feel how happy you felt at that time. Do this every time you feel negative.
Tip 3 - Stop Listening to Others
The world and its brother will have opinions about you, but if you want to rebuild yourself into a person who has self-worth, via self-confidence and self-respect, then you need to pull back into yourself and start making your own decisions. Yes, maybe you were a certain person yesterday, but as of now, as you are reading this, you have just changed. It's vitally important if you are to succeed, that you own this fully as your process. For the first time in your life you are going to consciously define you.
Remember: Those confident people you envy have made up their minds who they are, and whilst they have the confidence to listen to others, they only take on board what they hear if it feels right for them to do so. As of now, you are one of those people.
Tip 4 - The A, B, C List
I was taught this years ago and the concept has served me well. You need to assess the people in your life at every step. This is not to say judge them, but make self-protective decisions about the people you know. We humans have a tendency to declare random people to be friends, and to believe that our close family will love and like us no matter what; sadly this is often not the case. However, with no lack of love towards fallible human beings, you must make strong decisions about who you listen to.
A List: People who you trust completely to have your best interests at heart. They know you very well and are honest but supportive. You will always listen, and more than likely act on their advice.
B List: People you like, you may come to trust them fully, but you're not sure at the moment how well they know you or how loyal they are, so you will listen but make a judgement call.
C List: They are not your tribe, they don't have your best interests at heart, and you will not listen to them.
If you use this idea, you will find it much easier to be yourself. And that is the key to self-worth.
Tip 5 - Breathe and Forgive
There are 7 billion people on this planet, not one of whom is perfect. Sad as it is, if you research you will discover questions around even the greatest of spiritual leaders, such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Mother Theresa. Like us they were human, and like us, not everyone agreed with them. So, it's important that you relax, stop beating yourself up for the mistakes and missteps of the past, and allow yourself to be an ordinary human being.
Thought: One of the biggest blocks to creating self-worth is to keep going over every mistake you've ever made. There comes a time to say, "What's done is done" and move forward. Now is that time.
Developing Self Worth
The tips I've given you above are the foundations for building a new you who trusts and likes themselves. We all have:
- The flexibility to define who we are
- The ability to control and direct our thoughts
- The capability to block the negative emotions of others
- The observation skills to be able to decide who we trust
- The need to forgive the past and move forward
Next, we need to get real.
People have all kinds of fancy theories as to what self-confidence and self-worth are, and I would suggest to you that these two things are inextricably linked, and together create self-respect and inner strength, but we need to deal with your reality.
The reality is that if you feel bad in any relationships, if you're surrounded by people who don't fully support you, if you hate your job, your face, your figure, your home, your car, and your romantic life is a disaster, you will not find it easy to gain self-worth.
However, if you're prepared to change those things one step at a time, and to get real about how you feel about your life, and act on your inner truth no matter what anyone else thinks, you have an excellent chance of changing your life completely, and for the better.
In changing you, you will by default change your life, and then the sadness that's been eating away at you for far too long will be removed.
I will follow up in the next couple of days with an article called Consciously Creating Self Worth.
To your happiness
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