Your Self-worth Equation: Redefine Your View to Yourself

The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment.

Self-Worth Equation: Redefine Your View to Yourself Using number "One" to judge your value, means looking for external stories and events around, then compare it with yourself to reach a conclusion of how much is your market value or social value. So your equation is: My Self-worth = My Social/Market Value – Their Social/Market Value. If I perceive that their social value is greater than my social value, it leaves me with a minus (below zero) self-worth; we feel worthless and inferior to others. At the same time, if we feel that others are as good as me (my social value - their social value = zero), I will feel indifferent, not unique, and replaceable, which is another sort of feeling not important. The above approach is comparative and competitive. It gradually erodes our feeling of self-worth overtime or make is instable. This is why we think that we are not happy, successful, or worthy until we become rich, get promoted to a managerial position, become famous, or gain social power. These are all externals. You will feel less happy for the successes and achievements of others, because it will degrade your self-worth according to the equation (their social value become greater). This affects your ability to be an exceptional team player, coach, helper, etc. This will drive your attention to focus on the mistakes (imperfections) of others, or the mistakes (imperfections) of you. As we become attended to the mistakes around us and in us, overtime, patterns of distorted thinking called "dwelling on the negatives", and "labeling", develops within our automatic psychological processes. When we become focused on awful aspects around us, depression and a feeling of inner sadness and dissatisfaction follow and control your view to life. It is proven that when your self-esteem is associated with external factors, it frequently fluctuates and degrades, and with it, is your feeling of happiness, inside peace of mind, focus, productivity, creativity, communication, and many other aspects related to healthy self-esteem. This is the result of taking a comparative and competitive view to life. I guess you are asking: what are the alternative to stay motivated, passionate to develop yourself if we do not compare and compete? It is the integrative (complementary) and purposeful view to life. In other words, to feel that you are a flower in a beautiful garden with other flowers, contributing to the feeling good in the world, and for that purpose, it does not compete to be the most beautiful, but rather to integrate its beauty with the beauty of other flowers to make the overall look and feel of the garden greater and much beautiful. A flower that focuses on what it wants and enjoy doing, seeing its important contribution, and feeling satisfied with it stance in life. Here the equation is different, My Self-worth = Unconditional acceptance + Living with a purpose + creating a better world + Acting win-win This is the equation of true stability, nobility, confidence and having a solid self-esteem. Let me explain each briefly. With this equation the result will be mostly positive; it is very hard to get to zero or minus if you still a live, think good of yourself, doing what you like, contributing in building a better life, and asserting your own rights and the rights of others. Unconditional acceptance for yourself means to receive you favorably and with pleasure, approve, believe in, treat kindly and talk warmly. Here we need to separate our core worth from our behavior. Behavior is a state of performance that can be changed and developed, and my core worth is infinite, with no limits, and can not be degraded because of a temporary behavior. "I love myself, though not some behaviors, and my core is still good, and I can work to develop my behavior more and more". (When we plan a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as "rootless and stemless". We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we do not condemn it as immature and underdeveloped, nor do we criticize the buds for noting being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is [whole] as it is). (Gallwey, 1974). Unconditional self-acceptance gives you a perspective to see the good and promising you, with a constructive awareness of the human nature - weaknesses and mistakes. Self-acceptance does not mean accepting that misbehavior as good thing. It means accepting the reality that any human beings are naturally imperfect. However, this does not lead to label a human as: bad, immoral person, unethical, low-value person, etc. Living with a purpose means to articulate your mission and principles in life in variant aspects of work, social, physical, spiritual, educational, and cultural. These things need to be clear for you. There is a difference between a purpose and a goal. The purpose is the "why", and the goal is the "what". People need to be focused on a purpose first, then looking for alternatives of goals to fulfill their purpose. If I am a software programmer who has the purpose of building software to make the world a better organized and connected world, then I might set a goal to do my master degree. However, if there are constraints which obstacles doing the master for now, I can find other alternatives like certificates, self-readings program and others. This makes me living with my purpose and feeling good and satisfied to a greater extent. When you become clear about we you do want in life, you become less concerned about comparisons, and instead, you look for models from which you can learn, and you become happy for the achievements of others in other aspects, you feel optimistic about achieving your goals when you find others achieving similar goals. Instead of competing and comparing, the relationship with others turned to be learning, sharing, contributing, cooperating, and supporting. As you accept yourself unconditionally, and determined your purpose which makes you happy and satisfied, the source of self-worth changes from external to internal. The feeling of insecurity, jealousy, and battling with others is dramatically reduced. This does not mean that you will not feel jealous sometimes, however, it becomes normal, manageable, and not destructive on the relationship. Here you can feel happy for the successes of others. I believe that the achievements of others as major source of self-motivation when we perceive it as a chance to do a similar great job. Imagine how the world would be, if any thing you will start it, you are the first one doing it without having a clue whether it will be feasible or not. The world will seem risky, and dangerous. When others make it, then send us the gift of saying: you can also make it. Contributing in making a better world just leaves you with a deeply good feeling and inner satisfaction. When we contribute, our sense of worth and importance raises. As you head to you work on the morning, be sure that you do contribute to the world. Anything nice and good you do, make you feels good and increases your self -worth. It can range from a smile, to a hello, to a thank you, to help, to share knowledge, deliver a project, etc.. All makes a difference nowadays. The last part is To Act Win-Win. I will brief it: stand up for your own rights politely, ethically, and confidently. And equally important, help others by being fair with them and acknowledge their rights. Feel good about asserting your rights. Even if you could not get them, internally you grant yourself the feeling of worth and respect. My Self-worth = Unconditional acceptance to my core humanity + Living for a purpose + serving others to create a better life + Equality of Rights With this equation the sources of self-worth depends on you, they are all internally controlled, depends on what you do, how you think, and the way you respond. This makes your self-esteem much stable, calm and flourishing. It is the integrative, complementary and purposeful view to life that promotes cooperation and contribution.   Try it and you will find the difference.