3 Keys To Learn To Value Yourself

Surely you have heard thousands of times that it is necessary to learn to value yourself. If the circumstances of your life have been favorable, you probably have no problems neither to give yourself that value, nor to understand how this manifests itself in practice. But if, on the other hand, you have gone through experiences that have made you doubt your worth, perhaps you do not know what to do to reverse this.

Learning to value yourself means finding the way to see, assimilate and incorporate the idea that you are a human being who deserves as much as anyone else. That you are not below anyone, in terms of value, and that you are as capable as others of achieving what you set out to do. Likewise, you do not need mechanisms and strategies to hide, defend yourself or confront others to protect your worth.

It is not easy at all to go from a poor self-esteem to a strengthened one. It takes time, effort and patience. The good news is that it can be done. It is not that you can get to a point where you are totally complacent with what you are and have been. Nor does it reach a level where there are no doubts. What it is about is to repair some aspects so that the lack of self-worth does not hinder our lives. And these are three of those keys to learn to value yourself.

1. Being yourself: a key to learning to value yourself

The phrase “Be yourself” is nothing original. Because how is it achieved? How can we connect with our interior to show ourselves as we are? What we are looking for is not to give you a magic formula, or to deceive you by creating false optimisms. Actually, being yourself is not easy at all, especially when you have had experiences in which the only way to survive has been precisely to stop being yourself. Very restrictive environments seek that: to break our will to be.

When, for example, you have grown up or spent a long time in an environment that is overly critical, it is not easy to cultivate self-confidence. Nor, of course, learn to value yourself. Quite the opposite. What you have in your head is that what you are is not worth or is worth little. That is why it must be denied or minimized.

The only way to start being yourself is by letting yourself be. In other words: it helps a lot to stop thinking so much before acting. Before speaking. You already have installed the chip that tells you: “Wait, don’t do it.” Or “Wait, don’t talk.” So the indicated thing is to ignore that little voice. Take the risk of doing things without thinking so much. To speak letting everything flow as it arrives. Start with non-compromising situations and work your way up. Nothing is achieved if you are not constant in this.

2. Face fear, especially failure

Failure is an overrated concept, especially among those who do not know how to learn to value themselves. If we look at it carefully, all human beings count mistakes by thousands and can only boast of a few transcendental successes.

Error and failure are the daily bread. There is so much obsession with success today that many end up panicking in the face of failure. They forget that only exceptionally and very strangely, a great success is not preceded by countless failed attempts.

If you allow yourself to be invaded by fears, especially the fear of failure, it is impossible to learn to value yourself. When one must highlight their greatest virtues it is precisely in failure, not in moments of success.

We must begin to think of failure as an opportunity to learn. Where have we failed? Why was it better? How can we improve? Thus, the well-integrated concept of failure carries the other side of the coin, that of learning. The famous trial-and-error formula by which science and knowledge advance.

3. Accept limits, no complaints

Nothing better to learn to value yourself than to be humble. Humility is not bowing your head in front of everything, but understanding the vulnerability of the human condition. Also accept that we are part of that humanity, full of errors, deficiencies and voids. If we have strong self-esteem, this does not scare us, nor does it make us feel inferior.

Personal limits and limits imposed by reality exist. No one escapes them. Denying these or the difficulties that always appear in the achievement of our purposes is an attitude that reflects an exaggerated narcissism. Why should reality give us a special place in their plans so that we have the easy way to achieve what we want?

That narcissism is not overvaluing yourself. Rather, it is valued falsely. Narcissism is looking at yourself from the outside and wanting to admire what you see. Self-love is validating from within, all that we are. The best facets and the others too. It is not related to how you see yourself from the outside, but to how you feel from the inside.

Learning to value yourself is a task that we should all undertake. It is not a slogan that is fashionable. Much of our well-being stems from that feeling of self-approval. If your self-assessment fails, it’s time to stop and reorient your path.

Peel the onion

When we peel an onion two things happen: we never know how much layer to remove and we also “cry”. The external conditions that we have received throughout our lives are those layers of onion that we are removing. “You are not going to get it”, “I don’t think you can study what you want”, “you will never become a good professional” … Affirmations that we hear from an early age, we install them in our minds and we take them as true.

“Listening and understanding our internal sufferings will solve most of the problems we encounter.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh-

As we move away from these conditioning, we go deeper into our authentic self and we realize that our own underestimation is learned. We open our eyes to something that until now we have not seen. However, this is not always easy. It depends on the person. There are those who feel a great release. Others have to travel a road full of ups and downs and are not exempt from suffering and crying.

Thus, to learn to value ourselves, it is essential to free ourselves from the unconscious labels that have been imposed on us for so many years. Labels that we have believed ourselves and that we have come to believe. We have identified so much with them that we have acted accordingly, limiting our potential. Let’s leave all our limitations behind and begin to see who we really are.