Are You Letting THIS Define Your Self Worth?

As you can probably tell from reading my blog, I love words. Writing them or reading them.

I probably get that from my mom, who’s usually already on her third book by the time I’m starting my first. She loves to read. A love she probably gets from her late mom (Nana, to me).

If Nana wasn’t knitting or watching a Brave’s game, she was probably reading – something that got harder as she aged and her eyesight declined.

With magnifying glass in hand, however, Nana happily continued flipping pages of her next book.

Magnifying something can be good, except when it’s not.

Now, as one can see, sometimes magnifying something, i.e, words, can be good. Really, without reading, I’m not sure Nana could have handled another letdown from the Brave’s not making it to the World Series!

But, sometimes, magnifying something is not so good, especially when it comes to defining or measuring our self worth.

Like, for me, growing up, I felt very ugly. And, because I thought looks were everything, I discounted everything else about myself. I magnified this “flaw”, seeing it as all of me instead of just one part of me. 

Today, I love how I look. But, more importantly, I see myself in the whole of who I am, with my looks being just one dimension of many other (more important) ones.

How to not define your self worth by THIS…

It’s funny how our brains can act like magnifying glasses, zeroing in on that perceived flaw (our “THIS“), making it crystal clear and almost larger than life, while blurring out all of the good stuff surrounding it.

But much like a recipe that won’t turn out as well if we add too much of any one ingredient, if we define ourselves too much by what we don’t like about ourselves, we won’t “come out as well” either. 

What to do instead? Try this…

> Replace the magnifying glass with a “minifying glass”.

Chuck the magnifying glass and get a “minifying glass” instead to keep that thing you don’t like about yourself in its proper perspective and proportion. And, remember, we are all made up of positives and negatives. It’s so common, I think, for us to think that we’re the only ones with weaknesses. Everyone has them – some are just better at minimizing their focus on them and at not giving them power.

> Find the gifts – they’re always there. 

I love this exercise from the late Debbie Ford (self-transformation expert). When it comes to that “flaw” you may be magnifying, ask yourself, what are the good things about this “flaw”? Like, Debbie considered her flaw her assertiveness – something she recognized, though, had served her by allowing her to stick up for herself (and others) in her life, and to lead a multimillion dollar business. What do you come up with when you ask yourself this same question?

> Remember, what’s one person’s flaw is another person’s treasure.

As my Twitter buddy, @rdanabrowne, so wisely says, “Sometimes that very thing we don’t like about ourselves is the thing that someone else loves about us the most.” We do this, right? We automatically assume that what we think is bad will be bad to others. What if we assumed the opposite? And, better yet, what if we adopted other people’s thinking – and believed that this “flaw” is actually not so bad after all? In fact, it may be very endearing.

Promise yourself this, that you’ll never discount all parts of yourself just because there may be one part of yourself you don’t like. You are multifaceted. And you are beautiful. (<– Click to Tweet!)

To everything that you are and more, 

 

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