As comedienne Lucille Ball quipped, “You really have to love that you deserve respect, kindness, success, and prosperity in your life.  Simply put, worthiness or  self-esteem is a person’s judgment of his own value, merit, or usefulness.  It stems from our deep human need to be known and accepted for who we really are and what we have to offer.yourself to get anything done in this world.” 

Part of that self-love is having a mindset or feeling that you’re worth it —that you are good enough, and in contrast, unworthiness, or lack of self-esteem, is more common in our culture than we might expect. Unworthiness is often a self-fulfilling downward spiral, where a person believes he isn’t helpful, useful, or good enough.  Many people who have poor self-esteem tend to internalize and overly-personalize situations.  If something goes wrong, they assume fault, and their self-talk is dominated by a pessimistic inner critic.  Unworthiness can also manifest as a habit of underachieving or not finishing work.  Poor self-esteem can be so embedded that a person isn’t even aware that it’s at the root of their choices.

How to Change Your Mindset

Changing how you think about yourself is the key to changing your mindset.   Success doesn’t happen quickly and takes a bit of practice.  Whenever you notice yourself slipping into a discouraging mindset of unworthiness, use these strategies to harness the power of the positive mindset instead: 

• Look at your patterns.   Overcoming low self-esteem requires us to become more reflective and self-aware.  This isn’t always easy—especially when your inner critic has a stronghold on the way you talk with yourself.  Learn to listen to a kinder and more nurturing voice.
• Zoom out.   Take a moment—and a deep breath—and consider the external factors that lead you to doubt your own goodness and worth.  Was a parent or other authority figure critical of you?  Sometimes the loudest inner critic isn’t our voice, but one that we’ve internalized and adopted as our own.
• Tell yourself it’s okay to mess up.  Instead of getting down on yourself for a mistake, turn your attention on the process of what worked, what didn’t, and how you can build on that.
• Focus on yourself.   Instead of measuring yourself against the people who seem effortlessly amazing, compare yourself to the you of yesterday or of last week.  It’s important torecognize how far you’ve come to boost your efforts moving forward.
• Add the word yet to your vocabulary.  When you face a challenge, experience a setback, or just feel discouraged that you haven’t “made it” — turn to the word “yet”.  It magically transforms the outlook from bleakness and disappointment into hope and possibility by providing a time perspective.  Yet creates the idea of learning and growing over time.
• Allow bumps in the road become part of your journey.  Instead of being debilitated by a setback, you become equipped to do better next time.  A positive mindset helps make you stronger and more resilient, especially when the going gets tough.
• Make a decision.   You have the power to choose which beliefs you allow in your life, and which are not welcome.  Once you accept and internalize a more positive mindset, it’s harder to uproot it from your subconscious mind.  So cultivate awareness of the beliefs and judgments in your life, and get in the habit of deciding whether or not each one deserves a place in your mind.    

To aid you in changing your mindset, try this Gatekeeper Exercise:  The next time you tell yourself that You’re not [articulate/confident/attractive] enough, take it as an invitation to pause, take a deep breath, and decide whether to “accept, reject or reflect” upon it.  With practice, you may be surprised how many beliefs and judgments come your way that you no longer automatically accept as your own…and how the simple act of gatekeeping helps to protect and build your sense of value and self-worth.

 Author’s content used under license, © 2008 Claire Communications