In this article, I will be sharing 5 insights inspired by the book Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima. In this book, Jamie (as a multimillionaire), speaks to us as a friend about how to recognize our internal self-worth and transform our lives. These insights are all about building unconditional self-worth with actionable steps to help you along the way.
1. You are NOT Your Mistakes and Bad Habits
When you win the victory inside, you’re infinitely more powerful in all that you want to do, give, create, serve, build, ideate, love, change, and impact on the outside.
Jamie Kern Lima (Worthy)
As someone who always want to level up, we can sometimes be so hard on ourselves when we failed to meet our own expectations. It really hurts the most when we are the ones criticizing ourselves for making mistakes, procrastinating, going to bed late, waking up late, skipping the gym, and the list goes on. However, the truth is we are not those mistakes and bad habits. We can always take steps to improve, even if those are just baby steps. It is also improtant to view self-development as different phases, instead of a single step to the destination.
By showing ourselves love and compassion, we are signaling to our inner child that we are worthy of getting better. Our worth is not defined by our mistakes and bad habits because they are not a part of us. Therefore, the first step to building unconditional self-worth is to detach from our mistakes and bad habits.
Actionable Step:
When finding yourself feeling guilty or disappointed for falling off track, tell yourself that it’s okay to fall off track because we are human beings, we cannot be perfect all the time. Those mistakes or bad habits are not a part of us. We can always change our habits and behavior for the better.
2. You are Always Evolving
Here’s the deal, when you have a vision on your heart, not everyone is going to get it. Not even the experts. Not even the people you respect. Because God didn’t give the vision to them, He gave it to you. So don’t be surprised if you feel misunderstood or underestimated, or if others aren’t as excited for your visions as you are.
Jamie Kern Lima (Worthy)
A major cause of us not feeling worthy is because we are afraid of failure and rejection. It feels better to not see ourselves as worthy than dealing with the disappointment of failure and rejection because we don’t hold any expectations. However, this can hold us back from so many wonderful opportunites to grow and move forward. I have a whole artile dedicated to dealing with failure and rejection. But to summarize, it’s important to note that failure and rejection has nothing to do with our worth. We can always level up and become better at we do despite not being validated for our effort.
Jamie also shared in this book about how she was able to grow IT cosmetics into one of the largest luxury makeup companies by changing her relationship with rejection. Her magic formula for becoming fearless about rejection is by repeating these 3 sentences when facing rejection: (1) Rejection is God’s (or the Universe’s) protection. (2) I haven’t been rejected. My creator hid my value from them because they are not assigned to my destiny. (3) Rejection and failure are victorious! They are a reminder of I am one of the brave ones willing to go for it! Failure is only a part of the journey, don’t let it stop you from leveling up; Rejection is only an opinion, don’t let it define your worth.
Actionable Step:
When dealing with failure and rejection, remind yourself that those do not define your worth because you can always get better at what you do. You can also try repeating the 3 statements mentioned above while planning for your journey of leveling up.
3. You are WAY MORE than Your Accomplishments
Self-confidence without self-worth looks like abundant approval on the outside but lack of fulfillment on the inside. Self-confidence without self-worth feels like success on the outside but failure on the inside.
Jamie Kern Lima (Worthy)
Jamie spoke in this book about the differences between self-confidence and self-worth + how they affect our level of fulfillment. While self-worth is independent of our success and failures, self-confidence is highly dependent on external factors. A lot of the times, we can easily base our self-worth on self-confidence, which is all about our levels of mastery in solving problems, and how valuable we can be of other people. However, this mindset can often leave us feeling depleted because we are going to feel like the value doesn’t come from us internally but from our external skills.
The best way to shift this mindset is to stop learning and improving for helping other poeple but to focus more on how mastering this skill is going to nurture us. By doing so, we are shifting our focus back to ourselves, knowing that providing value to others is only a byproduct of us nurturing and taking good care of ourselves. For example, shifting our mindset approach to learning something from “I am doing this because I will be able to achieve more for my boss.” to “I am learning this because it increases my knowledge and expands my skillset! Maybe this is key to solving the problem my boss has been facing for a long time!”.
This approach allows us to grow our self-worth and self-confidence at the same time, which also meant you won’t be disappointed if your boss doesn’t approve of the effort you made with your new skill. This is because this skill is now based on your self-worth, which is not defined by external validations.
Actionable Step:
When trying to learn or improve your skills, think about how doing this is going to increase your self-worth from the inside, instead of how it is going to be valuable to other people.
4. You Have So Much to Offer
You, in fact, have the secret ingredient that no one else in the universe has access to, and can’t add to the way they do it. You alone possess the most special thing possible to offer: YOU.
Jamie Kern Lima (Worthy)
We’ve all had the experience of hearing the same piece of information or concept from different people, yet it feels new each time. By sharing our knowledge and experience in ways that feel authentic to us, we are connecting to people who can relate and inspire us in the future. This concept of showing up as our most authentic self applies to various scenarios related to meeting new people. For example, introducing yourself to new people, making friends at school, creating content online, or networking. We have no idea how much our story or experience can inspire others.
Jamie shared an inspiring story of IT cosmetics in this book. She talked about when she came up with a brand new idea for IT cosmetics, someone shared their product formula with one of their greatest competitors. However, more people ended up buying the product from her small company because more people related to her story when marketing the product. Therefore, Jamie concluded that it doesn’t matter if someone had the same idea because no one in this world can do it like you. This message is so empowering because it highlights the fact that we have so many new amazing things to offer.
Apart from battling self-doubt, this concept also works wonders for dealing with jealousy. With high levels of self-worth, we are clear about our worth and what we bring to the table. This automatically eliminates comparison because we now know that nobody can bring the same value exactly like us. A great way to learn more about your unique value is by mastering self-discovery, which I have a whole article dedicated to it. You can read it by clicking here.
Actionable Step:
When feeling jealous or doubting yourself, if someone might already present your ideas, think about how your unique story and experience add to the idea. Together, your own combination of personalities, skills, and experience is going to bring so much value.
5. You Become What You Believe
You don’t become what you want. You can have the greatest heart desire, and really work so hard, so hard, so hard. But if you don’t believe you are worthy, it will not come. That is the magic formula.
Oprah Winfrey
After understanding why we are worthy, the last step is to simply believe in it. Roxie Nafousi (the manifestation queen) also mentioned this in her book Manifest that to manifesting our dream life, we have to fully believe we are worthy of it. Everything starts shifting when we decided to believe we are worthy of the things we want, or the person we want to become. Therefore, start telling yourself you are worthy because you really are! All you need to do is to start acting like it + take action.
Actionable Step:
Knowing that you are worthy, identfy 1 thing that is going to move you closer to your goals (no matter how small it is), and start doing it this week!
You manifest from your subconscious beliefs about what you deserve. This means that you can only manifest what you truly believe you are worthy of attracting into your life.
Roxie Nafousi (Manifest)
Hope this helps! Thank you so much for reading! If you find this interesting, make sure to check out the original book. You can find it here.
