4 Key “Self” Building blocks to finding your value in you

It says “Self-love, self-respect, self-worth, self-confidence. There is a reason they all start with SELF. Stop looking outside yourself for your VALUE.” I thought THIS. IS. SOMETHING.WOMEN.NEED.TO.HEAR.  So I just wanted to dive into this quote with all of you!

What is Value

Value has two definitions:

the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.

and

a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life.

The first definition is closer to the meaning that is being used in this quote. Stop looking outside yourself to find what you deserve, your worth, your usefulness or your importance. Wow. When I realized what the end of this quote was saying it affirmed so much for me as a woman. It really resonated with me! Does this resonate with you all too? It’s so impactful. Now that we’ve explored the meaning of value let’s backtrack in the quote.

Why do they Start with Self?

Self-love, self-respect, self-worth, self-confidence. Why do they all start with self? The obvious answer is because it’s all about you. I’ll give you the not so obvious answer at the end. Why are they so important is probably a better question. This will tie back into the not so obvious answer to the big question above. All of these are foundational elements that we, as women, need to have solid to be able to be the powerhouses that we are capable of being. There is nothing more fierce than a woman who knows who she is and stands firm in that.

Self-love

Self-love is a foundational building block for every woman. It speaks to our worth. You need to learn to love yourself, all of yourself. Love the good, the bad, and the ugly, because at this very moment they are all pieces that form who you are. I know this is so easy to say, but not always so easy to do. I get it, TRUST ME I GET IT, but you are on a journey.

Your life is a journey, and self-love has to be part of that. It is a series of processes that you have gone through, and are currently going through. Your journey won’t always be easy, it won’t always be pleasant, heck most of the time it will be emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausting! No matter what though, you have to love yourself through it all. Even during the exhausting times!  As long as you love yourself, your journey, each and every process that you live through, will always feel worth it!

Self-Respect

Self-Respect, in my opinion, is a huge foundational building block for the simple fact that so many women today lack it. So many women lack self-respect in different areas: morally, emotionally, physically, there are tons of areas that are not integral when it comes to self-respect. If you are one of the women that lack this, there’s no reason to feel bad or ashamed. Feel motivated.

Self-respect is one of those great things that once you have it, it’s with you forever. Unlike the other three self’s in this quote, it doesn’t really fluctuate, and it isn’t something you really have to work hard at to maintain. Once you respect who you are no one else will ever be able to tell you what you are worth! You need to respect yourself because others around you will see that you do. When you respect yourself, others will respect you! You need to respect yourself because you deserve it. You are precious, fearfully and wonderfully made ! Once you realize that you deserve better, especially from yourself, and decide to consciously treat yourself better self-respect starts to build naturally.

Self-Worth

If you haven’t realized by now that self- respect and self- worth are correlated let me be the first to tell you that they are. They are dependent on each other. I say this because, in order to know your worth, you have to respect yourself. It’s is not possible to tell someone that you know your worth, without having self-respect, the two go hand in hand. Sometimes though, it is quite easy to forget your self-worth, because often times your self-worth can also go hand in hand with your feelings and emotions.

As women, most of us naturally tend to be more emotional than men so seeing the correlation between our emotions and our self-worth comes as no surprise. We need to learn to draw a line of separation by stating the contrary to what we feel when we don’t feel our worth in whatever moment we’re living in. These are a few of my personal examples:

• Plenty of times when I mess up and someone forgives me I don’t feel worthy of their forgiveness
• I can be my own worst critic when I feel angry at myself because of something. I think things that are contrary to my worth like “You’re never going to get anywhere by doing that” or “Why would they even give me a chance” because I don’t feel the value of my worth.

Does this ring any bells for any of you? If so, it’s okay. It’s okay to feel like that sometimes. I am human and so are you. The catch is to not stay in that feeling. Not letting your feelings determine who you are is key. What you feel in that moment is okay, acknowledge it, but then move past it. Tell yourself “I am worth their forgiveness” or “I am worth their chance”. Much like self-respect, along with the other 3 self’s listed in the quote, once you start to know your worth and own it others will see it too!

Self-Confidence

Now self-confidence is one of the foundational building blocks that take a little bit of time to grow and develop. You really have to put in the work and be willing to step outside of your comfort zone. Personally, for me, this was and sometimes still is one of the more difficult areas in my life because I constantly have to water it and nurture it for it to grow. I have to be willing to take risks and be exposed, and quite frankly, it’s uncomfortable. If you are anything like me then you are not the most outgoing outside-the-box person and you are not really all that much of a risk taker. I have learned something very valuable about self-confidence though, and I am just going to lay it out there.

You have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Yes, I said it, I say it all the time. Even if you are dying a little inside you have a choice to make. Is it worth taking the risk to grow in your situation (even if it means failing sometimes) or is the fear going to win out? Sure, you aren’t always going to say “Yeah, let’s do this!” and that’s perfectly okay, but if you never say it and let your fear win out every time how are you ever going to grow? How are you ever going to gain the confidence in yourself to do the scary things that sometimes matter the most? You won’t. You just have to go for it sometimes no matter how scared you are to strengthen this foundational block.

Self-love, self-worth, self-respect, and self-confidence, why do they all start with self?

There is no ONE BIG (not so obvious)ANSWER to this question SURPRISE! There are many answers! Here are a few:

• They all start with self because they come from within you.
• They all start with self because they strengthen you to become the best person you can be.
• They all start with self because they are all foundational building blocks in your life that let you write your own story.
• They all start with self because you decide the mark you will leave on the world once your foundation is strong. It all starts with you.
• They all start with self because they enable you to give what you have.
• They all start with self because they all set you free.

Nail all of these self’s and you won’t need to look anywhere else to find your value, You will always know you are enough!

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P.S. I linked to a somewhat similar post I wrote in the past called you are fearfully and wonderfully made. It breaks down what each of these words means for our lives, and let me tell you, it’s worth the read!