It can be confusing to understand the difference between self-worth, self-esteem, and confidence, and even though they don’t seem drastically different from each other, they are. We know this because it’s possible to have high self-worth and self-esteem, but lack self-confidence – the same applies vice versa.  But understanding the difference is imperative, and can help you identify which you may need to improve. In this article, we’d like to focus on self-worth specifically, and how it can shape your relationships with friends and family.

What is Self-Worth?

Self-worth can be described as how much love, respect, or care you believe that you are worthy of. Confidence, on the other hand, is a belief that you have in your ability to handle a task or situation – quite the difference. So what about self-esteem? Self-esteem is the overall evaluation of yourself, and how good or bad you feel in yourself. Compared to self-confidence and self-esteem, you may have never had to consider your self-worth, since many of us are lucky enough to possess it. But in many cases, self-worth can be damaged, and it’s often the hardest out of the three to rebuild. This is because low self-confidence and low self-esteem can often be tied to something specific, such as lacking confidence to speak to new people. Contrastingly, self-worth harms our opinions of ourselves on a much deeper level as it tricks us into believing we are not worthy of some of life’s basic offerings – happiness and love. So that we can clearly establish the difference between self-worth, self-confidence and self-esteem, here’s an example of each:

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Self-Worth

‘I know I have flaws, but I still know I’m worthy of respect.’

Self-Esteem

‘I have high self-esteem because I consistently stand up for myself in my workplace when I am being treated unfairly’

Self-Confidence

‘I lack self-confidence in my school exams because in my mock exam I failed the paper’

Why Is Self-Worth Important?

Having self-worth means that you believe in being deserving of respect and love, irrespective of what you achieve. This mindset is important because nobody, nor their life decisions, can be perfect – we all make mistakes! If our self-worth was determined by our everyday choices and accomplishments, it would be much more unpredictable and easily influenced.

It’s important to have self-worth because it can help individuals through challenging and unfair life situations. For example, young children who experience losing a parent to alcohol or drugs at a young age may at some moments question their self-worth, as love and respect from parents is something that everyone should be deserving of.

Having self-worth can affect many other aspects of our day-to-day lives and can influence our relationships with family and friends too. People who view themselves as worthy of love and respect will often have stronger and more emotional relationships with those around them, often because they will feel comfortable in their own skin and not be preoccupied with thinking how they could change to be loved better.

It’s also common for self-worth to influence your self-confidence levels. Individuals with low self-worth are more likely to question their ability and capabilities, and may struggle to persevere through challenging life situations such as starting a new job.

How Does Self-Worth Shape Our Relationships?

The most obvious way that self-worth shapes our relationships is in romantic partnerships. As you may have heard many relationship professionals discuss before, the key to loving your partner healthily and happily is to love yourself first. The reason for this is that if you don’t know how to love yourself and consider yourself worthy of respect, it can be tricky to navigate what respect and love you deserve from others.

Individuals in toxic or unhappy relationships may find themselves looking over unacceptable and unfair behaviours from their partners, often because they don’t believe that they are worthy of being treated any better. In couples where both parties each have self-worth, there will often be healthy boundaries set regarding what behaviours are accepted in the relationship, which can often lead to fewer disagreements or arguments that are handled and resolved more maturely.

How Can You Regain Self-Worth?

The first step towards rebuilding your self-worth once it’s been damaged is to lead with compassion. You may not realise it, but all those harsh and negative comments you say about yourself are damaging to your self-worth and, if repeated enough, can quickly become statements that you believe to be the only truth.

It’s good practice to talk to yourself, as if you were talking to a friend. You wouldn’t talk so negatively and offensively to a friend that you care about, so the same goes for yourself. Another way to slowly improve your self-worth and regain your spark again is to stop comparing yourself to others around you. Without a doubt, social media makes this challenging, so you should consider taking breaks from online platforms so that you can focus on yourself and not worry about everyone around you.

Finally, above everything else, you must allow yourself to be human. While it’s healthy to work towards greater self-worth, it’s unlikely that you will ever reach your perfect destination. There will certainly be days when you feel negatively about yourself and your worthiness of love. In these moments, it’s necessary to remember that these feelings are temporary, and nothing to be ashamed of. To help these instances pass without overthinking them, do something that brightens up your mood. It could be spending time with family and friends or going on a shopping spree and treating yourself to a new lip gloss. Having an item or activity that can cheer you up in these moments can take a whole load of stress off your shoulders and encourage you to look at the situation more positively. Spending time with family and friends is particularly beneficial as it can be a distraction from your daily thoughts and is an opportunity to relax and be amused. Amusement is scientifically proven to be good for our mind, body and soul.

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