⚠️ Only read if you wish your self-worth were higher

…or you occasionally feel intimidated by others.

According to Positive Psychology:

Self-worth is the intrinsic belief in one’s own value, independent of external achievements or validation, and it impacts confidence & emotional health. Self-worth is unconditional, while self-esteem can fluctuate based on success or failure. Building self-worth involves practising self-compassion, recognising inherent value & challenging negative self-perceptions to enhance overall wellbeing.

So, I can have high self-worth and lack confidence in a task. I can have high self-worth and moments of low self-esteem. I can have high self-worth and moments of imposter syndrome. I can have high self-worth and still monumentally fail at something.

If you’ve read or listened to The Damage of Words, you’ll know I’ve been on a long journey to learn the practice of self-compassion, recognise my inherent value and challenge my negative self-perceptions.

My childhood centred on trying to appease an unappeasable mother, prone to explosions of temper over even the smallest of slights. A covert narcissist, she brewed and raged, and gaslit my emotions and reality. As a highly sensitive child, I became riddled with insecurities and deep-seated self-loathing.

It didn’t evaporate when I left home; it didn’t stop at the door when I went to work. I was emotionally dysregulated and terrified of being in trouble, but a frustrated perfectionist and people-pleaser who created upset. My inner critic reigned supreme, and life was one big, fairly self-destructive rollercoaster.

At a crossroads at 40, I went to see Michelle Zelli about my career. Instantly seeing my behaviour for what it was, she started peeling the layers off my trauma to help me reach and heal my emotional wound. A wound I didn’t even know I carried. I was on the path to finding my self-worth. My intrinsic belief that I am valuable exactly as I am, even when I fail, hurt people, or make mistakes. (The how is detailed in my memoir)

Senior people

When I work with teams, I often hear some recruiters say they are intimidated by senior managers’ behaviours. You know the ones; they’ve been ‘interviewing from a qualified list of applicants’ for years and love to tell you that they’ve been “recruiting” for decades and know it all. They won’t give you the time you need and are likely to escalate things.

I always remind recruiters that many of these managers are accidental and lack formal leadership and development training, which means underneath the “huff and puff” they may be hoping you don’t realise they don’t know what they’re looking for!

Because the longer someone works on their self-worth – intrinsically knowing their value regardless of output – the more likely they are to be self-compassionate, curious, and open to being challenged. They don’t fear being found out.

Do we ever really know?

An outsider could look at my achievements or confidence on stage and think, ‘She’s nailed it!’ When people say they wish they had my confidence, I gratefully think, ‘If only you knew how far I’ve come.’ It’s been a journey to self-love and valuing myself as I am, warts and all.

At the end of my memoir, I share the work I completed with Isobel Gatherer to gain spiritual self-mastery. It makes me eternally curious about my behaviour and reactions. For example, my inner tribe will tell you how much I loathed networking a room! To the outside world, this would seem contradictory, but even though I can talk to anyone, I hated it. Shudder.

However, I’ve been employing guerrilla marketing to raise visibility of The Damage of Words, because I want people to heal their 💩, stop projecting, and thrive! So, I decided to go to a mental health festival and give it to its main celebrity face. The closer I got to the event, the more nauseous I became. Because WTF was I doing? 😳

Yet, every single person I spoke to was lovely; the celebrity was lovely. The compassionate self-reflection began: do I hate networking, or is this something deeper? 💡Boom! I realised that even 15 years later, deep down in my subconscious, I feared being rejected as I was when I loathed myself.

Giving my ego evidence to the contrary by reminding myself of this experience, this last weekend, I not only attended a festival solo again, but I also stayed in a bell tent with 3 women I’d never met, and handed out my memoir boldly! Any time my inner critic popped up with doubt, I reminded it again that all was well.

Now this might seem self-indulgent to share, and to be fair, I am impressed with myself, but I wanted to remind you that you never know what is going on in someone’s head.

That “intimidating” manager is probably masking because people who truly value who they are will make time for you and be open to being challenged, if it means they’ll save time and hassle when hiring! So next time you feel the fear or intimidation, ponder self-compassionately what it’s truly about, including if it’s yours or theirs.

Because we are all perfectly imperfect.