Unraveling Self-Worth from Performance: 6 Ways to Start
Photo by Nick Andrew, Abandon Ship Productions
Worthiness is inherent to all humans and is not determined by one’s performance, yet despite us knowing this, the mind runs wild and often does not hesitate to draw meaning from one’s successes and failures. How hard you climb does not make you any more or less than. Nor do your achievements define your value, be it on or off the rock.
Let’s face it, when we care about something a lot - be it a project, a creation, a job, a relationship - we can place unconscious pressure and expectation on how it unfolds. Good and bad are subjective experiences, and far too often we are quick to equate failure to bad to feelings of lack. Our achievement-oriented culture makes it easy to entangle self-worth with one’s accomplishments.
Let’s take a closer look at why and perhaps more importantly what we can do to change one’s relationship to worth.
Why we tie self-worth up in what we think others perceive.
We all hold certain beliefs about our sense of self and the world. These beliefs are informed by a myriad of factors like our formative relationships with caregivers and the life experiences that shaped the ways we navigate uncertainty and fear. It is easy to place one’s self-worth in the hands of others. As children we were dependent on caregivers, so seeking approval was a way of ensuring one’s needs were met. Gaining approval from others is a primitive aspect of being a human.
Humans are social creatures. Historically, one’s survival was contingent on being part of a tribe, group or collective. Those in isolation often did not make it. The quest for approval from others is seeded deep in our ancestry and biology. So when it comes to separating approval from self-worth or external validation from internal value, it is no doubt a challenge.
The Ego wants to protect you.
Let’s dig a little deeper into the psychology of worth. You may be familiar with the layered concept of the Ego. It is the construct of “I,” dressed in the multitude of identities and labels we subscribe to. (I am… a rock climber, a cis-gendered female, an asian, an italian, a trad climber, a recovering perfectionist...). The concept of self is also informed by how we relate to the world, and what kind of feedback we receive that either affirms or disproves our understanding. The Ego is the champion of self-defense mechanisms; it’s the part of you that pursues protection and self-preservation, working often unconsciously to avoid humiliation, failure, judgement, forms of invalidation or inferiority. This is an important aspect to recognize in the landscape of worthiness because psychologically, the Ego’s workings are contingent on external factors, thus reinforcing the tendency to gauge personal worth from what others think.
Okay, so we now know on a biological, psychological and social level the quest for self-worth is a fundamental human struggle. No one is alone on this journey. Our shared humanity is good news.
There is tremendous good to mine from one’s effort to redefine old worthiness scripts.
If you’ve joined us on retreat, you know that meaningful growth happens in one’s challenge zone. Friction is essential for change. Neuroscience affirms a few powerful findings that hold hope for authentic transformation. Our brain is plastic, meaning it has the ability to adapt. Though old habits may ‘die hard,’ they can be altered. There is a saying that goes ‘neurons that fire together wire together,’ indicating that the more we flex a mental muscle the stronger it gets. We have the power to rewrite old narratives and limiting beliefs, by drawing them into one’s working memory (an area of the brain that can alter how we store experiences). We all have beliefs around our worthiness, what it means to achieve versus fail, and how others perceive us.
Start somewhere: 6 Ways to untangle self-worth from performance
1. Be here, now.
Mindfulness is one of the most accessible tools we can use to make the unconscious conscious. When we slow down and pause, we tap into a deeper sense of awareness and personal power. Mindfulness allows us to notice the stories we tell and enables us to choose how we want to engage with life itself. Do you fuel the old belief patterns and rev up your nervous system? Or do you take a deep breath, self-regulate and challenge the way you relate to your thoughts?
2. Feel your emotions.
Insight and knowledge are only one part of the growth equation. If you want to turn thought into action and create effective change, it requires you to let yourself feel. The more real and emotional the experience, the more power it has to change you. The more an experience lives in the intellect, the less effective the learning. Let yourself experience your emotions without getting caught in the content that triggered them.
3. Recognize that your belief may not be the truth.
We color our reality through the lens of personal experience. Modern psychology affirms that most of us have a distorted perception of how others see us. Next time you notice a belief wrapped in judgement ask yourself “is this true?”
4. Replace judgement with curiosity.
Did you know that judgement closes us off to learning and growth? It also impinges on our ability to experience happiness. Get curious when judgement arises. Curiosity is an open invitation: notice the physical sensations in your body, this helps shift us into the present moment. Ask, what is beneath your own critique. You may uncover an unmet need.
5. Instead of asking why? How about why not?
We can fall into vicious thought cycles and get sucked into the drama of why something happened. This only reinforces our beliefs about failure. Practice letting go of the incessant need to explain the why and instead, we shift focus onto how you can show up in the present moment by answering the question “Why not..?”
6. Just, accept.
Let it go. Let it be. Release the relentless feeding of a thought pattern or story. Don’t try to change what already occurred because that only depletes your energy. The reality is that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are subjective, and when we learn to accept what is and release resistance we re-allocate our energy wisely.
And then what? Practice. Because change itself is a process that requires attention, intention and the persistence of showing up. We empower what we practice.
Written by Gaby Colletta | www.gabycolletta.com | @wanderingvayu
Additional Resources
Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation by Daniel Siegel
The Theory & Practice of Group Psychotherapy by Yalom & Leszcz