You Are Worth More Than a Million Canaries

"Babies are born knowing their self-worth; as life moves on, the comments, expectations, and attitudes of other people can wear down this natural sense of self-worth.  Self-worth is what enables us to believe that we are capable of doing our best with our talents, of contributing well in society, and that we deserve to lead a fulfilling life.  Building it up again is therefore natural, essential, and healthy."- Wikihow.

Self-worth is something that I've been struggling with for as long as I can remember (but especially lately) and something that has been on my mind lately.  Wikihow, of course, has a step-by-step to building self-worth after it has been demolished by mean people and harsh situations and devilish thoughts. (There is a step-by-step for anything that can be imagined).  Anything in bold is quoted directly from Wiki.

1. Understand the power of your attitude toward yourself and views about yourself.
 You are your biggest critic and, really, the only person's opinion that really matters.  If you think that you don't deserve to be loved, treated right, or be respected than that is how people will end up treating you. You have to believe that you are worth it for other people to.  The saying "you have to love yourself before anybody else can" is the honest-to-goodness truth.  Don't let negative thoughts creep into your head when you look in a mirror.  You are beautiful.

2. Learn to overcome a fear of self-love.
  Don't be afraid to believe that you are talented or beautiful or hot-stuff.  Healthy self-love is about being your own best friend.  That means you need to tell yourself things you would tell your best friend and treat yourself that way.  Not that I'm saying you should being self-centered and egotistic...but you are a child of God, and you should acknowledge the awesomeness of it.

3. Trust your own feelings.
If you are going to have self-worth, you need to trust your own opinions and gut feelings over anyone else's.  If you feel that something is right or wrong, even when everyone else disagrees, you need to go with your gut feeling.  You have a moral compass for a reason, and it's not to get lost.  Be your own boss. Self-worth plummets when we let others make decisions for us.

4. Stop making your self-worth conditional on other people.
When you become consumed with being what other people want, you also hand over your self-worth.  Don't be the scared puppy that everyone kicks around. That's not cool.

I struggle most with this part of self-worth.  It's not so much that I want to conform to the world, but that I don't feel worth anything if I don't have somebody's "love." If I don't feel loved in a worldly way or if somebody gives up on me, I feel like I'm not worth the effort.  I know that I can be hard to handle and hard to understand sometimes, so it's hard for me to move past the idea that I'm not worth the effort of a relationship.  Step four is hard for me.


 5. Tell yourself that you matter, err day.
...nuff said.

6. Prove your value.
Don't waste your time doing things you feel pressured into, don't weigh yourself by your job or income, and don't let opportunity stand outside in the pouring rain.    The more productive your life becomes, the better you will feel about yourself. This is especially true if you use part of your time/skills to help others. I promise.