What Does It Mean to Have Self Worth?

As this pandemic has raged on for about a year, I’ve had a lot of time to look at myself. Too much time, I think. Because, while there is a healthy amount of self reflection, there also is a point where reflection turns into nit-picking. And being too nit-picky with yourself will certainly hurt your self-worth.

And so, as I started taking classes at USC and living on my own, I realized I had become immensely hard on myself. I constantly was comparing myself to other people. Surrounded by classmates who seemed to always get perfect scores and finish their coding assignments early, I felt like a fallen student. How could I make my family proud if I wasn’t at the “top of my class?” Along with that, I also felt like I wasn’t good enough outside of class. People around me were all working on amazing projects and businesses and I was just a student. I kept telling myself:

“I wasn’t doing enough”

“I’m not mature enough”

“I’m not good enough”

I was hyper-focused on what I wasn’t rather than who I am and what I’ve grown to become. And so, I sought to improve. Certain habits I picked up were healthy: I started working out a lot more, doing more to focus on school, and worked on my nutrition.

However, there were other habits that were not healthy that came about: I started buying more things like clothes and dorm decorations, I stressed more about how I looked, and I constantly wondered if other people liked me.

Now, I don’t think buying clothes, wanting to look good, and wanting people to like you, is inherently a bad thing, but the reason behind me doing it wasn’t good. Buying clothes, for instance, would give me a very temporary sense of self worth. I’d feel good, only for the moment, and then after a little bit, the nice clothes would no longer hide the truth about what was under it: That I really didn’t feel good about myself. The same outcome was true with obsessing over how I looked. I vied for people’s approval which would make me feel slightly better, but at the end of the day, I knew I was the one who had to approve of myself.

So how do you feel good about yourself?

I still struggle with that question.I can’t give you a complete answer, but there are a couple things I’ve learned over time. For instance, setting goals and working to achieve them has really helped my long term self worth. Things like working out, learning new songs on the guitar, and trying out new ideas have certainly helped.

If I ever find myself getting down on my self worth even after doing all that, I remind myself of how much I’ve grown over the years. I change my perception from seeing what I don’t have to seeing what I do have. And I remember that yes, I have a lot, and I still can grow more.

Having self worth isn’t a place you can one day achieve. It’s a journey that you build up over time through overcoming challenges and making yourself proud. So, for now, I’ll be continuing that journey.